Mount Baker Skiing With Spencer Jack

I thought I had myself a Spencer Jack Exclusive last night when a dozen, give or take one or two, snow photos of Spencer Jack showed up in my email. Along with a video.

This morning I saw some of the photos on Facebook, including the one you see here of Spencer Jack practicing driving in snowy conditions.

One of the emails included a message from Spencer Jack's papa, my Favorite Nephew Jason, explaining what I was seeing in the photos and video.

In the email message FNJ makes it sound like he and Spencer Jack had made it to the top of an active volcano called Mount Baker.


However, where Spencer Jack actually drove to was the Mount Baker Ski Area. The Ski Area is not on Mount Baker. It is north of the volcano. But is in the Mount Baker Snoqualmie National Forest.

Spencer Jack needs to drive his dad back to the Mount Baker Ski Area in late summer to drive to the end of the road, where he will find a big parking lot from whence he will be looking directly at Mount Baker, and then find himself tempted to hike the trail that heads up the mountain, or hike the switchbacks the lead to the top of Tabletop Mountain.

Spencer Jack is eight years old, about three months shy of being nine. My first attempt at skiing happened when I was 12. At the now defunct Mount Pilchuck Ski Area. It did not go well. I had trouble holding on to the tow rope. Apparently Spencer Jack had no similar trouble and quickly graduated to using the chair lift.

I don't think I was still a teenager when I first went skiing via chair lift transport. If I remember right that took place at one of the Snoqualmie Pass ski areas.

Following is the email detailing Spencer Jack's ski adventure, and following that video documentation of Spencer Jack skiing and gracefully falling....

FUD --

FNSJ and I had ourselves a mighty fine time today on top of the active, snow covered volcano, known to the locals as Mt. Baker.

He finished his schooling for the year last Friday, and we are sitting around, bored, awaiting Santa's Thursday night arrival.

Some of the locals spend the days before Xmas in malls, however, FNSJ and myself finished our shopping weeks ago.

FNSJ suggested we go sledding today.

Once we got a top Mt. Baker, sleds in hand, I suggested that he FNSJ try skiing.

He concurred.

So off we went.   I'm pretty sure he had one of the best days of his life. He was all smiles and loved riding the chair lifts, after I quickly graduated him from the rope tow, which by the way is no longer a rope, but rather a cable.

I have a poor quality video of FNSJ wiping out down the slopes. The video was not of good quality, as the IPhone it was taking on, was fogged up in the near blizzard like afternoon conditions.

Hope you have your Xmas shopping done, and can relax and enjoy these winter days in the mountains too!

-FNJ

Isn't that nice of FNJ to hope I enjoy winter days in the mountains too. Winter? I went swimming this morning. Yesterday got into the 70s, this morning the air was chilled to 64.

Mountains? Relax on a mountain? We ain't got no stinkin' mountains here. All we have is some pitiful hills. A couple years ago a few inches of snow covered those pitiful hills. I got out my cross country skis and discovered the summer heat in the storage closet  had partially de-laminated the skis. I attempted skiing anyway. It did not go well. Insufficient steepness.

Below is the aforementioned video where you will see that Spencer Jack did find sufficient steepness....