Great weather brought my girlfriend and I out of hibernation. We drove up to the Mt.Baker Ski Area and then hiked through packed snow up to Artist Point area. The drive up to the ski area was fine - only a few spots of snow on the road near the ski area. The hike was relatively easy. Near the ski area the snow was packed down to the point that snowshoes were completely unecessary. Farther up towards Artist Point, however, the snow was less packed despite most people's attempts to follow each other's tracks. Still, it wasn't too tough for a short day hike. We made it all the way up to Kulshan Ridge were there's a great view of both Shuksan and Baker. The weather was perfect - warm, sunny and only a light wind, if any. After a very enjoyable picnic we headed back to the parking lot. It was 2 hours up from the lot and 1 hour back down, including a 20-30 minute break. Overall an excellent outing.

A fabulously sunny day and temperatures approaching 25-30 degrees seemed like the best excuse to get out of the house and up to the mountain. We left the Mt. Baker parking lot about 10:00am for a jaunt up to Artist's Point and it turned out to be a wonderfully long backcountry visit that lasted all day, well past sunset. We made our way up towards the Heather chair out the southeast end of the upper parking lot and then headed farther south to the ""Warning: Backcountry"" signs. We felt pretty comfortable heading into the backcountry because we had good knowledge of the conditions, transcievers, shovels, extra food, bivies, bags, radios, cell phones and common sense (sorta) but were still readily aware of the dangers associated with backcountry travel. We headed up towards Artist's Point with absolutely stunning views of Shukshan and Shukshan Arm, as well as the other multitude of peaks surrounding the area. The sky was sunny and our souls were definitely uplifted. We gained Artist's point then decided to head up the large knob in front of us which snowboarders were racing down. It crests out at 5,553 feet and we had to take our snowshoes off in order to step ourway up. At the top we had half our lunch and soaked in the views of Mt. Baker to the south, Mt. Herman to the west, the Pickets well off to the east, Pilchuck, Glacier Peak, Whitehorse and just the top of Rainier poking above the horizon. So many vistas that we couldn't keep track of them all. We eyes Table Mt. to the south and it looked untracked so we headed out and crossed the twenty foot wide snow ridge that separated the knob from the mountain. We traversed all around Table Mt. looking for a way down the backside to get down into the southwest valley but couldn't find any. We maxed out at 5,742 feet. Upon returning to the knob we noticed a gap in the cornices where we were able to kick some steps down and fling our packs off to get off the mountain and down onto the lower section of the table. From here we weren't exactly sure how we were gonna get down to the valley floor and weren't exactly sure we could make our way back up to the mountain. We traversed this section of the mountain for a good half hour only finding imposing drop offs and cliffs. Finally, on the south end of this section we found a chute that gently led us down to the valley floor. Three quarters of the way down we headed west and up and over a saddle that took us onto a snow field directly above Iceberg Lake, with views of Herman's Saddle to the North. We trounced down through the snow to the lake then made our way up the south face of the saddle to the top. Here the sun was just setting and there was nobody to be found. We had stunning views of both Baker, Shukshan, Table, Herman and various mountains. Phenomenal! From here it was and easy downhill back to the parking lot, mile and a half. We hit the car at 5:0pm and most of the skier traffic was long gone. What a day! I recommend this route for people who are experienced in the backcountry, are properly equipped and have strong, willing legs.