back-country

Ruby Mountain is just off Hwy 20 in WA with commanding views of the North Cascades. In the winter it is a 5500 ft. climb to the summit, with lots of steep trees to navigate before you get to the fun upper open slopes. My friend Jerry and I hadn't done it yet so headed up yesterday hoping for ok...

My regular partner, Eric, and I had a wonderful day of back-country skiing near Stevens Pass yesterday. It has snowed about a foot in the last week and stayed cold (which is rare here in western WA) so it was still good powder even though the sun came out at times. More incredible was having the...

My partner Eric and I explored some steep chutes off the Muir Snowfield last week. We were dismayed to find the lower part melted out into a steep waterfall that forced us to climb up and over to another gully that went to the Nisqually Glacier. We had this part of the mountain to ourselves and...

Stevens Pass, WA 1/28/20. Warming temps will turn this to mashed potatoes today, but we got the goods yesterday!

Yesterday I skied The Choke, a steep gully down the ridge from our normal descent. Snow was soft and sluffy, so I skied conservatively. I'm in the bigger sun spot up from the center. cruising the ridge Stopping to look for cliffs below a roll-over

I took my DJI M2P drone along for another run on Mt. Pilchuck yesterday. This time I was solo and was quite happy with the active track performance. These are screen grabs from the 4K video which I shot without a ND filter so that I could get sharp stills. I'm the red dot lower left of...

The snow wasn't perfect, but it was good to get out for my first day of back-country skiing this year up at Stevens Pass WA. Taking in the view from The Diving Board One of the better little slopes we found

I've been sworn to secrecy to not post pictures of this hidden gem, kidy corner from the heavily traveled Muir Snowfield, but that's on skier sites. My partners and I selfishly want to keep it as quiet and smooth back there as we can, plus it's a real glacier, which could lead to trouble for...

My partner Eric cooperates the best he can to help me get good ski shots. Ski fun, and getting down safely, is always the priority, but when we can get a shot like this where he hit the sun spot perfectly, it makes me very happy when I'm back home. Eric-skis-slot-bw by Jim Dockery posted Feb...

Taken on a great day of back-country skiing at Stevens Pass WA. Heather-Ridge-1.25-(56) by Jim Dockery posted Feb 6, 2018 at 5:23 PM

I was skiing one of my favorite back-country areas near Stevens Pass WA yesterday. There was 10 inches of pretty good new snow on top of a supportive rain crust, but very little avalanche danger. The morning started off well (see picture) then I made a mistake dropping into a steep slot where I...

I held my RX100 IV steady and shot continuous while my partner skied down this back-country ridge near Stevens Pass WA on a great day of powder skiing. Layered the best in PS then copied and blended just the skier from the top layers into the final layer. Heather Ridge 1.25 Powder Turn Hd by...

Mt. Pilchuck is the closest mountain to my house (~40 min. to the trailhead) with a pretty easy 3 mile 2,000 ft. climb to the summit. I've climbed it more than any other peak (5 times in one week once - when doing multiple laps/day), normally to back-country ski in the spring. I love the views...