I finally managed to take a wide-arcing line around the man and I kicked as hard as I could to outrun the dingo protectress. Besides, Brian was behind, and he provided good bait - er - diversion.

We made it down to the rental shortly after noon and dumped our gear. We took an uneventful drive west, then south, after taking a last, clear look at Shuksan on the way out (the opening photo of this trip report is from our retreat).

I had been in close contact with my friend and oftentime Cascades partner Brett "Smoker" Nipps before Brian and I came out. We had talked about trying numerous climbs together after Brian and I gave Shuksan a shot. Brett had given us much valuable information about weather and snowpack before we flew west. We had talked, grandly, about attempting Baker's North Ridge together. Having been up in the area, I knew that there would be far too much snow for anything to be worthwhile, or fun, on Baker. I called Brett when we arrived back in Bellingham ("Thirty hours, car-to-car! And we never even got on the route!"), where we would stay the night. Brett suggested something on the east slopes. I told him to pick something and we'd see him Saturday afternoon for a meet and greet.

Brian and I stumbled back into the same hotel in Bellingham we'd occupied two nights before, unpacked briefly to dry things out, then drove to Busara, a Siamese restaurant in town where we ate tasty morsels and made quiet fun of a guy sitting next to us who so wasn't getting over on the wait staff in any way, whatsoever.

After dinner we further entertained ourselves by searching in vain for my "special blue crap" aloe vera burn relief slime. I swear by it. It doesn't contain alcohol. Many burn creams do. Why, I ask you, would I want to put alcohol on a burn? It makes me say owwww. We didn't find any special blue crap that night (Rite Aid had it the next day), but we did find various other ointments at various dispenseries of rubby goo that provided much amusement to our increasingly small, vapid, hemisphered and tragically recessive think-boxes.