Mt Baker Easton Glacier

Spring season is off to a good start.  Mount Baker is a climb that has eluded us twice now - the first time, more than 4 years ago now, we didn't do enough research on road conditions before heading out and effectively ended any chance of a summit before we put on our (very heavy telemark) boots. The second time, the year after, we got much higher before a specific lack of pointy equipment and general lack of HTFU ended the attempt.



So we put it on the backburner.  It's been a few years of getting smarter and faster, and this weekend the conditions looked right, so we just packed up and went.  It's amazing what those years of experience can do - we just cruised right up the mountain, summitted, had an excellent ski down, and went home.  It was delightful.  No discomfort*, no fatigue, no one used the word "epic".














Some beta:

We went up the Easton Glacier route.  At this point in the season the road was melted out up to the "no wheels past this point" sign, which is about 3.5km from the campground.  We skinned up the road and a few extra km towards the base of the Easton glacier, and pitched a tent before it got steep.

We didn't bother getting up too early, since we wanted to ski down on soft snow.  The route up the Easton glacier is well used by snowmobiles, and this weekend was no exception.  Aside from the mosquito-like sense of harassment, this does make for fast travel - we did not ever feel the need to rope up, what with any possible crevasses being thoroughly tested by these winter skidoos.  The last pitch adjacent to the Roman wall is pretty steep, and we ended up bootpacking to the summit - there is a looming crevasse below this, so an earlier arrival and frozen conditions might have required some more caution or protection.  In our case, we had perfect conditions for the climb.  The ski down was firm but nice at the top, amazing in the middle, and mushy/refrozen snowmobile gnar at the bottom, depending on where the shadows were.

Once back in the forest, the ski out proved to be the hardest part of the day.  It seems grooming season is over, so the snowmobile tracks were wall-to-wall, and a spectacular demonstration of how bad these pump tracks can get.  The road is also a little too shallow to glide down, so in addition to the quad workout you get a lot of poling practice.

Overall an excellent day and a recommended route (snowmobiles not required).

*sunburned nose excluded

Mount Baker Attempt 2 of 3

Well.  Last year we tried to climb Mount Baker.  For a lot of reasons, it did not go well.  It barely went at all, really.  This year we tried to learn from all those lessons:

- ascend in the spring, so less snow issues, crevasses are still full, and tons of daylight
- make sure the access road is drivable before you leave the house
- allow a lot of extra time so that you can adapt to weather and other unforseen issues

We did all that.  We were feeling great.  Really prepared.

Then, the weather forecast lied.  3 times.  The border crossing took hours and hours. The access road washed out and was undrivable 3 days before we got there.  The same rain that washed out our planned access road also washed most of the snow off of the secondary access road....except for a big, deep, undrivable patch 2 km before we could start skiing.  We finally made a break for the summit when the fog lifted, only to discover that the forecast had been wrong yet again, it was much colder than we expected, and we no longer had appropriate gear to ascend safely.

So next year, I guess.

A more formal trip report:

Maps: National Geographic 1:100,000 "North Cascades" (MEC) and USGS 1:24,000 "Mount Baker" (shows complete Heliotrope ridge route, does not show the complete Easton Glacier route)

Access:  Heliotrope ridge access road is shut within 1km of the main highway.  Totally impassable, and the locals do not estimate a quick fix.  Look here for updates (#39, Glacier Creek road).  We ended up using the Easton Glacier route, access is just past Baker Lake (FSR's #12 and #13 off of Baker Lake road).  At this point this season, the road was almost drivable right to the trailhead.  If we had been 5 days earlier, we would have parked 3km away and skinned the whole way.  As it was, we parked 3km away and had to walk 2 of them due to lack of snow.

Route:  We followed the well used snowmobile route up to the easton glacier moraine.  Protip:  bring a case of beer to bribe a snowmobiler for a lift.  This section is long, boring, and full of snowmobiles.  Try to avoid melting snow for water from here, unless you like motor oil aftertaste.

We camped in the moraine at about 853975 (truncated UTM: see section 3 here for details).

We were planning on getting to high camp the next day, but barely made it out of the moraine before soupy fog rolled in. With zero visibility and crevasses on the mind, we spent the rest of the day in the tent.

The next day started at around 4am. The Easton glacier is very straightforward, with a huge, nearly unbroken highway right up to the summit cone.  At this point this season, the crevasses were either non-existent or almost completely filled in.  While we ascended with ropes on, another party did not and we were very confident to ski down unroped. On this day it was much colder than expected, and the previous days mush had turned to ice.  Without crampons, we ended up turning around at ~2600m - the final route up the summit cone was significantly steeper than the rest of the glacier and the icefall below did not look like a fun place to slide into.  We made it out the same day without difficulty, although as soon as we were back in the moraine the temperature raised by about 30 degrees.

Finally out of the moraine.

After a day in the tent, the clouds cleared on Sunday night.

Early morning start, but the sun was up at 4am.

Skis and skins not much use: ski crampons would have been useful.

Heading up the Easton highway.  Our final route would have been to the right side of the summit cone.

Not a bad backdrop.

Full set here.

Mount Baker Winter Ascent: Epic Fail

Every year for our anniversary we try to plan a trip to the mountains, and try and summit something.

The first year we went to the whistler backcountry.  Our "summit" wasn't an actual summit, and our "sunrise" was behind some clouds, but it was a great trip.

The second year, to the Callaghan valley.  This trip was not so good.

This year, we figured we would go big.  Mount Baker.  Not much bigger around here, anyways.

We started with a master plan.  And like always, it was much too big of a master plan.  My team at work was taking Friday off to go skiing at Whistler and we'd been looking at going to Mount Baker to ski tour for the weekend.  Why not do both?  Ski Friday, get up early Saturday, head to Baker, bag the peak Sunday morning in time to head home for work on Monday.

This sounded great, but meant that we spent the whole week packing, planning, re-packing, researching, shopping....everything but Triathlon training.  And we hit Friday completely exhausted.  We spent most of Saturday recovering, and then got up early on Sunday to head out.

[Note: this trip is usually done in the summer, to avoid extra gear and the typically bad weather on Baker throughout the winter.  This weekend had unseasonable amounts of sun and sky forecasted, so we decided to go for it]

First lesson: the access road is gravel in the summer.  In the winter, it is a groomed snowmobile trail.  This added 7-8 miles of skinning uphill on an access road to our day.

Second lesson: snowmobilers do not offer rides.

Third lesson: as the route is a summer route, the bridges over creek crossings are actually taken out over the winter.

Fourth lesson: crossing a creek in winter ski touring gear is difficult

Fifth lesson: not only are the bridges taken out, but all signage and trail markers are as well.

All in all, we ended up travelling 22 km, climbing almost 800 metres of elevation, and crossing 2 creeks.  We made it approximately 800 metres past the trailhead.

Maybe next year we'll book a helicopter or something.