Can You Locate this Scene?

Tim - Thanks for the picture.  I knew it must be a special place.   Of course I always get a spiritual buzz being up on the mountain and now, even more so.

... a little history on the grandfather...

From: www.fs.fed.us/r6/mbs/recreation/activiti.../climb_history.shtml

....Edmund Thomas Coleman, an Englishman residing in nearby Victoria, Canada and veteran of the Alps, made the first attempt to ascend the mountain in 1866 choosing a route via the Skagit River, but was forced to turn back when local Native Americans refused him passage.

For his second attempt later that same year Coleman recruited Edward Eldridge, John Bennett and John Tennant. After approaching via the North Fork of the Nooksack River, the party navigated what is now known as Coleman Glacier and ascended to within several hundred feet of the summit before turning back in the face of an "overhanging cornice of ice" and threatening weather conditions.

Undaunted by failure, Coleman returned two years later in 1868 and proved that the third time is indeed a charm. At 4:00 p.m. on the 17th of August Coleman, Eldridge, Tennant and two new companions named David Ogilvy and Thomas Stratton gained the summit....

Coleman's Compass sounds good. I tend to think of the porous mass to the right as Rodent Rocks; if you camp there you soon realize it is home to hundreds if not thousands of small mice . . . hanging your food from a steeply angled support (skis work well) is pretty much mandatory!

According to Andy Selters in Ways to the Sky, Edmund Coleman on Mt Baker was "the first mountaineer in the Western Hemisphere to climb with a real ice axe and primitive crampons (called 'creepers')." (Sounds like something markharf might wear.)

I was wrong about Dwight Watson's film. I pulled it out and found that Dwight photographed a different (but remarkably similar) notch and crag on Heliotrope Ridge. Dwight's movie is in the top half of the following picture. My 2001 photo of Larry's crag is in the bottom half. "Coleman's Keyhole" would be another good name.

Watson's photo is remarkabley similar, especially the basic structure.  The background is different.  I kind of like "Coleman's Keyhole".

Here is a view standing back about a hundred yards... looking at the high camp.  The notch is a little hidden behind a snow hump.  Maybe that is why markharf saw it differently.
www.lawrencetrotter.com/MiscPIcs/Untitled16_50pct.jpg

.... and turning to the right, up mountain... the majestic Baker peak.
www.lawrencetrotter.com/MiscPIcs/Untitled11_50pct.jpg

Whenever I'm on Heliotrope Ridge and look west, I like to think about George Vancouver sailing up the Strait of Juan de Fuca in 1792, spotting Mount Baker for the first time, and calling the Cascades "the snowy range." I like to imagine myself back in time, standing at the same point, and looking back at him.

It's also cool to realize that skiing was well established in Scandianvia at the time of Vancouver's voyage. The Norwegian army had ski companies and so on.