Not-Verizon coverage in the mountains?

Thanks folks. I'm hearing what I expected, unfortunately. 

An anecdote about older tech coverage vs new.  I can't speak to up on Baker, but I have a 6 year old flip phone that only uses the old CDMA2000 network and I'm usually the last person in my group to lose service (can usually text but not call at the bottom of Steven's backside for example). 

Will probably go back to procrastinating cell phone change now.  Although I could use a new smartphone that gets hot enough to be a portable waxing iron. 

FWIW - I tried to call/text on Verizon from up high on Baker this year and was surprised that I couldn't even though my phone said it had signal.  This was true on both the summit and at ~6000 on the Easton.  I wonder if the newer 3g/4g systems aren't worse than the older technology in remote areas. 

This sort of effect seems to happen on the volcanoes with many different vendors and has been that way for a while (in my experience at least). It's not uncommon to hear people complaining that they "have four bars but can't make a call/text". My hypotheses include hitting so many towers that the network doesn't route correctly or that the signal strength measurement is aggregate recieved power in the band and not the strength of a single tower.

For example, see Amar's Rainier summit experience in 2008, where 3 of 49 attempted calls from Rainier's summit made it through. He had 2-3 "bars" of signal.