Baker, Roosevelt Glacier

Un-edited trip report: https://engineeredforadventure.com/baker-roosevelt-glacier/

Background

Ari and I took our PRO1 together earlier this year and kept in touch, trying to get out on an adventure together a number of times. For various reasons (mostly me), schedules didn't align. Ari reached out early in the week for Weds. Finally, I had the availability to say yes. I was psyched.

Ari is intimately familiar with Mt. Baker; it's his playground. We waffled on various ideas, none quite 'clicking'. We agreed to a loose plan of heading up Baker via the north ridge and trying to link up different pitches in the alpine. What exactly, we weren't sure. But like many great plans, we'd head up, window shop, and see where that got us.

My buddy Stephen had been out the day before and reported 5-6" of lower density, cold, alpine pow sitting on a firmer melt-freeze crust from the week prior. People had been teeing off the day prior: Coleman Headwall got skied, Park Headwall got skied...people were out and about. And for good reason...this April has been delightful for alpine skiing!

Trip Report

Ari and I left Bellingham around 5AM and started from the trailhead right around 6AM. We were able to park less than a half mile from the trailhead. We ascended via Grouse Creek, making quick work of the approach to Heliotrope Ridge.

We made quick work of the approach over to the north ridge, reaching the base in under 3.5 hours. We found easy booting up the lower ridge, 5-6 inches on top of a stout crust. We had kept the idea of skiing the North Ridge open at the start of the day, part of our motivation of climbing the ridge.

We took the climber's right sneak-through around the serac at ~9,700', part of our plan of assessing the conditions for a ski descent. We found very firm, icy conditions that made for easy steep snow/snice climbing, but we both agreed skiing the ridge was out. It was fun to have some engaging snice climbing, using the tools a bit.

On the way up the upper North Ridge we gazed over at the Roosevelt Glacier. Hmm...that looks like it could go. The Roosevelt is kind of a mysterious place on Mt. Baker; the first documented trip report I could find from it was in 2003 by Ben Manfredi, solo, when Ben picked his way through the icefall proper. Quite a wild trip.

Looking over at the Roosevelt, we took photos and started to plot a way through. There was a sneak-through onto a panel of snow from the Cockscomb Ridge; from there, we could ski high on the panel to a series of gullies that would take us down beneath the icefall. It looked like there was a gully that would take us, cleanly without rappels, through. Hmmm... Window shopping.

Atop the summit, we tossed around a few more ideas. Both Ari and I were indecisive, flexible. We both felt pretty happy with anything, really. Sometimes having decisiveness can make decision making easier than flexibility. I tossed around the idea of skiing the Elephant's Trunk on Colfax Peak, we waffled between skiing off the summit towards Colfax or skiing the Park and climbing back up to try the Roosevelt. The obscureness of the Roosevelt lured us, we were psyched.

We skied the Park Headwall, a little scratchy up top but not too bad. The schrunds were well bridged and made for a low-cortisol ski of the Park. We noted how cold it was...normally down on the Park in the early afternoon would be an oven. No rollerballs, no moving snow...a very quiet day on the mountain, really.

We made a short climb back up to the Cockscomb Ridge, which brought us right to our spotted sneak-through for the Roosevelt, around 10,250'. One more vibe check...yea, let's do this thing dude.

We clicked into skis, preparing for some weirdness. We talked about potentially belaying the entrance onto the Roosevelt; there was a brief traverse under a serac with a sagging schrund that we'd have to manage. I pushed over towards it, finding very edgeable snow and an easy shush onto the glacier. It goes easy dude.

On the glacier proper we found 5-6" of soft, alpine pow. We would ski fall-line, trending skier's right, for around 1,200' to the exit gully we had spotted in the photo. You've got the honors, dude, I told Ari. I watched Ari make turns down the Roosevelt...such a wild position with the icefall and the north ridge to our skier's left. Ari and I couldn't help but stare at Sky's line on the North Ridge, east of the ridge proper. Such a wild line.

We skied to above the west facing gullies we had spotted in our photo. Time to study. We studied the photos, not quite picking out which gully looked best. I stood atop one that looked like it went clean. I could clearly see our sluff making its way all the down to the glacier below. Ari poked one gully over, returning with the conclusion that this might be the one.

I started down, finding scratchy verging on icy conditions. The gully choked down, getting icier and icier. Yikes. I grabbed my axe and began side-stepping one section that was very, very icy. The rocks above had shed their snow, creating a melt-freeze lens that sat atop shallow snow on rocks. Should we just downclimb dude?, Ari asked. Good question. Unfortunately I didn't quite feel secure enough to transition out of skis to boots and it looked like it might get better around 100' below me. I carefully, slowly made my way through the icy choke, finding some ~slightly~ better snow where I had thought.

Ari was patiently waiting above me, thankfully no snow was moving above us and the cliffs above had already shed most of their snow. But sometimes speed is safety in the mountains and how I was manuevering this exit chute was not speedy, by any measure. I was now 150' from freedom, from the bottom, but there was one more, even icier choke point to manage. I'm just gonna downclimb dude, this part is even worse. I felt dumb, at this point, for making Ari wait, perched, pretty vulnerable. Again, thankfully conditions were such that no snow or rocks were moving on us...but still. Not great.

I transitioned in a decent spot, and made my way down through the icy choke points with two tools. It was fairly easy downbooting, the weird condition where ski pen is zero but boot pen is at least a few cms. Ari quickly made his way down from his perch. Sorry about that dude, I should have just transitioned earlier. I felt bad, Ari was very gracious. It wasn't an ideal situation but we managed.

Now beneath all the icy shitfuck, we clicked back into skis and boogied down to the glacier. We turned back, looking at our tracks on the Roosevelt and the shitfuck gully. We both had a weird feeling about it, proud but one-and-done vibes because of the rough exit. If that had gone smoother, I might be more psyched about it.

We enjoyed the lower angle turns from the Roosevelt back towards the C-D route and made a quick climb up to bump over to Grouse Creek. We gazed over at the Thunder, noting a lone ski track through and gazing up at the Headwall.

Overall, we were psyched on the day, just with a little sour taste from the shitfuck gully to get out from the Roosevelt. The Roosevelt was a neat perch to put some turns into, and the position was wild...just a little weirdness to pay for it.