Mt Baker - Coleman Deming - August 19/20, 2006
8/15/06
WA Cascades West Slopes North (Mt Baker)
9487
13
I had promised my brother in law visiting from Europe that we would make a trip in the mountains this week end and we decided to go for the CD route on Mount Baker. Unfortunatley this also meant that I was going to miss the slush cup which I would have loved to be part of.
We left the trailhead which was filled with cars on Saturday afternoon and made it to the camp just below the glacier just before 6pm. Fortunatley we met a lot of people coming down the trail, so all these cars were not all climbers, but there were still about a dozen groups on that side of the mountain split over the two main camps. The hike up to camp was beautiful going through fields of flowers with great views on the summit. The evening at camp was awesome with great views on the summit and an amazing sunset over puget sound. As most groups were already sleeping, I heard a faint voice shouting for help and sounding pretty desperate. I ran down the trail to find a women without headlamp trying to find her party (husband and friend) who had left her shortly after the trailhead and didn;t bother telling her exactly where they would camp. It didn't seem like they were really looking for her either ???... We offered her some cloth and she decided to spend the night next to us before going down the next day...I can;t imagine what the discussions with her husband were like the next day!!
On Sunday am, we left a 6am and after enjoying views and making regular breaks we reached the summit at around 11. I decided to leave my skis on the ridge at a little below 9000 feet as conditions on the roman wall didn't look good for skiing - this was a bit a dissappointment since conditions up there looked great fro skiing when I was there in October a few years ago.
Ski down from 9k feet to 6k feet (camp) was great, snow was soft enough to make the suncups smooth for skiing outside of a few small sections where things got a little trickier but stll fun. My wife and my brother in law who opted not to bring the skis were a little jealous that they had to fall back to the primitive way of coming down a mountain.
All in all a great week end.
Pictures posted soon.
We left the trailhead which was filled with cars on Saturday afternoon and made it to the camp just below the glacier just before 6pm. Fortunatley we met a lot of people coming down the trail, so all these cars were not all climbers, but there were still about a dozen groups on that side of the mountain split over the two main camps. The hike up to camp was beautiful going through fields of flowers with great views on the summit. The evening at camp was awesome with great views on the summit and an amazing sunset over puget sound. As most groups were already sleeping, I heard a faint voice shouting for help and sounding pretty desperate. I ran down the trail to find a women without headlamp trying to find her party (husband and friend) who had left her shortly after the trailhead and didn;t bother telling her exactly where they would camp. It didn't seem like they were really looking for her either ???... We offered her some cloth and she decided to spend the night next to us before going down the next day...I can;t imagine what the discussions with her husband were like the next day!!
On Sunday am, we left a 6am and after enjoying views and making regular breaks we reached the summit at around 11. I decided to leave my skis on the ridge at a little below 9000 feet as conditions on the roman wall didn't look good for skiing - this was a bit a dissappointment since conditions up there looked great fro skiing when I was there in October a few years ago.
Ski down from 9k feet to 6k feet (camp) was great, snow was soft enough to make the suncups smooth for skiing outside of a few small sections where things got a little trickier but stll fun. My wife and my brother in law who opted not to bring the skis were a little jealous that they had to fall back to the primitive way of coming down a mountain.
All in all a great week end.
Pictures posted soon.
Hey Michael, glad you had a good trip with your brother-in-law, and sorry I couldn't join you. Sounds like you had an easier time of it than the Boulder route! Look forward to seeing the pics.
Glad Arno finally got to climb something in Washington in good weather! Pretty weird about the lost woman, sounds like a potential relationship-ending move on the part of the husband!
Here are some pictures:
On the way up to camp:
The headwall
Corinne and Arno climbing down:
View of the camp
Sunset
Climbing up
View of the slide that ocurred a few weeks ago on the East side
View of the slide (2)
Marg Wheeler climbing down with her clients
More pictures here.
No pictures of skiing but a small section we filmed.
Yeah he was super happy about the trip...good change from the Alps!
Definitely much easier...but then also many more poeple. I actually got a great view on the Boulder side from the top and could see the crevasse which blocked us a few weeks back...there was another huge one right after - so no regrets ;-). Looking forward to going back there in the spring next year!
On the way up to camp:
The headwall
Corinne and Arno climbing down:
View of the camp
Sunset
Climbing up
View of the slide that ocurred a few weeks ago on the East side
View of the slide (2)
Marg Wheeler climbing down with her clients
More pictures here.
No pictures of skiing but a small section we filmed.
author=gregL link=topic=5245.msg22134#msg22134 date=1156428493">
Glad Arno finally got to climb something in Washington in good weather! Pretty weird about the lost woman, sounds like a potential relationship-ending move on the part of the husband!
Yeah he was super happy about the trip...good change from the Alps!
author=Paul_Russell link=topic=5245.msg22132#msg22132 date=1156400346">
Hey Michael, glad you had a good trip with your brother-in-law, and sorry I couldn't join you. Sounds like you had an easier time of it than the Boulder route! Look forward to seeing the pics.
Definitely much easier...but then also many more poeple. I actually got a great view on the Boulder side from the top and could see the crevasse which blocked us a few weeks back...there was another huge one right after - so no regrets ;-). Looking forward to going back there in the spring next year!
Nice pictures!
And good visual beta to extrapolate from, for those of us contemplating where we will get our September base grinding done.
And good visual beta to extrapolate from, for those of us contemplating where we will get our September base grinding done.
Despite the normal winter, I don't ever remember the Roman Wall looking that bad in the past, even in August and September.
That Sherman Peak slide looks pretty significant. Has that been mentioned on tay before this tr?
(or anywhere else for that matter)?
(or anywhere else for that matter)?
Nice pictures, Michael, especially interesting to see the Sherman Peak/Boulder Glacier slide from the top - that thing is huge! Timing is everything, though it looks like it would have missed us.
Wickstad, the slide was mentioned on Cascadeclimbers.com, apparently a couple of NOLS people witnessed it, and John Scurlock went up right afterward to shoot pictures. We missed it by two days.
http://www.pbase.com/image/64205338
http://www.pbase.com/image/64205336
Wickstad, the slide was mentioned on Cascadeclimbers.com, apparently a couple of NOLS people witnessed it, and John Scurlock went up right afterward to shoot pictures. We missed it by two days.
http://www.pbase.com/image/64205338
http://www.pbase.com/image/64205336
great trip, michael! though we missed your skimmin' skills at the cup. corinne and arno must have been very jealous of you on the way down, huh? ;)
Yeah - nice trip Michael.
Great pics; nice viddy, great turns.
Way to nail the August turns.
Great pics; nice viddy, great turns.
Way to nail the August turns.
Bottom of the Roman looks brutal. I was there in Oct a few years back it is was pretty blue ice where there are rocks now judging by the pics. Are those rocks sitting on Glacier or are they were the glacier used to be?
Sad for this year if it rock on ice.
Sad for the rest of time if it is the rock below where the glacier *should* be.
Sad for this year if it rock on ice.
Sad for the rest of time if it is the rock below where the glacier *should* be.
author=jdclimber link=topic=5245.msg22162#msg22162 date=1156536748]
Bottom of the Roman looks brutal. I was there in Oct a few years back it is was pretty blue ice where there are rocks now judging by the pics. Are those rocks sitting on Glacier or are they were the glacier used to be?
Sad for this year if it rock on ice.
Sad for the rest of time if it is the rock below where the glacier *should* be.
Unfortunately, I think this is where the glacier "should be" :(
I just looked at the pictures from a trip up there in October 2000 (paper pictures unfortunatley) and the difference is quite dramatic though at the time it had already snowed a couple of times on the roman wall so it is hard to compare.
Rocks rain from above the Roman Wall, sometimes in large amounts. The Roman Wall looked pretty similar to your pictures during our descent after we climbed the North Ridge at the end of August '03.
Mt Baker is a pretty active volcano.
Mt Baker is a pretty active volcano.
Yeah, I think the Roman Nose is the main culprit in littering debris down the wall as well, toward the Coleman-Deming saddle.
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