Mount Baker July 2008

Sarah has gone from zero to Blogmaniacaddict in 4.75 seconds and has been gently encouraging me to participate. Fact is I am really glad that she manages this aspect of our lives. Just after the forth of July when I should have been studying for my boards, Will Bronec (Montana Mountaineer Extraordinary) and I packed up and headed for Mount Baker. We originally planned to attempt Rainier but with the recent onset of very warm weather the snow conditions on Rainier had deteriorated. Mount Baker on the other hand was still blanketed with a thick layer of unmolten slush acquired from the previous winter (side note: Mount Baker holds the NOAA verifiable world record for snowfall in a single year when it collected 1140 inches (95 feet) of snowfall in 1999). Mount Baker stands 10,778ft above sea level which is just a few miles to the west. It is the third highest mountain in Washington State, an active volcano, and an impressive mountain.






We arrived at the trailhead (3200 ft) and were pleasantly surprised to find that there was still about six inches of spring melt snow on the ground. We put on our skis and headed for our bivy site on the Easton Glacier about six miles away. Thanks to my incredible map & navigation skills we only had a single one hour detour before arriving at our bivy site at 6500 feet on the glacier. After arriving we set out to practice building snow anchors and crossing crevasses. Our session also involved the collapse of a snow bridge which sent Will into the depths of the Easton Glacier with the proclamation "holy &%$*". In our case it turns out that practice is far more dangerous than actually climbing the mountain.





We set out at about 6:30 the next morning and were able to ski most of the way to the summit bar a 1000 foot section that was too steep to skin up and required crampons. The heavy snow from the winter before still covered most of the crevasses and made most of the crossings uneventful. We did have to cross one crevasse via a narrow snow bridge at an awkward angle. Luckily it worked out better than our practice session. We arrived at the summit around 11:00 amid really strong winds and freezing conditions. Nonetheless we stayed to enjoy the poor visibility for about 3 minutes before the descent. The Emmons provided a great ski descent as we dropped over 4,000 feet of spring corn snow back to our bivy site. We soaked up some sun, skied in shorts back to the trailhead and made it back to Seattle in time for diner.

More Info on Mount Baker: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Baker