Home > Trip Reports > July 13, 2008, Squak Glacier, Mt. Baker

July 13, 2008, Squak Glacier, Mt. Baker

7/13/08
WA Cascades West Slopes North (Mt Baker)
4447
4
Posted by jd on 7/15/08 6:50am
Eric and I drove up Saturday night, arriving at the Schreiber's Meadow trail head around 10. The parking area still had patches of snow, so we were hopeful there would be some left on the snomobile route up the stream bed the next day, but it wasn't to be. After a good night's sleep we started hiking about 5:45 a.m. and made good time to the washed out bridge where we had to decide trail or boulder filled gully.


We choose the gully and it went smoothly up to the Scott Paul Trail which we picked up to cross the morain to the east.


We were happy to find slightly suncupped snow down low, getting better as we climbed.


We were hoping to find Jeff & Gordy who were camped on the mountain, and lucked out to ski right by them just before we hit the glacier, so we all headed up together. Jeff scouted the large crevase high on the glacier for us and found a good bridge so we cruised to the top without much trouble.


The wind picked up as we passed the crater so we just tagged the summit and skied down on increasingly good corn.


After a nice rest by the crater we cruised down on great snow, which got a bit sticky and bumpy near the bottom, but was still quite nice.


Jeff & Gordy went back down the boulders while Eric and I opted for the Scott Paul trail (west side) which was hard to find up high, but the snow softened our way, and allowed us to cut some of the switchbacks so it went by easily.


A phone call home to my wife had pizza and salad waiting for us back in Lake Stevens, ending another great day in the hills.
JD,

It was good to meet you all up there. Funny we ran into eachother a year ago, almost on the same date.

Great minds think alike I guess.

It was a great day to be in the hills and the weather and night were wonderful. What caught me was the blazing red moon at around 3am. Too bad I was too lazy to photo.

In prep for a trip to the very same place this coming weekend, can either of you say how many vf you had to hike to get to skinnable snow?

Too bad about the lost opportunity to photograph the rarely seen other moon at 3 AM, since the mundane regular moon set around midnight on the 13th.  ;)


Great pics, looks like a really nice trip!  Love that panoramic!  And in the words of Joedabaker, sounded like some "spicy" trail navigation!

Travertine - If I'm not mistaken, the other "bright red moon" Jason might be referring to could be Jupiter?  It's supposed to be out and the next brightest thing to the moon in the night sky near this time of year...

Ha. Ha. I may have the time off. I don't have a watch so I was just guessing as I woke up and saw it. How slow time goes when mice are running all over you (they were tugging on the tassle of my hat laying in the rocks of my bivi). I'm sure it was the moon and it turned red as it approached the horizon.

You could ski down a few switchbacks. I'm guessing here, but about 4700-ft to 5k or so.

Reply to this TR

5530
july-13-2008-squak-glacier-mt-baker
jd
2008-07-15 13:50:04