June 27, 2010, Mt Baker Easton clouds and rain

I and Jeff started hiking at 6am from the Schreibner's meadow TH and crossed the river on hiker's trail although in retrospect we could have skinned from about 1 mile up the trail (on the right side on mostly connected snow patches, I suspect now melting fast).  We hooked up to the continuous snow just below the morraine, and skinned up to the toe of Easton.  Here the weather kicked in (while to the south we could see sunny peaks) so we gladly joined the climber's boot trail and soon were skinning up past throngs of descending climbers.  Warm temps and slushy snow.  At about 6500 there was partial clearing but from then on we were in a whiteout and rain, and bailed at about 8000.  Ski down was in very low visibility and from about 6000 down it actually was fun and nice corn :D.  After some shenanigans descending and crossing the river we were back at the car at about 3 pm.  Disappointed we didn't make the summit but it was a nice day nonetheless in this beautiful corner of WA state.

No slide activity visible, some crevasses and trenches are opening but skinning up on the climber's left of the creek will last for some time although with significant hike-in.

Pavel