Home > Trip Reports > July 20-21, 2004, Mt. Baker, Coleman-Deming

July 20-21, 2004, Mt. Baker, Coleman-Deming

7/20/04
WA Cascades West Slopes North (Mt Baker)
4195
8
Posted by gregL on 7/21/04 10:35am


We (khayak, Scott Otterson, and myself) arrived at the Heliotrope Ridge TH around 2:00 PM on Tuesday amid fog and light mist, and unloaded the car with a feeling of vague unease - talked to 2 climbers who had waited for an opening to climb the North Ridge route and had finally given up with the rain Tuesday morn. We headed up anyway, reaching the first camps at 6,000ft around 5:00, where a number of climbers were biding their time waiting for weather - continued up to the high campsites at 7,200 where a group of 3 was also waiting out the fog and rain (also hoping to climb the North Ridge) and set up camp. Miraculously, just as the sun began to set, the skies cleared and the mountain came out, boding well for the morning. Wednesday dawned clear as a bell over Mt. Baker, with a few puffy cumulus clouds to the west - the snow had frozen overnight, so we took our time eating breakfast and left camp around 8:35AM. Skinned to just below the long dirt boot-up area, switched to crampons and kept them on for the winding climb up through the dirt and rubble - the dirt stretch goes on for quite a while. Continued on up the Roman Wall where firm conditions were just starting to soften up and reached the true summit around 12:15. We ate a leisurely lunch while waiting for the snow to ripen with perfect shirt-sleeve weather at the top. Started down about 1:15 and hit it perfectly - the Roman Wall? Butta'. The pitch below? Butta'. The face under the dirt ridge? Ditto. The final easy slopes down to 7,200ft were fast and smooth, a few suncups but perfect for fast GS turns. We were able to end-run or straight run safely all of the crevasses on the way down without a rope. Even the final 1,000 ft face down to the Heliotrope Ridge campsites was good skiing, despite the mild runnels. Switched to trail runners and booked down to the car, marvelling at the best skiing of the summer.
Some additional pictures here, more to follow:


Nice photos, Greg. The silhouettetted photographer in front of the Thunder Glacier is particularly striking.  

Mark: Most of credit goes to the Thunder Glacier, it's one cool looking chunk of ice!

We're thinking about going to Mt. Baker 8/21, but not sure if its worth it, snow coverage wise.  We went up Skyline Divide last year on 8/8, and it was good snow.  Now, we want to go up that route or any other route that would be pretty safe.  We don't have cramp ons or rope, but we want to ride!!!  Any suggestions on what would be good in a couple weeks?

we're headed up to Artist Point tomorrow & see how far onto the Park glacier we can get (unless we decide to ski that steep north face on the Sholes instead...Paul:) - northeast side is probably in somewhat similar condition to Coleman-Deming this time of year.

David: How did it go?

Poorly. We barely got on the Park proper.

Hey, Coleman/Deming was a great trip that I would highly recommend.  We hit snow at 6,000 feet and I would imagine that since it seemed fairly glacial that it has not receded much higher.  The approach was on a beautiful trail through the woods, Trailhead 2,700 ft.  snow 6,000.    

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july-20-21-2004-mt-baker-coleman-deming
gregL
2004-07-21 17:35:32