Home > Trip Reports > August 5, 2011, Squak Glacier

August 5, 2011, Squak Glacier

8/5/11
WA Cascades West Slopes North (Mt Baker)
3090
5
Posted by bfree32 on 8/6/11 4:15am
Grant, Keith and I aimed for a single-day ski of Baker via the Squak and rolled up to the Schreiber's trailhead just before 11PM Thursday night. Oops, forgot the NW Forest Pass at home, time to go move the car 1/4 mile down the road at 4AM. We were off and moving up the Scott Paul trail around 4:30.

I was disappointed to see that the 4200' creekbed approach described by Silas no longer existed, so we continued to follow the trail...until we lost it. It was our first time in the area and didn't know where the trail went, so we did some steep bushwhacking to gain a ridge around 4800ft, then put skis on and followed the ridge north.

There were a few crevasse crossings around 9000 ft, but all have good bridges that should last for awhile longer. After skirting around the crater and up the Roman wall, we were atop of Grant Peak just after 1PM. We skied perfect corn down the Roman wall, and had pretty enjoyable skiing to around 6000 ft. From there, the runnels and suncups get progressively worse but we decided to follow the creek drainage anyways. It ended up being a much better choice than the morning route and we were able to keep skis on until 4400'. We quickly found the trail and were back at the car in 2.5 hrs from the summit.

It's a beautiful area and we had some great turns by any standards, let alone August turns. Despite a fair number of cars in the parking lot, we hardly saw anyone on the mountain. One solo climber descending the far side of the Easton, and one solo boarder on the approach in the afternoon.







-Brad


PS. Big thanks to Darryl, Ron, Chris, Chuck, Amar, Ryan, and everyone else (sorry to forget names!) who helped teach my glacier skiing class this past spring. Here's a trip of your students in action!
Nice tour & good TR. 
If you survived to post then they must have taught you pretty well!

Good one, Thanks for sharing!!!

This summer the Roman Wall is the Old Faithful of N.W. skiing.  It keeps on giving...week after week.  Great TR and congrats on a successful outing.

BTW...your summit photo is not displaying the latest trends in descent couture.  ;)

author=Gregg_C link=topic=21594.msg92619#msg92619 date=1313116073]
BTW...your summit photo is not displaying the latest trends in descent couture.   ;)


yeah, but they look... warm

- another Epic, nice work !

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august-5-2011-squak-glacier
bfree32
2011-08-06 11:15:04