Home > Trip Reports > 12 May 2012, Mt. Baker, Boulder Glacier

12 May 2012, Mt. Baker, Boulder Glacier

5/12/12
WA Cascades West Slopes North (Mt Baker)
4692
8
Posted by runningclouds on 5/13/12 9:13am
NF-1131 snow free to 700 m (2,300 ft) or about 2.2 km (1.4 mi) from the trailhead.

Skinned to 3,000 m (9,850 ft) where we lost the race with sun. It was too hot and concerns about the final slope stability stopped us short of the summit. We left the car at 3:15 AM and turned around at 12:30 (1:30 PM sun time). Ski down was good, a bit wet and grabby but there was a great section of just perfect corn. In hindsight leaving 1.5 hr earlier would put us comfortably and safely on the summit.

Spring snowpack all the way up to 2,000 m (6,560 ft). Above, remnants of recent snow still going throughout transformation. It was mostly well bonded to the layer beneath but losing strength with rising temperature.

Google Earth view of the trip:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/runningclouds/7192398314/in/photostream
Thanks for the info. I was wondering how far up that road you could go now. Although I was thinking of a mellower two day trip.

I was skiing all over the Mt. Baker Ski Area yesterday (5/15) and got a great view of Mt. Baker and the Park Glacier.  Last Friday (5/11) I saw the great tracks down the Park; yesterday I saw a huge crown across the entire Park headwall and assume the entire thing had ripped over the weekend or on Monday.

Similar aspects further around towards the Boulder Glacier showed large crowns also.

"The heat is on..."

Full slideshow:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/runningclouds/sets/72157629715786970/




author=T. Eastman link=topic=24776.msg104797#msg104797 date=1337183865]
Last Friday (5/11) I saw the great tracks down the Park; yesterday I saw a huge crown across the entire Park headwall and assume the entire thing had ripped over the weekend or on Monday.


Thanks for the info. I think above 2000 m the snowpack has to still finish the transformation into spring snow. It might take a while, it looks like the temperatures are going to drop down a bit for a while.

Anyway it has been hot up there.
http://www.nwac.us/weatherdata/mtbakerskiarea/

This is the last week for the record

Original size:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/runningclouds/7212204686/sizes/o/in/photostream/

Great photos,

Agggggggggggggh clones! 

author=runningclouds link=topic=24776.msg104658#msg104658 date=1336954430">
We left the car at 3:15 AM and turned around at 12:30 (1:30 PM sun time).


Nice trip, thanks for the report and helpful road info.

But when you mention "sun time", if you're referring to the solar time, then you have a sign error in your calculation, and the effect is the opposite of what you have listed. When it is 12:30 PDT, the solar time is actually an hour earlier, about 11:30. In other words, solar noon does not occur until around 1pm PDT.

However, the offset is even greater than that on Mount Baker, which is located at 121.8° W, and therefore west of the center of the time zone (120° W). This delays solar noon by another 7 minutes or so (1.8 / 15 * 60) year-round. On the other hand, right now in May, the equation of time is near its secondary maximum, so it is advancing solar noon by about 3 minutes. The net effect is that solar noon is at about 1:04 pm PDT now on Mount Baker. So 12:30 pm PDT is about 11:26 am solar time.

I have a PHP webpage which calculates sunrise, sunset, solar noon, etc. for various Cascade volcanoes, including a sun chart which can be used to figure out solar elevation and sun hit times on various aspects of a mountain:

http://www.skimountaineer.com/CascadeSki/CascadeSunRiseSet.php?name=Baker&extended=true


Amar you are right. My dyslexia is wrong!
Thanks for the explanation.

Yes those evil clones distort the space time around you!


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12-may-2012-mt-baker-boulder-glacier
runningclouds
2012-05-13 16:13:50