July 5-7 Mt. Baker Ptarmigan Ridge to Summit

Dave Kratsch was looking for climbing partners and I took the bait. Once he learned I was free "anytime" what was going to be a day on rock suddenly became several days on snow. Fantastic weather, clear nearly full moon nights, time away from work and lots of snow made for a successful/leisurely Post-Fourth summit.

We were able to ski from the car to Ptarmigan Ridge where we camped the first night, then to the bergschrund at the top of Park Glacier on Friday. At this point, we put skis on packs and continued on up boot packing. The summit winds were relentless by the time we summited around 2 p.m. And we booted back down to the point we had first started the boot pack at the schrund.

Thanks to the steady wind, the first half of our descent was really nice considering the time of day and heat. The second half was more mushy water skiing. Navigating the crevasses on our way down meant following our up-track pretty closely and roping up once for one particularly concerning bridge. (We were roped the entire way up.) After the warm weather, I can't imagine the route goes still. But, there is a lot of coverage on the way to Ptarmigan and it should last for another week (maybe two?) for yo-yoing without having to hike. Sun cupping was much more significant in the bowls along the ridge on Saturday versus Thursday.The road is still not plowed all the way to the top.

Thanks to Dave for making this happen. We saw two people at the summit, and a handful of folks on our way out Saturday afternoon.