August 5, 2005, Ptarmigan Ridge, Mount Baker
8/5/05
WA Cascades West Slopes North (Mt Baker)
2177
1
Vince and I hiked out to Coleman Pinnacle to make some August turns. It was a beautiful day, not too hot on the hike out and surprisingly few people. We hiked the trail to Coleman Pinnacle and then climbed up the shrunken snow patch to cross to the north side of Ptarmigan Ridge just west of Coleman Pinnacle to ski.
On the south side of Ptarmigan Ridge there has been a lot of loss of "permanent" snow. The SE aspect ribbons of snow that have in recent years been skiable even in September are already broken. The glacier ice shown on topo maps on the east side of Point 5814 is pretty much gone, and the glacier ice on the northeast side of Point 5847 is now discontinuous patches.
On the north side of Ptarmigan Ridge, we did several runs and toured around on our waxless skis as far as the snow would allow, which wasn't very far. The longest run we could find, from right under the north side of Coleman Pinnacle, was probably only 400 feet. With the warm weather, however, the quality was pretty good, with the small suncups nicely softened.
We skied up to the low saddle west of Coleman Pinnacle and took in the great view of the NE side of Mount Baker. There were a couple of substantial crevasses just north of the saddle, and a few others showing signs of imminent opening in the same area. There were also numerous areas of dirty ice showing. We did a couple of short runs over toward Lasiocarpa Ridge, then skied back to Coleman Pinnacle, did another of the "longest" runs, and then traversed up to the east to see how feasible it would be to travel back toward the car staying on the north side of Ptarmigan Ridge. There was so little snow down where it needed to be that we gave up on that idea and crossed back to the trail where we had left it, on the south side of Ptarmigan Ridge.
The real highlights of the day, aside from the spectacular weather and scenery, were mountain goats and avalanches. On our first run we came around a corner of rock and found ourselves right above a large (30+) herd of mountain goats. They trotted off to the east but didn't go far, and we kept seeing them throughout the rest of the day.
We saw (and heard) the avalanches while we were relaxing at the low saddle west of Coleman Pinnacle. Looking at a topo map, it appears that they were coming off the ice cliffs at the bottom edge of the Park Glacier where it hangs above what are labeled as Park Cliffs, about 3 miles away from us. We could see ice/snow/slush pouring over the cliffs in massive "waterfalls", and a short time later we could hear deep booms and splating noises. The most impressive thing about these avalanches was that they kept occurring again and again. It would be interesting to know if they had any effect on the level of Park Creek, the drainage into which they were pouring.
Here's a view of the north side of Ptarmigan Ridge, taken from the trail along the south side of Table Mountain:
On the south side of Ptarmigan Ridge there has been a lot of loss of "permanent" snow. The SE aspect ribbons of snow that have in recent years been skiable even in September are already broken. The glacier ice shown on topo maps on the east side of Point 5814 is pretty much gone, and the glacier ice on the northeast side of Point 5847 is now discontinuous patches.
On the north side of Ptarmigan Ridge, we did several runs and toured around on our waxless skis as far as the snow would allow, which wasn't very far. The longest run we could find, from right under the north side of Coleman Pinnacle, was probably only 400 feet. With the warm weather, however, the quality was pretty good, with the small suncups nicely softened.
We skied up to the low saddle west of Coleman Pinnacle and took in the great view of the NE side of Mount Baker. There were a couple of substantial crevasses just north of the saddle, and a few others showing signs of imminent opening in the same area. There were also numerous areas of dirty ice showing. We did a couple of short runs over toward Lasiocarpa Ridge, then skied back to Coleman Pinnacle, did another of the "longest" runs, and then traversed up to the east to see how feasible it would be to travel back toward the car staying on the north side of Ptarmigan Ridge. There was so little snow down where it needed to be that we gave up on that idea and crossed back to the trail where we had left it, on the south side of Ptarmigan Ridge.
The real highlights of the day, aside from the spectacular weather and scenery, were mountain goats and avalanches. On our first run we came around a corner of rock and found ourselves right above a large (30+) herd of mountain goats. They trotted off to the east but didn't go far, and we kept seeing them throughout the rest of the day.
We saw (and heard) the avalanches while we were relaxing at the low saddle west of Coleman Pinnacle. Looking at a topo map, it appears that they were coming off the ice cliffs at the bottom edge of the Park Glacier where it hangs above what are labeled as Park Cliffs, about 3 miles away from us. We could see ice/snow/slush pouring over the cliffs in massive "waterfalls", and a short time later we could hear deep booms and splating noises. The most impressive thing about these avalanches was that they kept occurring again and again. It would be interesting to know if they had any effect on the level of Park Creek, the drainage into which they were pouring.
Here's a view of the north side of Ptarmigan Ridge, taken from the trail along the south side of Table Mountain:
Alright! Thanks Charles. It's nice to see the BP is still looking good.
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