July 27, 2014, Squak / Easton

Will, Susan, and I had a great time roaming the south/west sides of Baker yesterday.

Left the TH ~8, hit snow just above the Scott Paul Trail, and followed it to Crag View. Hopped on the glacier there (and met a friendly Bellinghammer and a couple hummingbirds), weaving a little to get onto the smooth travel of the Squak.  Things got increasingly broken as we followed our noses and an old downtrack upward. At ~8900', we got blocked by an imposing crevasse, beyond which we would have had a smooth ride to the summit.

Down about 500', and we linked up with a traversing down-track from the Bellingham group that led the way to the Easton route. It's a fun ramble, but may get more complicated with the coming week of heat.  Topped out just before 5pm, and had an enjoyable ski down to the Railroad Grade campsites. It's possible to ski a little lower to the west of the Grade, but we opted to walk in order to minimize shenanigans. 

The recent precip only deposited a few inches of new above 7k, more than a foot in the rare drift. Consolidating heavy pow on the summit, proto-corn and nascent firnspiegel elsewhere.