Home > Trip Reports > July 13/14, Squak Gl, Mt Baker

July 13/14, Squak Gl, Mt Baker

7/13/16
WA Cascades West Slopes North (Mt Baker)
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Posted by Kenji on 7/15/16 2:21pm
Did my annual Baker trip though the last one was 3 years ago.  The snow starts above 5k though the last 1k was a little bumpy for coming down.  Camped at Crag View, had a fun evening run on soft snow from ~7500' around 7:30pm. 

A late alpine start at 8am, the snow was still crunchy.  Squak is in a good shape, just be careful in a whiteout.  Above 8500', I followed foot path going West around the Ice Fall thinking they must have known where they were going.  But that ended up at a dead end over a big crevasse, i should have gone straight up.  That was my turn around point of the day, skiing was good for 3k down to the trail.  Roman Wall looked pretty smooth without any big features.







A few more pics here.
Your photos are always amazing, Kenji. I like the star picture.

I also looked at your smugmug photos. What kind of tele set-up are you using? Looks like a duck-butt with pin toes. I use the TTS system with pin toes and a heel spring. I haven't seen your system before.

Aha, that was you! We saw your afternoon tracks in the morning and then you skinning up solo. I did think the boot pack traversed off in the wrong direction, we went up straight to Sherman Peak. The skiing was better than expected. Beautiful shots Kenji! Next time I hope to say hi!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/runningclouds/albums/72157671113834575


Hey Mike,

I believe Kenji's skiing the Meidjo binding.  I've been watching that one for the last season.  Lots of chatter about it on the Earn Your Turns site...  Tempting.

-Dave

Mike and Dave:

I've been using Meidjo bindings for a few seasons.  But those in the photo are home-made prototype functions like Meidjo.  So far, so good.  I'll post some pics and info sometime, soon.

Martin:

I saw you guys above the ice fall. Since you were heading up toward Sherman Peak, I thought those foot paths were to the summit.  I'll follow your way next time!

author=mikerolfs link=topic=36728.msg149603#msg149603 date=1468687278]
I also looked at your smugmug photos. What kind of tele set-up are you using? Looks like a duck-butt with pin toes


This was super confusing for a few minutes. What type of tele-photo lens has anything that looks like a duck-butt ?? :)

Great photos as always - thanks for sharing

Erik

We summited Sherman & Grant via the Squak Glacier yesterday (7/24).  We used this report and runningcloud's photos as beta, but were a bit confused about the description of the icefall above 8500'.  We headed left around the a large icefall right below 8000' but other than that didn't run into any issues.  There were a few small cracks but nothing impassable.  The roman wall similarly had some crevasses starting to form but nothing major.  We did experience some major sloughing on the Roman wall when we came down around 12pm but past that was beautiful skiing all the way down to the trail (5300').  Only saw 2 other skiers on the squak all day (few on the summit were headed down the CD).

Photos here: https://goo.gl/photos/69rUa8GQiMouazg79

Great pics! It was nice to meet you guys up there. Runningclouds and I are the two you're talking about. But don't call me a skier :)

Nice meeting you all, it is a small world, or as someone on the summit said: это маленький мир!
I will post a bigger version to my Flickr later.


The skiing was still pretty good this weekend (23-24 July) but the glacier is not as smooth as 10 days ago, largely due to rain. As mentioned there was significant sloughing on the South portion of Roman Wall at noon. In my view this was because there is still unconsolidated water soaked layer that will benefit from few days of melt/freeze. It might get better soon.

Nice to meet fellow skiers at the summit!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/runningclouds/albums/72157671467205476

Kaston - Ha! Didn't know you'd be reading my post. I'll get it right next time :)

Martin - Funny to think I was using you post and photos as beta all while camping right next to you.  You took some awesome photos!

Did you guys manage to find any tasty food on the way back? We stopped at Bob's Burgers & Brew in Burlington.

Hope to run into you both again.

I suppose I am a skier for most of the day :)

Here's my contribution to the photodump: https://flic.kr/s/aHskDWPkxZ.

My favourite shots of Martin:











We saw that Bob's, but ended up stopping at another burger joint in Bellingham. It hit the spot!

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