October 24, 2002, Mt. Baker, Coleman Glacier

Well, Ben and I decided to head up to Baker again since it's one of the few areas to get some significant climbing and skiing in this late in the year. We set out for another one day summit attempt under a very clear and cold morning. Noticed some additional crevassing just above 6,000 feet from my last trip there less than 2 weeks ago. Reached the saddle close to 2:00pm since we didn't leave the Hogsback at the snout of the glacier until after 10:00am. We realized conditions were likely not to soften since the freezing level was hovering around 7-8,000', so we decided not to make the slog up the Roman Wall knowing it would likely provide us with bulletproof ski conditions. Sure enough, our ski down the Coleman proved to be the same. We were hoping the several inches Baker received on October 11th would have softened slightly at the lower elevations, providing some corn/powder (the new snow was still quite evident still on the climb up). Still a good trip for late October and a chance to get out with Ben to get in his October turns.