May 26, 2018, Mt. Baker, Squak Glacier
5/26/18
WA Cascades West Slopes North (Mt Baker)
2085
2
Haven't seen a Baker report in a while so figured I'd post some info on conditions.
- You can drive to a 10-15 minute walk from the Schreiber's Meadows trailhead. Continuous snow from where you hit snow on the road.
- After leaving the meadows, we followed the route up the creek basin. Lots of rocks showing but if you stay to the right, you can find continuous snow until the creek crossing just before the two creeks merge into one. There are no snow bridges across the creek but a short rock hop gets you where you want to go. Once skis are on above the crossing, they don't need to come off again until very high on the mountain if you opt to boot up the Roman Wall.
- There was a good, solid freeze overnight on Friday despite the forecast of high freezing levels.
- The Squak is well filled in right now but the crevasse around 9,000 ft is starting to open up. The bridges across it are still pretty solid but if the warm weather continues, not clear how long that will be the case. Several crevasses above that as one heads to the base of Sherman Peak but these were all easily avoided.
- A large crevasse is opening up across the Roman Wall, halfway up the wall. It's possible to go hard right on your way up and bypass crossing it altogether. On the ski down, there's a large gap between crevasses in the middle of the wall allowing a straight forward route down.
- The Roman Wall did not soften up today as high clouds came in on the otherwise sunny day up high and the winds remained high all day. Below 9,000 ft, things softened up nicely and didn't get overcooked as there were clouds over the lower mountain for much of the day after the early morning.
- Right now, with old ski tracks and lots of snow machine tracks, it's hard to find nice clean lines down in a lot of areas.
- You can drive to a 10-15 minute walk from the Schreiber's Meadows trailhead. Continuous snow from where you hit snow on the road.
- After leaving the meadows, we followed the route up the creek basin. Lots of rocks showing but if you stay to the right, you can find continuous snow until the creek crossing just before the two creeks merge into one. There are no snow bridges across the creek but a short rock hop gets you where you want to go. Once skis are on above the crossing, they don't need to come off again until very high on the mountain if you opt to boot up the Roman Wall.
- There was a good, solid freeze overnight on Friday despite the forecast of high freezing levels.
- The Squak is well filled in right now but the crevasse around 9,000 ft is starting to open up. The bridges across it are still pretty solid but if the warm weather continues, not clear how long that will be the case. Several crevasses above that as one heads to the base of Sherman Peak but these were all easily avoided.
- A large crevasse is opening up across the Roman Wall, halfway up the wall. It's possible to go hard right on your way up and bypass crossing it altogether. On the ski down, there's a large gap between crevasses in the middle of the wall allowing a straight forward route down.
- The Roman Wall did not soften up today as high clouds came in on the otherwise sunny day up high and the winds remained high all day. Below 9,000 ft, things softened up nicely and didn't get overcooked as there were clouds over the lower mountain for much of the day after the early morning.
- Right now, with old ski tracks and lots of snow machine tracks, it's hard to find nice clean lines down in a lot of areas.
Nice,
Thank you for reporting. Did you do it in one day or did you overnight? How long do you think the approach following the creek will last?
Thank you for reporting. Did you do it in one day or did you overnight? How long do you think the approach following the creek will last?
author=ps44 link=topic=40750.msg161869#msg161869 date=1527533124]
Nice,
Thank you for reporting. Did you do it in one day or did you overnight? How long do you think the approach following the creek will last?
We did a day trip. Left the car around 7:20AM. Hard to say how long the approach will last via the creek. The creek crossing itself wasn't a big problem. It's more whether there's enough snow to stay on skis above and below that crossing rather than walking. It was pretty thin in spots in the lower part of that section. Above the creek crossing, the coverage was more solid.
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