June 18, 2006, Baker- watsons traverse

Left the trailhead at 5:30am. Trail up towards heliotrope ridge mostly snow free until treeline.  Got up above the clouds by the time we hit the Coleman glacier and the clouds kinda chased us up the mountain the rest of the way.  Coverage on the Coleman is excellent, no sketchy snowbridges on the route.
Topped out around noon and took a peek over at the Park headwall, still a cornice across most of the top of the park headwall so not wanting to practice our 'huck' skills onto icy snow above the park headwall's hungry crevasse, we just opted for the tamer Boulder glacier descent to access the Park glacier.  Stayed tight to the crumbly cliffs above the boulder glacier as we worked our way around.  Snaked around a couple big slots on a solid snowbridge to access the Park glacier...I think it was almost the exact same ramp I'd skied two years earlier doing this trip.
We traversed high towards the far north edge of the Park glacier and descended.  Relatively straightforward crevasse navigation and the snow was pretty decent corn up high, maybe 6" of still quite skiable mashed potatoes lower down.  Skied roped up for maybe 200vf at a roll-over midway down cause we couldn't tell if we were heading for a crevasse or not.
The clouds were swirling all around but we only had a few short periods of poor visibility and the rain held off where we were all day.
Had to throw the skins on for a short climb at the Portals, then we could shuffle all the way to Table Mtn without skins, a short ski carry (some managed to shuffle uphill w/out skins) to Artist Point and then more turns to the car.  About 10 1/2 hours to do the traverse...though I think the faster members of our party (not me) could've shaved an hour or more off that time.

The Park should be good for a while still and theres plenty of snow on the ridge towards the ski area...go get it!


descending towards sherman crater

upper park glacier

looking back at the park glacier