June 25, Mt. Baker, Coleman-Demming
6/15/06
WA Cascades West Slopes North (Mt Baker)
2316
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Alex and I had a nice ride down the Coleman route on Sunday. We camped Saturday night on one of the rock islands at about 5800 feet and were treated to an amazing sunset. Wow!
It was pretty hot, but a little breeze kept things nice and mild. We got to the summit plateau at around 11 and took a little nap. We waited until 12:30 to head down the Roman Wall (there were four other skiers who headed down at noon). It was a still pretty firm in the steeper sections, but just about perfect and definitely the highlight of the ride down; the bottom section was cruiser corn. The pumice ridge required a little rock (and climber) avoidance and a minor shuffle over to the other side. Just beyond the saddle and over a roll-over is a huge crevasse on the left (where the nice smooth snow is); it's easily avoidable, but snuck up on me. We surfed the glop as best as we could to about 7900 ft, where we roped up and walked over a solid, narrow snowbridge. More shallow angle glop to the other side of the flats, where the last slope down to camp was outstanding, despite some runnelling.
I neglected to charge the camera battery before this trip and it ran out of juice (despite my assurances to my wife that it would be fine ::)), so no action shots, but here's another scenic shot on the way down.
Perfect weather, perfect company, manageable sunburn; gotta luv it.
It was pretty hot, but a little breeze kept things nice and mild. We got to the summit plateau at around 11 and took a little nap. We waited until 12:30 to head down the Roman Wall (there were four other skiers who headed down at noon). It was a still pretty firm in the steeper sections, but just about perfect and definitely the highlight of the ride down; the bottom section was cruiser corn. The pumice ridge required a little rock (and climber) avoidance and a minor shuffle over to the other side. Just beyond the saddle and over a roll-over is a huge crevasse on the left (where the nice smooth snow is); it's easily avoidable, but snuck up on me. We surfed the glop as best as we could to about 7900 ft, where we roped up and walked over a solid, narrow snowbridge. More shallow angle glop to the other side of the flats, where the last slope down to camp was outstanding, despite some runnelling.
I neglected to charge the camera battery before this trip and it ran out of juice (despite my assurances to my wife that it would be fine ::)), so no action shots, but here's another scenic shot on the way down.
Perfect weather, perfect company, manageable sunburn; gotta luv it.
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