July 15, 2006, Squak Glacier, Mt.Baker

After an aborted attempt last weekend, Silas Wild was eager to climb Sherman Peak, as it is still on his to-do list and to also ski the entire Squak Glacier. I was eager to ski anywhere since it was likely going to be my only available weekend in July. Sedro Woolley is conveniently near the midpoint between our homes. So we meet there and Silas transfer ed his gear to my vehicle. We found a nice quiet corner in the Schreibers Meadow parking lot where the Explorer made a fine bedroom on wheels.

    We were off and running by 6:20. At least it seemed to me that we were running. Silas thought that he was blocking me and I was scrambling to keep up to him. We hit the continuous snow at a point slightly higher than was reported last week, but the suncups did not look as bad as they had been described 7 days earlier. The cold,wet weather between had smoothed out the snow and had even given fresh snow to the top of the mountain. The forecasted mostly sunny weather was slow in developing. Our views were limited and constantly changing. Well, that was the price that we paid for very comfortable climbing temperatures.

  Photo 1 - Silas climbing around 7,000'
  Photo 2 - Bob at the crevasse that topped us
  Photo 3 - Sils in the nice snow around 8,000'


    We started hitting crevasses around 7,000', but it wasn't until 8,700' or so that we were stymied  by a long, horizontal gap. It appeared that it could be passed by travelling through a crevasse field to climber's right. However, with only two of us, rescues would have been difficult. Besides, my crevasse skills are limited and I had promised my wife that I wouldn't do anything foolish. The opening seemed to stretch forever to the climber's left, so we deskinned and began our descent in decent snow conditions. After a drop of 700' or more, we noticed that a track was visible on the left side of our obstacle. Various body parts had been complining earlier, so I have to admit that I was not very open to the idea of retracing our steps. We had made pretty good time during the morning so we probably could have made the summit sometime after 3. Sorry, Silas; you will have to bag that peak another day.


    We enjoyed our turns; Silas with heels fixed and my heels set free. We contempted crossing over to the Easton, where we could see climbers returning from Baker summit. We had the Squak entirely to ourselves. We came to the conclusion that we could probably ski lower by staying in the trees below the Squak. Although there was some heather and fir involved, we did not take off our skis until we bottomed out in a creek around 4,100'. A few hundred feet of bushwhacking later we were on the Scott Paul trail and a half hour from the car.