October 21, 2006, Coleman Deming, Mt. Baker

Not having had our October fun yet, Joe E and I headed for the CD on Baker on Saturday.  Bellingham SAR group was at the trailhead and we met the advance SAR team at the toe of the glacier.  Apparently a climber had fallen in a crevasse on Friday afternoon and was thought to have possible femur fracture.  It was probably a mightly cold night in the crevasse.  As the day progressed helicopter (s?) were buzzing lower down for several hours.  Hope the climber is ok.  The section of glacier up to the rock buttress on Heliotrope Ridge (prior to grade easing off) was indeed very hard.  Routefinding like David Coleman reported one week earlier was not hard.  Went left towards middle of glacier after the flat area below the overnight camp spots by the ridge.  Some windings, but pretty much straight up to the col from there.  Got to around 9,400 on the ridge and an avalanche came off the top of the Roman wall,  probably caused by sun heating the snow higher up.  It was moving slowly, but we decided it was a good sign to turn back.  Went back to the col and traversed right side of ridge up Colefax.  Got stopped by a good size yawner filled with windblown new snow.  Decided not to risk it and went up loose rock on left side.  That is one crumbly pile of sh.. rock!  Headed down late in the afternoon around 3:30 pm to allow possibly, maybe, perhaps, some sort of softening.  It was OK, found some good patches of softer, some harder, some breakable crust, but October is done.  Good company, good day, good times.  Tons of garlic on the house meat at the NorthFork!!