May 5-6, Mt. Baker, Heliotrope/Coleman approach
5/15/07
WA Cascades West Slopes North (Mt Baker)
1452
0
After working late Friday night, Kevin, Frank and I decided to try to avoid the crowds at Rainier and got a very late start, arriving at the de-facto parking zone about a mile short of the log cabin bathrooms around 2:00 PM. Skinning up the road was easy, with one short section over grass. We took one look at the muddy summer trail toward the Coleman Glacier/Heliotrope Ridge Trail and decided to follow the skin tracks out past the bathrooms and through the forest, crossed the creek skis on over a three log bridge, and followed a straight and at times steep skin track up the avalanche path. Three skiers coming down looked quite satisfied with their day of skiing. Topped out at around 6,400 and began the slowly ascending traverse to rejoin the standard climbing route - the weather at this point seemed promising (see first two pictures) and we set up camp at the normal site in the shadow of the rock wall. No toilets yet, so make use of the one at the trailhead if you can.
The weather closed in before dark, with light snow and mist falling during the night, and 100 yd. visibility in the morning. No one was especially inspired to get out of their bivies, but we finally got going around 8:00 AM following the snowshoe tracks of the only two other people to go above 7,000 ft. on Sunday (there was a large group of climbers camped about 600 ft. below us, but apparently they decided not to continue).
Unfortunately the weather deteriorated quickly above 8,000 ft. - we met the two climbers coming down, who said they ran into "zero" visibility and heard sounds of falling snow or ice. Visibility soon went from 50 to 10, while the wind went from 10 to 50. We followed GPS waypoints up to around 9,100 ft., somewhere on the ridge separating the Coleman from the Deming, I think, where the snow became ugly wind-packed sastrugi and decided to bail.
Not being able to see Jacksh*t, we skied roped down to where the visibility improved a bit on the open snowfields above camp (4mph stem turns while whipping the rope back and forth like a water skier to avoid skiing over it), then unclipped and skied with a 20 meter rope tail to camp.
The temperature had warmed quite a bit since Saturday, and the still smooth slopes below 7,000 ft. had turned to very sticky mank; skiable but difficult with heavy packs. We made a mistake descending below tree level (stay skier's left of the two creeks as the avalanche path narrows) but the ski out was a big improvement over hiking.
The weather closed in before dark, with light snow and mist falling during the night, and 100 yd. visibility in the morning. No one was especially inspired to get out of their bivies, but we finally got going around 8:00 AM following the snowshoe tracks of the only two other people to go above 7,000 ft. on Sunday (there was a large group of climbers camped about 600 ft. below us, but apparently they decided not to continue).
Unfortunately the weather deteriorated quickly above 8,000 ft. - we met the two climbers coming down, who said they ran into "zero" visibility and heard sounds of falling snow or ice. Visibility soon went from 50 to 10, while the wind went from 10 to 50. We followed GPS waypoints up to around 9,100 ft., somewhere on the ridge separating the Coleman from the Deming, I think, where the snow became ugly wind-packed sastrugi and decided to bail.
Not being able to see Jacksh*t, we skied roped down to where the visibility improved a bit on the open snowfields above camp (4mph stem turns while whipping the rope back and forth like a water skier to avoid skiing over it), then unclipped and skied with a 20 meter rope tail to camp.
The temperature had warmed quite a bit since Saturday, and the still smooth slopes below 7,000 ft. had turned to very sticky mank; skiable but difficult with heavy packs. We made a mistake descending below tree level (stay skier's left of the two creeks as the avalanche path narrows) but the ski out was a big improvement over hiking.
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