Baker, Coleman/Deming 5/29

On monday we were wondering if we should have listened to the weatherman as we drove up the Glacier Cr. Road into the fog (access was good all the way to the TH).  We left the trail shortly after the first bridge, traveled up Grouse Creek and hit snow 500 feet thereafter.  We continued up the creek but took a left at the first major side drainage without trees in it.  This put us quickly up on the north trending arm of Heliotrope ridge....and up out of the fog to a gorgeous view. We continued up the ridge briefly and made camp on a small saddle at about 6,200 ft.  The following morning we set out at the ambitious hour of 8 o'clock, which actually worked out quite nicely.  The surficial snow had softened up just enough to make the skinning pleasant.  The only time we had to remove our skis was in order to cross the large icefall off of Colfax Peak.  The Coleman glacier had very few open crevasses along our route.  We hopped onto the Deming and booted up the Roman Wall with no need for crampons. 
We hung out on the summit until about 2 and then had a marvelous ski off the top.  The snow on the Roman Wall was a 4-5 inch layer of creamy stuff on top of a firm base with odd patches of thin crusty ice here and there... But it was still very enjoyable skiing. 
Once we crossed the pumice ridge and got back onto the Coleman Glacier at about 9,400 the cream turned to more of a corn.  At this point the skiing got really good and remained as such the whole way down the mountain (5 inches, or so, of nice soft stuff on a firm base), to my great surprise.  We skied out via the way we approached.
Marvelous day with nice views and good company.  Thanks to Pred for getting his priorities straight and skipping work on tues.