Mount Baker

May 14-15, 2024. Via Coleman-Deming Route.

Growing up in Vancouver I have looked up at Baker my whole life, it seems natural to want to climb it. It has been on my list for years, but never quite happened. With a cruiser itinerary spending the night up there we skipped the eye watering alpine start that seems to be popular with the day trip crowd. We started moving from the trailhead at 11am. Gratefully the road washout that blocked Heliotrope Trailhead last year had been repaired for this season. We were expecting to be able to skin from the trailhead and started off in our ski boots. Unfortunately, we had to boot the first hour along the trail till about 1400m where we found consistent snow.

In less than 5 hours we found ourselves at Black Butte Camp. A stunning place to spend the night with views of Mount Baker. With plenty of time left in the day we basked on the glacier and cooked up some cous cous for dinner. Sitting in camp we heard a loud roar from the summit, looking over we saw a size 3 avalanche rush down the north face beneath the ice fall. We packed in for an early night, and I bundled up in all my layers and a summer weight down quilt.

The next morning, we set off from camp at 6am. Clouds shrouded the summit. We skinned up the glacier on a crunchy melt freeze crust. We passed a couple parties that had turned around due to the poor vis and high winds. For the final ridge and Roman Wall, we transitioned to crampons and started booting up. Gale force winds gusted as we booted up, catching the skis on our back like a sail and regularly bringing us to our knees.

When we arrived to the summit, we were welcomed by a 30 second gap in the clouds where we had a gorgeous view of the North Cascades. The clouds quickly rolled in once again. Transitioning on the summit was a battle against the winds. Nothing seemed off limits from its grasp, I even stabbed my light aluminum crampons into the snow for fear that the wind could rip them away.

Skiing down was marginal and icy with mixed vis. Being an amazingly popular route moguls had even started to form on a few sections of the descent. Back down to Coleman Glacier the snow had softened up and had some fantastic turns back down to our camp where we had stashed our camping gear. Down at Black Buttes it was sunny and completely calm, a stark contrast from the summit we had just descended from. We continued skiing back down to treeline and booted out to the cars for a fairly modest day of 7.5 hours. All in all a spectacular day and about 1800m of continuous ski descent.