Steve climbing the Hogsback Ridge
When discussing possible weekend trips, Steve suggested that the Coleman-Deming route on Mount Baker would make a nice training climb. Steve had completed the route twice before, but never this late in the season. I had wanted to climb Baker since our attempt via the North Ridge two years ago. The weekend forecast, mostly sunny and 0% chance of precipitation, settled it - we would go to Baker. We left the trailhead at 11:30 AM and made our way to the Hogsback, arriving in a little under two hours. We saw a few scattered tents among the many campsites at the Hogsback and thought briefly of making camp there, but decided it would be fun to get out on the glacier and camp beneath the Black Buttes. After scrambling up wet slabs to snowline at about 6000', we roped up for the Coleman glacier. We snaked around some small crevasses before reaching the small rock outcropping where the glacier levels out at 6500'. A loud boom caught our attention, and we watched as a large icefall avalanche ripped down the north face. Moments later, we ran into a friendly young couple who mentioned that they were contemplating climbing the Coleman Headwall. We were a bit surprised since the route is presently segmented by three huge crevasses and has a non-trivial approach. They also wanted to know about potential other routes, so Steve suggested that the North Ridge would make a nice climb, though one would need to be careful crossing over to the base of the route. We were the first campers to arrive at the Black Buttes, so we had our choice of locations. The views of Baker and the surrounding countryside were spectacular and more than made up for the occasional smell that wafted from the toilets located upwind of the campsite. We melted water for the next day, had a nice dinner of veggie chili, and then settled in for the evening. A party of eight climbers from Vancouver arrived around 7 PM, so we ended up with some company. It was a different sort of experience to be camped so close to others.
We woke up to the alarm at 2:45 AM and slowly got ready for the climb. It took us a bit longer than expected to get all our gear ready and we left camp at about 3:50 AM. We could see the headlamps of a party of four climbers about 1000' higher on the glacier, and several parties ascending the lower Coleman glacier. The night was very still with a three-quarter moon. Walking across the glacier at night is always a bit otherworldly. We made several end-runs around some large crevasses, but really only encountered one snow bridge that would warrant close inspection on the way down. It seemed not bad for mid-August glacier travel. I set a slow but steady pace and we reached the saddle at 9000' at about 6:30 AM. Steve's ankle was hurting so we decided to take a long break. We thought about turning around, but Steve wanted to go up further. We slowly made our way up a snow ramp (partially ablated down to bare ice), then onto the aptly-named Pumice Ridge. By now, a number of parties, including half of the Canadian group, had caught up to us. There was a collegial atmosphere as we all hiked up the ridge and then took a break at the base of the Roman Wall. A few of the Canadian group were curious about our gear so we explained about ice screws and pickets, and how they are useful for crevasse rescue. Steve thought his ankle would hold up OK, so we geared up and lengthened our rope interval as a few other parties set off climbing. We traversed left around a crevasse at about one-third of the way up and took a line along the left edge of the slope. I liked the security of climbing with both my axe and ice tool, especially for the short icy sections, and was glad we had brought the tool on this trip. We took a break in the moat about halfway up and waited for some others to top out. The wall never got above 40 degrees, but I placed a couple of screws up higher for practice. We reached the top of the wall at 9:30 AM. After a short break, we made our way over to Grant Peak and arrived at the summit at 10 AM. The small summit was packed full of people who had climbed the Coleman-Deming and the Easton-Squak routes. We also ran into the friendly young couple from the day before, who had apparently cooled on the headwall. The views were great, especially of Mount Shuksan. We took some photos and started back down. I was feeling pretty tired at this point and wanted to rest a bit, so we had another long break at the top of the Roman Wall. When there was finally a lull in people traffic, we started down. Steve decided to take a line down the middle of the wall and placed a couple of pickets (on the now sun-warmed face) and screws. I followed, face-in down-climbing for most of the way. The rest of the descent also went smoothly and slowly and we arrived at the tent at 3:30 PM. I felt thoroughly roasted by the sun while on the glacier so was happy to be back in the shade at our campsite. Both of us had blistered toes so we decided to have a short nap. We are getting old and I don't mind saying it felt good to rest. We packed up and descended the glacier, arriving at snowline at 6:30 PM. We made our way through the campsites towards the Hogsback, filling up on water and stripping layers. On the way down we saw something rather curious - a fat little marmot was laying belly-down on the top of a snow patch like it was about to launch itself downhill nose-first. We were hungry so we didn't linger to find out. We reached the trailhead at 8:45 PM. The day was capped with a greasy dinner at Applebee's in Bellingham. It was a fun climb on a gorgeous weather weekend. We were both very pleased that Steve's femur fracture had healed well enough for him to complete this climb.
Steve climbing the Hogsback Ridge
Alpenglow on Mount Baker
Elain walking towards the true summit
Elain and Steve on the summit
Elain descending the glacier