Trip: Mt Baker - North Ridge

Date: 8/23/2008

Trip Report:
Me and a few guys from cc.com headed out to climb the North Ridge of Baker on Friday Evening. We met up at the trailhead a 10:00 PM and crashed in the parking lot until 4:00 AM.
I had heard many people talk about starting between 12:30 AM and 2:00 AM so I was a bit concerned about our late start shortly after 4:00. The trail was nice and easy to follow by headlamp and we ended up at the toe of the glacier after a couple of hours of hiking. We followed an easy boot path to a large shoulder on the glacier and started traversing towards the North Ridge.
The direct, right-hand start looked very threatened by rockfall so we opted for the longer left-hand route around the toe of the ridge. We split into two rope teams and my rope-partner Mike led accross a shrund and up some steep ice slopes. I followed the pitch and left the screws in place for Matt to clip on his way up. When I arrived at the belay I discovered I had two screws to lead the next ice pitch. I ran out the next pitch to the top of the ice cliff and once everybody was on the easier angled section of ridge we began the trudge to the crux ice cliff.
As we neared the ice cliff the slope steepened and made for some nice climbing. We set up a belay at the base of the crux step and Matt led directly up the ice cliff. The ice was very nice and we got nice sticks with nearly every swing. The slope eased off again and we climbed up towards the summit following a boot path heading slightly right of the large seracs guarding the summit. There were a couple nice steep ice steps that we climbed to gain the summit plateau but as me and Mike reached the summit a white-out came down on the summit and the wind started howling. Mike was getting too cold in the wind and basically untied and started down the coleman-deming route to get out of the wind. I waited at the top of the final ice step for Matt and Braydon to catch up and the three of us roped up on the summit and headed down the standard route in the white out and fading light. Once we descended out of the summit whiteout we donned our headlamps and slogged all the way down the coleman glacier. We followed the obvious boot path down to the point where the trail meets the glacier, packed up, and then took a quick break (I actually slept for a few minutes) and then hiked out the trail in the dark. We eventually reached the cars at 2:00 AM, 22 hours after we started. Having four climbers slowed us down a bit in the technical bits and we took a few breaks on the way down but our time seemed a little slow compared to some other TR's I've read (average 19-20 hours) Overall it was a great trip, good partners, great route and decent weather(minus the summit white-out). This was also a neat climb for me because it was my first volcano, 3000m peak, and alpine ice route!










Start of the Route


Me following


Me leading


Matt on the ridge


Crux ice cliff


Matt leading the crux


Braydon following the crux


Climbing high on the route

Nice job. That's a fun route.

I posted the pics that Mike sent me...

Nice job. I really enjoyed the pictures. I'd like to do this route before I get too old and fat. That looks like a cool route.

Badass pic's,crevasses field look's vicious!

Nice tr Marc. I was just about to post it until I saw you already put one up.

yeah, one advantage to having 2 rope teams is one can take pictures while waiting for the others on the technical parts.

You guys rock! I can't wait to get on that route

Well done fellas. I think my partner and i ran into you guys at the trailhead Subday morning on the way out of our failed attempt and as two of you were taking a well deserved rest before driving home.

oh yeah, now i remember. sunday's weather was pretty bad.

Way to go!! Great photography. Someday I want to climb that route.

So my question is - if there were 4 of you, who took that pic in the shot where there are 4 people in the photo and a rope leading out of frame to the cameraman?


Mysterious 5th cameraman?

No mystery, I was the cameraman for this trip. The fourth climber in the picture is roped to his partner who is not pictured behind him and below the crest. They left the TH a little before us, traversed over to ridge, but turned around before the first pitch.

I always thought you travelled perpendicular to crevasses ? I will have to re-read my book

Glad you guys finally found some ice

Cheers

The climber at the end there is my partner and I'm just out of sight. We were on the route too, but my hip was acting up so we ended up turning back - Sorry David

Glad to see you guys had a successful trip. Congrats! Great pictures

Sorry, Matt and David, despite the summit whiteout we didn't get any pictures of it like you asked

because our only camera had run down the other side of the mountain already

oh yeah!

How were the snow conditions / routefinding for you?

Snow conditions were nice.. routefinding is easy with all the boot tracks... even without the tracks it would be fairly easy.

So did you just follow tracks pretty much all the way up?

More or less.... the only parts you have to figure out are the ice sections at the bottom and the crux.

how high did you go in the coleman before you traversed i attempted the north ridge late october, but couldn't get across.

We just hiked up from the camp sites below the glacier and ascended diagonally to a shoulder on the glacier. WE traversed from there.

TR is 'beaut...thx