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Trip: Mt. Baker - North Ridge Trip Date: 06/27/2018 Trip Report: Hey everyone, relatively new to cc. So far I have just been lurking and using the TR database for planning but I feel like it's time to add some content and write my first TR; so here it goes, hopefully it's not too bad. Michael and I drove up Tuesday afternoon to the TH and hike up to the hogsback and set up our camp for the night. We realized that we were going to have the North Ridge to ourselves as the only other party on the mountain was heading up the Coleman-Deming. The Coleman is in good condition and route finding was pretty straight forward and soon enough we were at the base of the ridge. We took the upper variation to get to the ice pitch. Here I racked up and off I went, it had been a couple months since I had last swung my tools so I was a little nervous. After the first 20 ft I got into my groove, the nerves went away and I started to have a lot of fun! I set up a belay a little bit before we got off of the ice and brought Michael up. From there I ran it out a full seventy meters before setting up one last belay on a couple of pickets. Once Michael got up to me we decided to simul-climb the rest of the way. We kept pretty close to the ridge crest, and after some fun climbing we crossed the schrund and were on the summit plateau. The group that had climbed the Coleman-Deming had already summited so we had the summit to ourselves for the ten or so minutes that we were up there. We sped down to our camp, drank our celebratory summit beer and took a quick nap. We packed up and started the hike out to the car, and then drove back to Bellingham to go to Kulshan Brewing. This route is awesome and truly deserves it's status as a classic. I am super stoked to have been able to knock it off my tick list! Gear Notes: 6 ice screws and 3 pickets Approach Notes: Coleman glacier still in pretty good conditions.

This route needs a direct start and finish. There are a lot of high quality pitches (more than Serpentine Arete IMHO) but also a lot of 4th class and one really, really, really unpleasant pitch. Following the ridge crest the entire way would eliminate those sections. Also, Ice Cliff Arete needs a direct start. Anybody want to do some adventurous rock climbing?

I've used the semi-steel version of these (Irvis Hybrid) on Wy'east with ski boots (set up as step-in) and on East Wilmans Spire with hiking boots (set up as strap-on). They performed really well with the ski boots and were less than ideal with hiking boots. That has more to do with the hiking boots, though a stiffer crampon probably would have been better. With a rigid boot you'll probably be okay, but if it's icy the AL won't grip as well and if it's too mushy you'll have balling issues (although you mentioned you're planning on getting the anti-balling plates).