pbongaarts

Thanks for the beta! It worked! Original post is updated.

Despite record heat this past weekend, the North Ridge of Mt. Baker was climbable. Another party climbing the route with us had extra time on Saturday and they had put in a good boot track through the crevasse field. Several of the crossings were a bit sketchy, but not terrible The bergschrund to start the route (i.e., "higher ridge start" as labeled in the S.Abegg beta) was starting to break up, but was still navigable with a bit of exposed traversing. Not sure how much longer this will be the case. Some point release slides were seen on the open slope to climbers right. Generally speaking, the snow conditions from 7k-9k was a 1-2cm crust on top of 1F-4F clustered melt forms. Above the Ice Cliff it was much firmer (i.e., vertical pickets were more convincing). The approach to the Ice Cliff itself ended up having crevasses towards the top that prevented easy access to the "left" ice pitches (it is steeper than it looks in the photo). We climbed the "right" ice pitch, and belayed from the climbers left side of the large rock outcrop. The climbing was one full rope length (60m) to the top. This included about 25m of dirty half crappy ice/half loose rock, and 35m of reasonable fun alpine ice that I felt went at AI2. Surprisingly, the pitch still took screws. We used 6 total (3 for the crap traverse, 2 for the ice, and 1 for the belay on top). There was only one other slightly questionable (melting out) crossing at the end of the route, as you cross over onto the final approach to the false summit. APPROACH Early season approach on snow is still in up to the ridge GEAR 6 screws (longer ones) 4 pickets 1 tech tool + 1 hybrid (e.g., Venom), the straight shaft was really nice for the 45 degree slopes!

Nice concise TR. It was great running into you guys on the route. Here's a shot of you guys simuling just after the gendarme. Cheers!