[TR] Mt. Baker - North Ridge 06/01/2019

[kmfoerster]

Trip: Mt. Baker - North Ridge

Trip Date: 06/01/2019

Trip Report:

 

 

 

Yesterday my friend and I climbed the north ridge of Mt. Baker in an 11 hour single push. Camped at the trail head Friday night and managed to maybe get 1.5 hours of sleep. Other cars we coming and going all hours of the night. Woke up at 2am and started hiking up shortly after. The trail has some snow up high as you near the tree line, but is either compact or firm if you go in the morning. Stream crossings were easy. We skinned from just above the tree line to just before the base of the north ridge. We did not rope up for the glacier travel as the snow was very solid. We started booting once we had to cross a narrow but solid snow bridge. We took the broad gully up to the base of the ice cliff and took a AI3/3+ pitch to gain the upper ridge. From there the conditions were very cruiser (AI2 and steep to moderate snow) and in no time were were at the summit. we stopped to eat, repack some things and get ready for the ski down. The upper section of the CD route was firm and didn't end up skiing much of that, switched back to booting after a bit. Started skiing again at the col between Baker and Colfax. Great skiing conditions from there back to the trail. Crevasses on the CD were very easy to navigate through/avoid as you just had to follow the bootpack.

Gear Notes:
Two pickets (used one) and six screws 2x16cm and 4x13cm

Approach Notes:
heliotrope ridge trail

Edited June 3, 2019 by kmfoerster

[genepires]

I had heard of some big ice fall activity on the Buttes.  ice fall crossing over the uptrack.  Your last photo looks like ice fall that stayed near the cliff itself.  Did you see any other big icefall?

 

[kmfoerster]

1 hour ago, genepires said:

I had heard of some big ice fall activity on the Buttes.  ice fall crossing over the uptrack.  Your last photo looks like ice fall that stayed near the cliff itself.  Did you see any other big icefall?

 

Didn't see any other major icefall. I don't think there was any debris over the bootpack/up track at any point. The one in my last photo the debris was still pretty far from the up track at its closest point, maybe somewhere around 50yds away? 

[JasonG]

I've definitely seen it go well beyond the uptrack (100s of yds) over the years!

Nice style, that is on my list to do it that way