[TR] Mt Baker- Squak Glacier/Roman Wall 6/19/2004

[dkemp]

Climb: Mt Baker-Squak Glacier/Roman Wall

 

Date of Climb: 6/19/2004

 

Trip Report:

First Bushwhacker Climbing Club course climb! This is the big climax of the class, and everything went great. Six students, two assistants and one instructor (thats me).

 

The nine of us practiced crevasse rescue on Friday. Nice crack - not as wide as I'd like but plenty deep enough to make the point that you dont wanna fall in there. They also learned how difficult it can be to communicate in the wind.

 

Beautiful day for climbing on Saturday. We kicked steps up to about 8k, then cramponed nicely to the summit.

 

On the descent of the Roman Wall a student in the middle of the third rope team misstepped into a crack. She shouted falling! and went down to her thighs. I dont think it was wide enough for her to really go down in there, but anyway the student at the rear pounced into team arrest while the student below moved downhill to make the rope more taut. Way to go!

 

On the way down from camp we had clear skies, which made it kind of hard to confuse them with navigational challenges. Nevertheless, I got "lost" lots of times and they successfully used map & compass to get me down the hill to the car.

 

For the students, lots of "firsts". First time on a glacier, first time on crampons, first time blue-bagging, first time lighting a camp stove, ...

 

Section 1 up and down - Section 2 comin' up next week! Course is a wrap on Tuesday evening June 29. Dang, we're almost done!

Doxey

 

 

Gear Notes:

used crampons going up, wish we had snowshoes for the way down.

[slothrop]