[TR] Mt. Baker "Blown Off Baker"- CD route attempt 5/21/2005

[BelaySlave]

Climb: Mt. Baker "Blown Off Baker"-CD route attempt

 

Date of Climb: 5/21/2005

 

Trip Report:

IceIceBaby, Ondra picked me up at 7a.m. in Everett and we were hiking by 10a.m. No real snow untill last creek crossing below 6000'. A group comming down said they had no snow untill the glacier going up on Friday. Ondra was a mule, makeing great time and always waiting for my self and IceIceBaby.

Made it to the base of the buttes by 4p.m. then the wind picked up real bad. There was already 12 or so at the buttes so we picked a drift further East towards Colfax. IIB got out of the tent just a few times to guy the tent in the early a.m. I got out once twice in 12 hours. Now thats what I call a wilderness experience. Woke up at 5:30 to the tent under 18 inches of freshiez. Ondra spent the night in a BIVY!! A STUD!! The big party of 12 must have left in the night. IceIceBaby said he heard them in the dark, yelling. There were no boot tracks at 5:30. Saw 2 on skis going up in the morning just at the toe of the glacier.

Thanks for driving Neri! We will climb again soon.

 

Gear Notes:

Usual glacier gear. Used it all.....to keep the tent down.

[thelawgoddess]

sweet. it's still winter somewhere!

[John_Scurlock]

http://www.pbase.com/nolock/image/43881817

 

From late yesterday (5/24/05) -- it was obvious that the wind was abolutely screaming across this mt., also at Glacier pk. Those poor chaps at Muir were pinned against the anvil IMHO.

 

Sorry about the link. One of these days this commodore 64 is goin' out the window...

[ashw_justin]

Hey nice picture, we skied right there off of Sherman on the left on May 12, and it looks like there is at least as much snow up there now.

 

[ashw_justin]

whoa

that's an avy

 

http://www.pbase.com/nolock/image/42292868

[John_Scurlock]

That scar was still visible yesterday. There were new slabs coming off everywhere, Baker & other pks. This morning I was over at Spider and could see foot & ski tracks into Kool Aid Lk, a big slab coming down covering them about mid-way back to Cache col. There's a few fat cornices perched still as well, in various places.

[BelaySlave]

I have no idea how to get my pics from the gallery to my post, so I will just let you all know there are a few pics of our trip last weekend there.

[enem]

john, this kind of information is very very valuable and impossible to get otherwise! (and your pics of the n cascades in winter absoutely amazing!)

 

now this is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but if you reported regularly what you saw during your flights and started some sort of subscription service for access to that information, you would have no shortage of customers!! just advertise of on cc.com and turns-all-year and voila...

[ashw_justin]

No, I think I speak for the turns-all-year crowd that we are too cheap and too homegrown to respond to advertisements and subscriptions. Plus I don't get the feeling that Mr. Scurlock is in this for the money. He cleary has a passion for the mountains, and is nice enough to share that with us. My thanks.

 

Looks like you can also order prints of any of his photos. I think I will do so next time my pockets are feeling heavy.

[fenderfour]

...The big party of 12 must have left in the night. IceIceBaby said he heard them in the dark, yelling. There were no boot tracks at 5:30. ...

 

The party of 12 was from the Boealps Basic Class. A couple of tents were destroyed by the wind, so they stumbled out with the help of a GPS. It was a great intro to "weather" for the budding climbers.

[IceIceBaby]

A little too late but here is my take on the trip

I was on baker the W/E of 5/21-22 and around 4:00 pm on Saturday, it all started. We just were at the end of the Heliotrope ridge, as the wind started to pick up around 2:15 pm but we thought that it wasn’t that bad so we continued on. Around 3:00 pm, we were leaning toward the wind in order to stay on the west Colman glacier as we making our way toward 7500 feet. The original plan of camping below the saddle was scraped as we found a seemingly refuge at the rocks outcrops in front of Lincoln peak. We dug a site and set up the tent, quick dinner and water melt and we went in to sleep, it was 4:45 pm. the tent was shaking like a piñata in the middle of Mexico City on El Dia de los Muertos. Needless to say, I couldn’t sleep as the noise was of a Sherman tank on full throttle. At midnight, I finally gave up and went outside to stake the tent down securely and the noise seems to subside a little. around 4:00 am, I woke up to my partner vigorous kicking of the tent wall and realize that the wind buried us half way up the tent walls, in snow. I asked if we still thinking on summit only to get that “go fuck yourself I am staying here” look out of my partner. We lay in for about an hour and then tunnel our way out the tent and broke camp. We started heading back down around 5:45 am. Going back was as adventure of its own, as we had a visibility of 20 feet. We manage to get on a wand trail leading us back down. By 7:30 am, we were on the bottom of the Heliotrope ridge as the sun was trying to glimpse through the clouds. We crack the beer and had breakfast. I had another fine day with friends on the mountain.