Ryan Canfield Posted April 12, 2009 Share Posted April 12, 2009 Trip: Mt Baker Summit - 4/5/09 - Coleman/Demming Glacier Route Date: 4/5/2009 Trip Report: (please wait for videos and pictures to load.) I left Seattle at 1:30PM on Friday April 3rd and was headed to climb Mt. Baker in the very early spring/late winter. I arrived at bellingham at 4:00PM to pick up my climbing partner Kurt - there, we decided to leave ASAP for Glacier Creek Road just past the little town of Glacier. But before we got to the road, we were driving through the town of Glacier and we saw a bunch of snowmobiles lined up on trailers on the side of the road. We knew that the road was washed out about a mile up the 8 mile road, (as we attempted this same climb 2 weeks prior) so we attempted to ask around to see if anyone was willing to snowmobile us up the road so we didn't have to snowshoe up the snow-covered road. All we received were questions and laughs from people who though and/or said "you're climbing baker now? are you crazy? they've gotten 10 feet of snow in the past 2 weeks!" ...with this thought in mind we knew we had a hell of a journey ahead of us. With no luck finding a ride up the road (the easy way) - we decided to stop wasting time and start on our trek. We got to the beginning of the road at around 1000ft of elevation and then got our gear out of the car and our massive heavy backpacks on and began. There was a lot of fresh snow on the road which made snowshoeing very difficult, we were starting to think that this would be a failed trip as the snow on the mountain would have to be even worse than what it was down below where we are. We didn't have any clocks or watches but it probably took around 4 to 5 hours to get up the road. We were moving really slow because our heavy packs and the fresh powder that conflicted with our travel in snowshoes. We setup our first camp at 3700ft at the (summer) trail head aka Heliotrope Ridge Trail Head. The moon was really bright and the sky was full of stars. We were in for a very cold night and a beautiful day tomorrow. We slept really comfortably in our bivy's and our -20 (mine) and -40 (kurt's) sleeping bags. Although I did glance at the temperature in the middle of the night and it read 14 degrees Fahrenheit. We woke up at what was believed to be 7:30 - 8:00 AM and got our bivys and sleeping bags/pads packed up and back into our backpacks. We headed into the forest with just a map and compass - there was no trail except a few useless markers on the branches of trees that we past. This assured us that we were going in the right direction (somewhat)... They say on the map that the clearing of the trees and the end of the forest is just 2.2 miles from the trailhead. However, this is BY FAR - the longest 2.2 miles of my entire life that I have traveled. And I've traveled a lot of miles in my life. The reason this trek the forest seemed so long was because it was pretty much a partially blindfolded obsticle course. Our map was pretty crappy and we had to travel in 2-3 feet of powder snow and sometimes waist deep. This snow was incredible - at this time, we knew what the people in the town of Glacier were talking about when they said "10 feet of snow in the past 2 weeks" Once we were almost out of the forest, we noticed a few Gray Jays following us. When my climbing partner, Kurt - stopped for a bathroom break, I was munching on some trail food and the bird landed on my hand. It was so unexpected that it was really amazing. We decided to take a break here and play with birds. There were about 3 of them and they were landing on our heads, on our packs, and on our fingers. After about a 20-30 minute break, we decided to stop wasting time and start going once again... Honestly, at this point, we really thought we wouldn't have the energy to actually summit. The snow and the travel through the forest was near impossible and took us 5-6 hours or longer. We finally saw a glimpse of light ahead, and knew that we were getting close to exiting the forest. This brought a new sense of hope upon us as we were ready to get out of the forest and onto the mountain. We reached the "Hogsback" soon after and the snow was still very crappy to travel in. My climbing partner Kurt was sure feeling the pain of the snow and was slowing down. I, for some reason, got a "second-wind" and was feeling great. However I knew we needed to set up a camp soon and cook some water up to drink. We didn't have any water and didn't even take water on our hike in. We planned to drink out of the creeks and rivers - but it was hard to do that as just about every creek was either dried up or literally buried and disappeared in the snow. We continued up the Hogsback and made our way onto the base of the Coleman Glacier. According to my Altimeter, we were at 6500 feet and we set up our 2nd camp. At this time, the sun was setting and I began to dig a snow trench/pit shelter as Kurt was getting our stove ready. He then took over and finished it off, as my energy seemed to be completely depleted. I was begging to think that this was the farthest we would make it in. As the sun disappeared and our camp was only lit by our headlamps, the flame of the stove, and the moonlight - we really couldn't of asked for better conditions. There wasn't even wind on this night and we slept sound until a little past sunrise - probably 7:30-8 AM. By this time, we called it off - we said "the avalanche danger is too high and we really don't have enough energy to continue ascending." But as I was waking up I asked Kurt, "dude, do you wanna just go for it?" There was a slight pause, a moment of hesitation, and then he looked at me and said "dude... yeah lets do it" - we laughed and then kept thinking in our heads "what the hell are we doing" - But it honestly didn't cross our minds too hard as you may be able to predict. We decided to only pack one backpack on our way to the summit - and leave as much as we could behind without being "too unsafe" - we brought 2 cans of fuel, 4 water bottles of melted snow, some extra clothing, a shovel, stove, cameras, camcorder, crampons, and a tiny bit of food (what we had left)... We got our harnesses on, roped up, helmets on, but still had our snowshoes on. It would be near impossible to travel in our crampons at this time - as the snow wasn't much better than it was down in elevation in the forest. We were really hoping that this whole ascent wouldn't have to be done on snowshoes. We crossed our fingers for ice and hard/compact snow as we got higher. We left camp and then were on our way. We were feeling great - energy restored, hydrated, and a spirit to conquer the summit that we hadn't been used to in a while. This whole winter we've been climbing with about a 40% success ratio.... boy is it different in the winter months!!!?! We made our way up the steep slopes to about 7300 feet and looked down into a gully of snow. We didn't want to traverse too much as we were trying not to cut into the hillside and avoid any chance of an avalanche. We went directly straight up, and didn't switchback at all. We knew this would be a more difficult but we would rather go through hell then be in hell. We continued to make our way up, and eventually we couldn't see our base camp at this time. The wind picked up and it was actually very strong. We found ourselves timing our steps for the wind and even catching ourselves as we fell and stumbled from the high gusts of winds. We were traveling through a highly crevassed area - but the snow was covering all of it and it made us feel a bit nervous to cross - but eventually we fell comfortable with our traveling (maybe a little too comfortable) - and kept going up. At about 8000-9000 feet, we crossed some massive crevasses that were several stories high and we were right below the Black Buttes and in the Col. We glanced over to the right of us and the ice showed strong evidence of caving off and crumbling from the cold winter. It was sure a sight to see and actually really cool! We traveled through several bowls and gulches where the snow was 2-3 feet deep in powder. Keep in mind, that we were at 8000-9000 feet and still on snowshoes. But we kept moving forward. Once we got up to 9300ft the snow turned to solid ice and we knew that we could finally take off our snowshoes and get on our much anticipated crampons - from here on out - we knew that we'd feel much safer traveling on crampons then on snowshoes. The winds picked up as we put on our crampons and stashed our snowshoes to later be picked up on our way down. After 10-15 minutes of fidgeting with our gear, we had to continue up as the sun was starting to get lower in the sky. We didn't have the time but I predicted that we had very little daylight left. And I didn't want to descend the Roman Wall in the dark so I knew we had to hurry up. Slowly but surely, we made our way up the Roman Wall and took 3-4 steps, and stopped - then took 3-4 steps, and stopped - we did this all the way from 9300ft to the summit. On our way up, ice was crumbling and falling to the left of us and flying down the mountain. We had to hurry up and get out of the icefall's way, just in case a huge piece didn't fall off and swipe us off our feet or cause an avalanche. The sun was setting and we were probably about 50 yards from the summit. We were feeling good but definetely "out of it". The cold temps and higher altitude and snowshoe trip in, plus the lack of water was playing with our bodies - especially Kurt's as he summited and kept walking (nearly down the wrong way/North Ridge) - I ran forward and stopped him and told him that we had to get off of here because I didn't want to descend the Roman Wall in the dark. This was my first ascent of Baker, but Kurt's 5th or 6th time summiting. Although we didn't make it all the way to the "true summit", or a lump on the mountain about 100 yard away - we knew we made it up here and were damn proud of ourselves. We spent about 3 minutes taking picture and shooting video on the summit and then headed down as the sun was setting. Kurt was rest stepping on flat/slight downhil ground - I knew he was feeling the pain more than I was, so it made me more determined to try to get his mind in the game and get down safely. I kept yelling at him through the wind and strong/cold air to keep going and we made it down the Roman Wall as the wind died to a halt and we swapped on our snowshoes for our crampons. We were actually amazed at how high we were on snowshoes - but it was kind of expected at this time of year. We had a brief conversation and then made our way down to the base camp at 6500 feet safely. For every 100 feet we descended, it felt like a little more of the realization that we pulled this off was setting in. We really wanted to make it down and all the way back to the car - but once we got back to our base camp, it was super-windy and the spindrift snow buried our sleeping bags and bivys in 2 feet of snow. It might as well have been snowing out! We were too tired to cook up snow, so we headed straight into our bivy's and fell asleep. I woke up about 4 hours later in a panic. I felt like I was suffocating and bursted out of my bivy and realized that I was completely covered in about a foot of spindrift snow. The wind was pretty bad and it carried the powered top layer of snow right into our snow trench and was burying us. I woke up Kurt and told him that we needed to get out of here. I knew that we had a hell of a trip ahead of us - but this was expected and what we got ourselves into! We packed up camp in the pitch black (with slight moonlight) - and decided to try to get down int he dark. This was a sure mistake. We actually ended up at about 5200ft on top of a cliff on the Heliotrope Ridge and felt completly trapped. I told Kurt that we needed some water and food and needed to wait it out until the sun rose and we could see our way out - instead of getting more lost. So we dug another small snow trench and cooked up our last package of soup (boy, did that taste good) - and some snow for water. We waited a few hours and the sun rose up. We scouted around for a few minutes and packed up our stuff and headed down. About 20 minutes later, we intersected with our snowshoe tracks and felt a sigh of relief. Everywhere else, our snowshoe tracks were covered from the wind and snowdrift, but here, the trees sheltered them and basically preserved them for a much easier way down. We were shocked at how fast we moved through the forest on the way down as our path up was used on the way down and we didn't have to navigate at all. Once we got out of the forest, we were back on the road at 3700ft and could almost taste the food at the restaurant that we much anticipated on the entire trip. After several painful hours going down the road - we both agreed that it was the toughest downhill snowshoe trip that we have ever done. Let alone, the climb was probably one of the tougher things I have ever done in my life. We were really surprised at how fast the snow was melting down around 2000ft and below - the temperature was 68 degrees Fahrenheit. It was 11:30 AM and we finally had made it back to the car. Boy, we really made it down fast! I was actually really shocked - but it was understandable as we really wanted to get back. All and all, it was a hell of a trip. Really tough, really fun, and probably pretty dangerous. But we pulled it off and are glad we did! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryan Canfield Posted April 12, 2009 Author Share Posted April 12, 2009 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryan Canfield Posted April 12, 2009 Author Share Posted April 12, 2009 [video:myspace]http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=55366931 [video:myspace]http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=55366712 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alpinfox Posted April 12, 2009 Share Posted April 12, 2009 Any pics? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wayne Posted April 12, 2009 Share Posted April 12, 2009 Wwoww! Cant recall getting as into a volcano/climbing story like that in awhile! Well written and very interesting accomplishment for sure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigeo Posted April 13, 2009 Share Posted April 13, 2009 Nice work guys. Way to tough it out and get er done. Great pics too. I expect we'll be seeing more trip reports from you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cbcbd Posted April 13, 2009 Share Posted April 13, 2009 Dudes... nice trip... hella bonus points for the massive approach. Hats off. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frenchy Posted April 14, 2009 Share Posted April 14, 2009 what the **bleep** happened to the two other pages? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattp Posted April 14, 2009 Share Posted April 14, 2009 I realize that some people like to see a circus sideshow but I sent it to the trashcan. Sorry, but there is a spray forum for that brilliant commentary and we'd like to see people post their trip reports without fear that they are going to be made into a target. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
powderhound Posted April 15, 2009 Share Posted April 15, 2009 agreed....keep posting TR's don't let those bleepers get you down. pretty common, my first three were full of other bs. Nice photos. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EastKing Posted April 15, 2009 Share Posted April 15, 2009 Great effort and pictures. However probably not the best time to go. Avy danger was high that weekend. Check out Mt. Hood this weekend. Conditions should be near peak and hopefully the weather will hold. I will probably head there Sunday Night (10 pm; summit at 7 am or much earlier) into Monday Morning. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattp Posted April 15, 2009 Share Posted April 15, 2009 Greg: if you want to discuss the philosophical questions as to whether someone should climb Mt. Baker after heavy snows, do it elsewhere. Choada Boy started a thread on the Climber's Board for this purpose. We support those who want to contribute trip reports here and try to keep the trip reports forum for discussing climbs, posting pictures, and similar material. The ethical discussions or critique can take place in separate discussions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dane Posted April 15, 2009 Share Posted April 15, 2009 Way to get out and get it done! Let the couch potatoes worry about when and where to get out Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ishmael Posted April 15, 2009 Share Posted April 15, 2009 I guess my comment got deleted... Well once again, thanks for the pics and the TR. It was a good way to kill some time at work and wish I was out instead of in this last weekend. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edlinger Posted April 15, 2009 Share Posted April 15, 2009 Nice job guys! Keep posting TR's. No armchair quarterbacking from me. How did the Polish Route look on Colfax? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fairweather Posted April 15, 2009 Share Posted April 15, 2009 Any tracks coming up the Easton Glacier side? (Snow machine or otherwise?) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Khartoum Wood Posted April 16, 2009 Share Posted April 16, 2009 we have never climbed that route but it looked like solid snow to the summit Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Khartoum Wood Posted April 16, 2009 Share Posted April 16, 2009 we seen no tracks at all and lots of crevasses Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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