[TR] Mt. Baker - Easton Glacier 7/4/2009

[XXX]

Trip: Mt. Baker 10,778 ft. - Easton Glacier

 

Date: 7/4/2009

 

Trip Report:

I've seen a couple TR's on the Easton Glacier so I will make this short. Me and Anastasia B left the Seattle area around 1:30pm and arrived at the trailhead around 6pm. We ate, tried to sleep for about 2 hours, and left the trailhead at 2am to climb Mt. Baker via the Easton Glacier. Views were stunning, snow was soft and we made the summit around 10am or so. There was no wind to speak of at the summit, and I laid down for about a half hour on the summit just to be lazy.

 

We probably crossed three sketchy snowbridges that appear to be opening up quite a bit. On the way down it was hot and mushy! We unroped about half way down the glacier and slogged our way back to the glacial moraine.

 

There were quite a few other parties who made the ascent that day. We ran into numerous guided parties from AAI. Made it back to the car by 6pm to a nice bottle of gatorade. Great day and lots of folks made it to the summit. I got a good work out on my legs! Crevasses are opening up. I would imagine that within a month or so the route should get quite interesting. This route is worth doing in a long day. We started around 2 am and made it back to the car by 6 pm. Not a stellar time, but good enough for me. Better to avoid all the suffering involved with carrying heavy packs. Enjoy the pics.

 

Gear:

50 meter 8mm rope

Ice Axe

Basic glacier gear (slings, prussicks, pulleys etc.)

Lots of water and a few cliff bars.

 

 

 

 

Me kungkagam on the summit.

 

 

Giant Serac

 

 

 

 

Anastasia near the summit.

 

 

 

 

Mortal Combat pose!

Edited July 7, 2009 by XXX

[5.12Dreamer]

Nice work! Great weather last weekend, although pretty hot for glacier travel. Hey, did you note what kind of shape the lower glacier is in? Specifically, whether there are exposed seracs rather than still being buried under seasonal snow.

 

I am looking for an ice climbing practice area, as the lower Coleman will be a LONG approach until the road is repaired.

 

Thanks!

[dinomyte]

Wait a minute. When we did this a couple weeks ago, the summit was dirt!! You're standing on snow in that first shot! Ha Hah!

[XXX]

Nice work! Great weather last weekend, although pretty hot for glacier travel. Hey, did you note what kind of shape the lower glacier is in? Specifically, whether there are exposed seracs rather than still being buried under seasonal snow.

 

I am looking for an ice climbing practice area, as the lower Coleman will be a LONG approach until the road is repaired.

 

Thanks!

 

I didn't see to many really good accessible seracs lower down on the Easton to practice ice climbing on. However around the 7-8K level there were some decent blocks of ice that I could imagine would make for great practice ice climbing if you felt they were stable enough. If you don't mind hiking up a bit it may be worth it.

 

Of course nothing is as nice as the Coleman glacier. Its amazing to me how much more rugged the Coleman is. But I think it may be worth a shot to investigate later in the summer. I'm still a bit upset that the road to the coleman is closed

Edited July 8, 2009 by XXX

[YocumRidge]

Dinomyte,

Have you been on the same mountain or have you summitted that satellite formation shown in the pic? We did see the trail down from it to the true summit though.

I thought this is where people climbing the Boulder route end up and then descend to the true summit.

[YocumRidge]

Yes, I did notice nice seracs because I had the same thought in mind to practice ice climbing myself and as far as I remember XXX approved of my choice but must have forgotten by now.

Here is what I had in mind and it is at about 8000':

 

But do not go in there:

 

Hope it helps.