[TR] Mt. Baker - CD 2/18/2010

[danhelmstadter]

Trip: Mt. Baker - CD

 

Date: 2/18/2010

 

Trip Report:

I woke up to a rapping upon my window, it was Andy Traslin! he his bro Andy, and Dave Narona had the same idea I had, to ski Baker via the CD. I had been sleeping in my motorhome a few hundred feet before the Heliotrope trailhead...

 

The first half mile or so of the trail was snowless! As we got into the alpine, gaining the lower slopes of the Coleman Glacier -- I felt some pressure on the backs of my skis, like someone stepping in my skis, I turned surprised - and saw my dog, tounge hanging out of her mouth, with a half guilty look on her face. She had evidently chewed through the door of my motorhome - escapeing its confines, and ran the two or so miles of trail to catch up to us. If we had been planning on skiing the Coleman Headwall or North Ridge, I would have turned around to take her back to my motorhome without a second thought, but the Coleman Demming route is fairly mellow in angle, and there were very few open crevasses, and the weather was good, the snow travel easy, so it seemed reasonable to let her come along.

 

Travel conditions were easy and enjoyable up to the col, where our world turned windy, though warm in the sun. After booting up the cleaver, we tested our skins, although booting proved to be more efficiant after only a little ways. We stuck to the north edge of the Roman Wall, and almost at the top of the wall -- whumph!! a scary big hardslab ripped out taking most of the Roman wall to our right with it... The slide -- the flanks of which shallow, but the crown perhaps 2 feet at it's deepest ran maybe 1k, then a hundred feet below it's end, a similar size slab cut out sympathetically on a steep glacial roll. I had been worried about windloading/slab danger, which is part of the reason why I had choose to ski the CD that day, instead of something steeper and more exposed on Shuksan. There was a danger of being swept into and burried in a crevasse on the Roman Wall slide (that being the only terrain trap), but the slope had a gradual run out, relative to more serious slopes -- it's not the worst place to go for a little ride -- thankfully we didn't get caught...

 

The summit area was extremely windy, and we made our way over to the exact summit in full wind attire. It was very cool to see John Scurlock fly overhead in his yellow aircraft. He took a cool picture of us crossing the summit platue, which can be found in the link below, as well as a awesome video by Dave:

 

http://bb.nsmb.com/showthread.php?s=9d6c8db98b8ead7da315dccda84f8b04&p=2323773#post2323773

 

We skiied down the bed surface of the Roman Wall and down to the col on OK snow, some sections were good, but there was a lot of rime ice chunks and various variable to call the skiing great. From the col down the Coleman, the skiing conditions improved greatly, and got better with loss of elevation, to the point where we were slaying big GS turns. I got so caught up with the good skiing, I didn't stop to cheer Sadie on, but I wasn't worried about her not being able to follow - cause she has always been very good about that, and she's quite an experienced mountain dog, haveing been to the summits of a few of the highest mountains of western states. Anyway, looking back, she was nowhere to be seen... I told the Traslins and Dave that I had to go look for her, and for them to go on... I skinned up a thousand vertical feet or so, and found her yelping in a seracy section of the Coleman, thankfully she was just lost, instead of a more dire circumstance. Skiing back down, I was pleasantly surprised to see that Dave, Andy, and Mike had waited for me, which must have been about an hour, thanks yos!

 

The best snow of the day was found in the reaches just above and at treeline...

 

Thanks for the great day guys, let's do it again soon!

 

Andy Traslin

 

doggy

 

skiiers

 

seracs where i found sadie

 

 

[i_like_sun]

Dude, your dog is a CHAMP! I can't even believe she climbed all the way up Baker with you guys!! That aerial shot is pretty epic....

[Hendershot]

Glad you guys didn't get caught in the slide. Good terrain selection.

[dirtysouth]

Whoa, killer video! I almost drove up from PDX last week, but ended up on Hood instead. What was the round trip time for you guys?

[mtraslin]

Just found this....

 

Thanks for sharing your perspective....

 

This is a fun memory....Especially seeing your truck by chance....

 

Later!