Mt. Baker Ski Summit - Start Time?

[JohnTennant]

Greetings!

 

My partner and I are planning to ski up Mt. Baker tomorrow but we're still trying to figure out a start time.

 

We've got good avi-assessment experience and a bit of glacier experience, but we've never been a mountain as big as Baker.

 

I've seen some people have started as early as 3am from the trailhead and I've also seen 6am and later. Another thing we're trying to figure out is if we're going to sleep in Vancouver or try to stay someplace in Glacier to sleep to get an earlier start. I'd describe our pace as medium-slow.

 

Thoughts? Any feedback welcome! Thanks very much!

 

-jt

[jordansahls]

Because you are skiing you are going to want to summit before the snow softens up too much, but not so early that you are going to have to wait a long time for conditions to form. With a slow-medium pace I would estimate around 8-12 hours to the summit from the car. I would say a 10ish am summit time is adequate, so you are going to want to get a 12am-2am start from the car.

 

Really, it is hard to give you an accurate travel and summit timeframe (take a large grain of salt with the above estimation). What route are you climbing? Have you done over 7k vert in a day? Traveling in heavily crevassed terrain at night is not a good way to introduce oneself to more advanced glacier travel.

 

What is keeping you from taking 2 days to climb Baker? The first day would give you a better idea about how quickly you can cover terrain which would be useful on summit day. It also gives you the ability to suss out snow conditions and your intended route of travel.

 

[JasonG]

This past Saturday, the Roman wall and upper Coleman were quite firm/icy still at 1300 and it was a very warm day. I think if you aimed to summit at noon that would be about right. Jordan's times from TH to summit are in the right range for your pace.

[DPS]

Good point Jason. The Roman Wall is often hard and icy when the rest of the mountain is softening up. Also the only exposed spot on the Coleman Demming route, prolly don't want to bone it there.