chris Posted June 27, 2012 Posted June 27, 2012 (edited) Trip: Mt Baker - North Ridge Date: 6/24/2012 Trip Report: Hit the weather window perfectly for a Monday morning ascent - went to bed in the clouds with a few light showers, woke up to clear skies and a weight bearing neve/crust all the way. The traverse across the Coleman at 6500' works fantastic right now. The right hand (western) slopes to the ridge looked awesome, but we went to the left hand (northern) side to move a little bit faster on lower angle terrain. If you want more technical climbing, go right. The ice cliff that has guarded this variation looks really spooky, with a lot of hang-fire just waiting to come down, and a lot of fresh debris below. We moved through the firing range one at a time very quickly, then traversed some more along the bergschrund/crevasse to gain the ridge. At the headwall, we went far left, around the ice arete, where we found a single 55m section of AI2/3. Above was 2 1/2 more pitches of steep snow. Instead of topping out on the dome and then traversing to the summit, we managed to traverse low at aproximately 10300'-10400', into the north face bowl, and had a direct, simple walk to the summit. By the time we started our descent, the southern aspects and lower elevation snow became boot-top to knee-deep post-holing. The Coleman-Deming was quite the experience. Times: 3:00 - TH to Hogsback 8:45 - Hogsback to summit 3:15 - summit to Hogsback 2:15 - Hogsback to TH [img:center]https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-T-u38OpN0QY/T-8eFuhVBlI/AAAAAAAAQz4/dmF1pkEPApo/s640/DSC01618.JPG[/img] Looking at the west face of Mt Baker on the morning of Monday, 25 June. The "right-side" slopes to the North Ridge are very apparent, and look really, really good. [img:center]https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-rNEhRbXOTG8/T-8eH9YnAyI/AAAAAAAAQ0I/8eoWzDlYC68/s512/DSC01622.jpg[/img] The sole ice pitch on the face left side of the headwall, to the left of the "ice arete". Gear Notes: We took 6 screws to protect the ice pitches. Instead of bringing pickets, we deadman'ed our second tool for anchors on the steep snow pitches. Approach Notes: Road is open all the way to the trailhead. Patchy snow until the Kulshan cabin site. Edited June 30, 2012 by chris Quote
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