[TR] Mt. Baker - Coleman Deming - Snowboard Descent (Boring TR, only 1 shitty pic) 6/22/2014

[lukeh]

Trip: Mt. Baker - Coleman Deming - Snowboard Descent

 

Date: 6/22/2014

 

Trip Report:

On the summit just before 11am about to push off. Someone peed right at the launch spot (left of my board) - nice work.

 

Snowboarded down from the summit of Mt. Baker Sunday to the treeline (about 6,000-ish ft (?) of continuous boarding). It was the most fun I've had snowboarding. My phone mysteriously died so I was unable to take any pictures on the way down, which really sucked because there were plenty to be had.

 

Things to note:

-There were no open crevasses at all on this route. Maybe a tiny crack or two you had to squint to see as you walked over.

-Ok there's one crevasse that can sneak up on you just below the Heliotrope Ridge on the left off the boot path, that's about it

-All snow was hard going up in the early morning with a staircase more or less to the summit

-Coming down snow was mostly good corn, except it could've been a little softer on the Roman Wall. We waited until noon then just went for it, you could def. get an edge in by then.

 

Overall a nice way to spend a Sunday morning.

 

I'm back from a Denali trip so look for a TR on that soon with a ton of pics. Going up Mt. Baker again after getting back from Alaska was definitely strange; The mountain seems so much smaller to me now, but still one of my favorites.

 

Some interesting observations:

-Someone did leave 2 full Coronas in the snow right on the path around 8,000ft. I couldn't tell if they were a generous offering to whoever wanted them or they were saving them for the way down and were very trusting people. They looked delicious.

-Someone had a camp setup underneath this massive, I mean MASSIVE serac/ice shelf just under Colfax that-from the top of the Roman Wall--looked like it was cracked on all sides and could move off at any moment. This was around 8300 feet as well. The same piece is actually shown in Google Earth so maybe that feature always exists there.

 

Gear Notes:

-Brought typical glacier travel stuff, route was so tame/safe relative to how I've usually experienced it that the gear felt a bit superfluous.

-Aluminum crampons and lighter weight hikers (snowboarded in these as well)

-Bring skis or a snowboard, it makes the trip roughly 500-20,000 billion times more fun.

 

Approach Notes:

Snow starts at the treeline around 4500ft and can be skied/boarded--uninterrupted--from summit to this point w/o issue.

Edited July 7, 2014 by lukeh

[JoshK]

Someone had a camp setup underneath this massive, I mean MASSIVE serac/ice shelf just under Colfax that-from the top of the Roman Wall--looked like it was cracked on all sides and could move off at any moment. This was around 8300 feet as well. The same piece is actually shown in Google Earth so maybe that feature always exists there.

 

 

Sweet Jeebus. More evidence supporting my theory that the vast majority of people survive in the mountains mostly through blind luck.

 

If you can't even determine what is a safe/unsafe spot to camp, save your family the heartbreak and the SAR team the trouble and pickup basket weaving or triathlons instead of mountain sports.

 

We need a facepalm emote as well for things like this.

 

[lukeh]

It was underneath this