Splitboard.com Forums

August 7, 2011 - Mt. Baker - Boulder Glacier, Park Headwall


photo: John Scurlock

For a well written trip report with lots of pretty pictures, read the report written by my good friend and up and coming ski mountaineer Louie Dawson here -> http://www.wildsnow.com/5609/baker-skiing-boulder-glacier-park/

For my attempt at posting for the splitboarding community, read on.

I had just gotten back from two back-to-back trips, one in the eastern Glacier Peak Wilderness, and one in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, both of which offer excellent and teasing views of Glacier Peak, so when Louie called with a proposition of skiing Glacier Peak I was ecstatic. Any other season I would likely shy away from a 26 mile trip up Washington's most remote stratovolcano without knowing what the conditions would be like (maybe only a handful of turns), but I needed some August turns and I hadn't even been on Glacier Pk so I agreed. Long story short, eight o'clock the night before we were about to get an early start we discovered that the road was washed out and wouldn't be fixed before September. So, still craving some turns and some solitude, we opted for the Boulder Glacier/Park Cleaver route on the SE side of Mt. Baker. This route doesn't see very much traffic compared to the ever popular Coleman-Demming and Easton routes, due to a taxing approach, the lowest elevation starting point of all of Baker's routes, and heavily crevassed glaciers.

We met in Burlington at 2:30am, hopped in Louie's Jeep and arrived at the trailhead by a bit after 3am. After slowly getting organized, making some gear/protection decisions, and pounding the last of our coffee, we hit the trail just before 4am and reached snow by sunrise.

I had heard about a cliff with a fixed line that must be ascended (and rappelled on the return), but we decided to go around it which was made possible by the still impressive snowpack. We had also read about a "bog" towards the end of the approach trail, and that was not exaggerated whatsoever - I didn't regret bringing three pairs of socks even with waterproof hiking boots.


photo: Louie Dawson/Wildsnow.com

Once on the snow, most of the lower glacier was straightforward skinning (among several mountain goats), though the Mr. Chomps crampons were a must. Once it became steep and exposed by some rocks/cliffs, I started booting and we roped up for some interesting crevasse negotiation shortly thereafter.


photo: Louie Dawson/Wildsnow.com

After being humbled by some mammoth crevasses and teetering across some thin snow bridges, we found ourselves eating lunch between Sherman Peak and Grant Peak (the summit peak) assuming it would be windy at the top. One last push and small crevasse crossing and we were on top. After a single high-five, we both tiptoed over to the edge atop the Park Headwall and wondered if it would let us down it. It wasn't corniced, but we knew there was a deathly burgshrud below and we weren't sure if we'd be able to find a way across it.


photo: Louie Dawson/Wildsnow.com

We dug out a notch to drop into and Louie went first, self-belaying himself over the edge to see if the snow would be manageable. I was only the mood for a 1,000ft, 50+ degree wall over a man eating burgshrund if the snow was going to cooperate, but Louie had turned the wall down twice before so I trusted his judgement when he said "I think we might be able to get down this."


photo: Louie Dawson/Wildsnow.com

The last variable would be negotiating the burgshrund, and we decided we could rappel off a deadman if it came down to that so we went for it. The snow was a bit icier than we originally thought (fully shadowed by this point), but with some sketchy jump turns and sideslips, we got down and even managed to find a bridge across the 'shrund. We roped back up and 'skied' across a couple more bridges until we met back up with our uptrack and unroped right about where we had originally roped up.



Glad to have had a summit and even more glad to have had super late season (and first for us) descent of one of the most enticing faces on Mt. Baker, we celebrated with 5,000 feet of 30 degree fall line corn shredding (though a bit sun cupped lower down).


photo: Louie Dawson/Wildsnow.com

Back to our boots, we grabbed a snack and retraced the grueling approach trail, through the bog, down slabs with running water, etc. As Louie said, it felt like the Twilight Zone because the trail seemed to be twisted into a Mobius strip, miles longer than that morning.


photo: Louie Dawson/Wildsnow.com

Thanks for reading and happy summer shredding!
Comment if you have any good September trip ideas, I need my turns-all-year!

- Zach

16 miles
8,300 vert
10,781 ft high point
100 % fun

Oh shit yes dudes!!! Dude! That line is SIIIIIIICK! I've looked down the Park Headwall from the summit so many times now, it almost killed me to read this. So jealous right now

Zach, PM me if you want to get out. I have ideas!

Holy shizzy that is sick!!!

Thanks for sharing!

Congrats on a epic line in the Cascades. Ohhhh and damn that Glacier Peak! I'm sure the road will get fixed just to wash out this upcoming winter.

Nice job. I did the Boulder-Park cleaver last year and our 30 m rope wasn't long enough to rap the whole cliff on the deproach, so I got most of the way down, got off rappel, grabbed the wet manky fixed line and started to lower myself. I'm sure you can see where this is going...let's just say I got down the last 5 m pretty quickly!

Well done on the headwall.

Awesome. Keep the TRs coming from the NW!

pretty sick dude! i think i agree with the banter on your friends tr though....climb what you ride....congrats though!