Mt Baker Easton Glacier Approach

With the Weather forecasts looking promising for the weekend Scott and I decided to make a quick push for the Summit of Mt Baker at an elevation of 10781 ft. I had done the Colman Demming route before and wasn’t to impressed by the ride/traverse down so we decided to head for the Easton Glacier approach which had a much better fall line. During the winter/spring Easton is a snow park and is littered with snowmobiles so it keeps most climbers away.

Friday after work Scott and I met up in Seattle and drove out to the Scribner Meadows Easton Glacier access road. After packing up we were on the trail by around 7 p.m. hiking about 1 mile on dirt and skinning about .4 of a mile before we hit the trail head.

Our first view of our Route the South side of Baker

We skinned until the sunset and were able to camp behind the last rock cropping around 6’400 feet before the route was all glaciers.

Scott skinning up to the Setting sun (the tracks are from Snowmobiles

Looking towards the Twin Sisters

Scott got out the tent and as we started putting the tent together we noticed we were missing a pole. This made no sense because we had both of the poles minutes earlier and all of a sudden we were stuck with only one. After looking for a while we made a make shit tent bivy using our ski poles and the one tent pole we did have.

This was our home for the night

The next morning we got up made some breakfast and started searching for the missing pole.

It turns out the pole must have gotten kicked and had enough momentum to slide down the ridge off a cornice and into a ravine about 100 feet down without either of us seeing it (damn you gravity).

We roped up around 7’500 feet after seeing evidence of Crevasse’s on our path and having to cross the occasional snow bridge. By around 10 A.M. the snowmobiles were out in full effect. At one point I was crossing a snow bridge fast and cautiously then all of a sudden a snowmobile charges up that same snow bridge 10 feet away 😯 .

A rather big Crevasse we had to cross

We were able to skin all the way up to the summit crater but decided to unrope for the roman head wall in fear of one of us pulling the other off the slope.

Skinning up to the crater

We took a few minutes to melt some water and check out the crater before heading up the Headwall.

Looking into the Craters vents with Sherman peak in the background.

Scott boot packing up the Headwall

Then myself doing the final push to summit with Sherman Peak in the background.

When we reached the summit there was no wind at all so we leisurely hung out for around an hour waiting for the corn to soften.

The Standard summit shot

And the View into the North Cascades

When we felt the snow was right we strapped in for a 7’400 foot run of almost perfect fall line.

Looking down from the Roman Headwall

Scott first

Then myself

Conditions were perfect corn the whole way down from the headwall all the way to our base camp. The rain from a few days before created a thin layer of ice on top of the old snow somewhat protecting it from the sun.

Our tracks heading down with a snowmobile track going right through Scott’s line.

Once below the Camp it looked like a ski resort that hadn’t gotten snow for days.

We managed to take advantage of there tracks on the flats and ride all the way to the trail head in my mind I was kept thinking it’s just a half ass groomer track.

There is nothing like climbing a mountain while snowmobiles are riding back and forth us the same slope.