Hardwear Sessions

Around 11 pm, we made it up to the Heliotrope Ridge trailhead. We made our usual lodging arrangements, which consist of finding a nearby logging road where Brian can throw down his Conduit Bivy next to the car and then I sleep in the back of my 4 Runner to escape the critters lurking in the woods. Funny, I never sleep as well as he does.

The next morning we woke up to less then favorable weather. The first three miles of the trail work their way through some beautiful old growth, and then head straight up a steep ridge to the base of the Coleman Glacier. By the time we reached that point it was overcast and had sprinkled on us a few times. Then the wind picked up. We were just getting out our crampons and beginning to rope up when a wicked thunderstorm rolled in and just pounded us with high winds and heavy rain.

There was no cover to be found, so we each picked out a favorite rock to sit on while we rode it out. I stayed dry in my Backcountry Recon Parka and Epic Pants while Brian did the same in his Epic Jacket and Epic Pants. The thunder and lighting was a little sketchy, and we did our best to distance ourselves from all the lighting rods we had attached to our packs (i.e., axes, pickets, trekking poles, etc). We could see lighting hitting peaks around us and the air had a weird electrical feel to it. It took about an hour for the storm to pass, and 20 minutes later the rain was gone and we didn't see it again. The sun came out and we had bluebird skies the rest of the trip. It was the typical crazy weather you get in the North Cascades.

Our first day destination was the Black Buttes (7200 ft.) and we headed up the glacier towards camp. The glacier itself isn't too difficult, but there are an abundance of hairline crevasses to step across. We just hoped all of them were as small as they seemed. After meeting a group of firefighters on their way down they convinced us to continue up to the base of the Roman Wall (8800 ft.) to camp that night. That made for a really short summit day, so we were all for that. It turned out that this group of firefighters was on the summit during the storm we rode out. They said that all the metal they were carrying was buzzing with electricity. They got off as quickly as they could.

Going up to the Roman Wall, we had to pass an icefall right below Colfax Peak that was kicking off large chunks of glacier at an unsettling rate. We moved through there as fast as possible, constantly looking up at the ice wondering where the next chunk would come from. By that time it was warm enough that I was only wearing a Wicked Tee and Convertible Pack Pants, so when we came up to a very narrow snow bridge over a large crevasse that ran from one end glacier to the other I was not excited. The bridge held fine.

Finally we reached the base of the Roman Wall and found a small spot on a rock band to set up our EV3 tent. The platform wasn't ideal, but we made it work. The high winds were an interesting twist while setting up camp, and throughout the evening and into the night melted snow was blowing up and over the ridge below us, so we had our own little rainstorm without a rain cloud in the sky. Away from the ridge it was a beautiful evening.

Extending our first day gave us the opportunity to sleep in a bit (5:30am) for the short summit day. The weather on Saturday morning was perfect. I headed out in my Backcountry Recon Parka while Brian was more then comfortable in his Synchro Jacket. We had nice views of Rainier as we worked our way up the steep but not too difficult Roman Wall. Within two hours we were up on the summit plateau and over to the true summit. The view from Baker is incredible, my favorite of the Cascade peaks, Mt. Shuksan was close below and the jagged peaks of the North Cascades seemed to go on forever.

On our descent across the plateau we watched a guy put together his paragliding rig. He was almost blown off the top a couple of times while he tested the winds. Once we were back on the wall we saw him go sailing over the top of us and watched him fly down to 5000 ft. Talk about being jealous. Okay, I wasn't jealous until after he missed all the crevasses, then I was really envious. Once we broke camp we hauled out of there before it warmed up too much. Our only incident happened when Brian broke through a hidden crevasse that I and three other climbers had just stepped across. He fell up to his armpits and was able to pull himself out. That woke us up a bit.

We were happy to be heading off the mountain early on Saturday morning as we passed climber after climber on their ascent. I would estimate that once we got off the glacier and started down the trail we passed between 200-300 weekend warriors making their way up to a limited number of camp sites. It was going to be a crazy weekend on Mt. Baker. It was a good weekend to not be a weekend warrior.

Great climb, terrific views, and good memories.