Team Mango

volcano #2 - baker's north ridge

last weekend, i climbed washington’s 4th highest peak, mount baker (10,775’), joined by fellow mountaineers tom, bari and jon on the “classic” north ridge route — an ice climbing route. this was my “graduation climb” for the intermediate climbing class, which i have been working to complete for the past seven years.

tom lewis, the intermediate administration chair, knew i needed only one more climb to graduate, so he contacted me early on to sign me up for the climb — as well as two other intermediate students in need.

arranging carpools before the climb, i discovered that bari lived on my same street… in the same block! AND… coincidentally, bari happened to have hit our dog, louise, with her car about two and a half years ago! granted, it was louise’s own fault (she had darted across the street after another dog), and bari still felt bad about the whole thing, but it made for such a great story that it didn’t stop me and the other guys from giving her shit about it during the climb. (sorry bari!).

we all eventually piled into tom’s car, drove to the town of glacier, and registered with the ranger, where we met alasdair, an AAI guide who was taking two clients up the same route. he gave us some beta about the route. we hit the trail around 10:00a. luckily, everyone wanted to take a fairly casual pace, so we all stuck together up heliotrope ridge under clear, sunny skies. we stopped to pump water near some campsites at 5,500’ before stepping onto the coleman glacier.

traversing northeast up the coleman, we reached a smooth snow bowl at about 6,400’, where we dropped our packs. while setting up camp, we spied two climbers ascending high on the glacier towards the coleman headwall — apparently heading to a higher camp. we watched them run into dead ends among the crevasses several times and then have to backtrack and try alternate routes, but they eventually found a way through. all the while, we did a visual assessment of the lower coleman. with time to spare before dinner, we geared up and scouted out our selected low route. we weaved through some large crevasses, but generally found a clear, direct route traversing low, then straight up to the start of the climbing route at the toe of the north ridge. we turned around after 90 minutes of scouting and backtracked to camp for a short nap, then dinner.

given the definite route we had scouted, and our own boot tracks in the snow to follow, we decided to start in the dark at 3:00a, so we could be on the climbing route at dawn. we hit the sack around 8:00p, but when the 2:15a alarms went off, each of us reported that we didn’t sleep very well all night. i think i managed to get maybe 3 solid hours of sleep.

but we each sprang to life, heated water for coffee/tea, geared up, and were plodding across the crusty snow at 3:10a. alasdair and his team had gotten a slightly earlier start, walking through our camp as we geared up, and used our boot tracks from saturday afternoon to guide his clients across the coleman (we’ll send a bill to AAI for the guiding assistance). we followed the boot tracks, as well as their headlamps, eventually passing them just before reaching the toe of the north ridge.

from here, we curved up and around the toe onto the base of the roosevelt glacier, which started to get steeper. dawn twilight was just beginning as we hit our first snag. jon followed some old boot tracks into a corner near some seracs which seemed to be a dead end. by now, alasdair had caught up to us again, and took an alternate path further up to a short section of vertical ice. he took his team up the ice, and tom and bari followed suit, only to find a 30’ high overhanging ice wall blocking the way. jon and i poked around and found a promising way across a snowbridge and up onto the north ridge. alasdair and his team were first to get there and got through, so we again followed.

although it was a long, often gruelling day of climbing, we couldn’t have asked for better weather or better ice conditions. it was a truly memorable trip.

hopefully i’ll have time to post a more detailed trip report, but trip leader tom lewis has posted one HERE. also, you can view my photos HERE.

so, after having climbed adams three times in the past few years, it looks as if i’m destined to climb the rest of washington’s volcanoes in alphabetical order. baker last weekend, then glacier, rainier and finally lowly mount st. helens.

Posted by jason at August 9, 2006 1:17 PM