Back in 2014, my friend Pam who I met doing crossfit during my Amazon internship expressed an interest in doing some big moutain climbs. She, along with two of her friends (who I had not yet met), and I decided that Mt Baker would be a good first trip. This would be the first time up Mt Baker for me, but I had heard it was a much more managable mountain compared to the other PNW volcanoes.
2014-09-27
I could tell right from the start that this trip was going to be a riot - Pam showed up with rum soaked gummy bears and all three of these women were dancing in the parking lot. There was a lot of excitement in the air for this trip - and we were all itching to go.
The hike up was relatively uneventful and we made quick work of it. This is a strong crew - I could tell this was going to be a good trip. Everyone was in good spirits - despite several people we ran into warning us of very open cravasses on the upper glacier given how late in the season we were attempting this. I had read recent trip reports, so this was nothing we weren’t expecting but I could see it being rather ominous for inexperienced climbers.
We saw more Marmots on this trip than I have seen in a while and certainly on any other PNW trip. The little fuzzy critters were barely scared of us and we would regularly come around a rock and one would be sitting around waiting for us. These guys sure are cute.
The approach on Mt Baker is beautiful - green and lush and lots of wildlife. It also has some beautiful glacial moraines - which give the scene a more rugged/wild feeling. I feel like a Wonderland trail(ish) trip around Mt Baker would be possible - if so, I think it would be amazing.
We made camp about a mile from the foot of the glacier - in a great little spot above the treeline with great views. We did a big gear layout (I had brought gear for most of the folks here) and we got everything all setup for tomorrow. We also did a few practice falls and practiced how we would move once we got onto the glacier.
We were treated with a gorgeous sunset. Then straight to bed - we have an early morning!
2014-09-28
We stumbled out of camp at like 3a and made our way to the glacier. We go to the glacier right around sunrise and got ourselves put together. This is where things got interesting. We had just gotten all of our gear put together and were about to start, when a random guy just walked past us. He gave us a good morning and how do you do, and then just started walking up the glacier by himself. We all did a doubletake and questioned our sanity - did we just see a ghost or a halucination?
About an hour later, the sun was starting to rise and we walked past some letters drawn into the snow. We had been following in the foot steps of our ghost and now he had writted in the snow “Just keep walking”. It was the oddest thing to write…
And as soon as the sun had fully risen, the man’s foot steps disappeared. We never saw him again, he must have gone down the other side… We continued to speculate as to what was happening in the universe while we climbed, but as the sun comes up on a climb like this you get an awesome opporunity to see this huge alien world around you - this climb was no different. Everyone was in awe a this amazing scene unfolding around us and we stopped thinking about the ghost quite as much (althouth it continued to be a running joke for the next few weeks).
There is a false summit on Baker - when you get to the top of the steap approach slope, you get to this summit, but the real summit requires you to walk down into a saddle and then back up to the summit. It can be demoralizing, but the false summit is a good stop for a break and the final walk to the real summit is easy (and really pretty - it’s basically a big open field where you can see in every direction). We did the last stretch - and then celebrated with some summit jumps!
We didn’t get a lot of pictures on the descent, but we basically left the same way we came. I enjoy descents a lot more now - a very different perspective - but at the time I think I just wanted it to be over with. I did quite a few more climbs with this crew and we had a lot of fun together - this was just the begining!
