Back in 2017, Sean, Golden, and Brian headed up to the PNW again to climb Mt Baker this time. I, in my infinate wisdom, decided to join them. This was to be my second time up Mt Baker and I found it to be a truely amazing climb - Big mountain with tons of snow and glaciers, and only 10k feet of elevation.
Unfortunately, August in Washington can be very suspect with all of the wildfires in BC trowing smoke up in the air - and this weekend was supposed to be a rough one.
2017-08-04
We drove up to the mountain and started our climb fairly early - 7 or 8 am - but it looked like an orange twilight because of all the smoke. The smoke had settled into the low land, so we knew this was temporary until we could get above the treeline - but it was rough for the first 5-6 miles. We had to cover our faces or we would start coughing uncontrollably.
The hike up was very lush and green - Mt Baker has the most amazing foothills because of all the snow/rain it gets. Amazing watefalls, beautiful wildflowers, and wind sculped lanscapes. The approach was amost as amazing as the climb itself.
We camped on a big open field right before the snowline - it ended up being a great campsite - lots of water and not too cold. It was also above the smoke line, so that made things much more comfortable.
We had a few visitors for dinner - 3 moutain goats stumbled by camp, probably about a mile away. They looked like they were sort of just playing - bounding past each other and over the snow before stopping to eat for a bit.
We got to bed early - 2a wakeup for our summit attempt.
2017-08-05
This was one of the few climbs where it was warm enough and I had the mental capacity to take some pictures as we started the climb. The ones in the pitch black are as expected, but the ones right when the sun is rising are really cool.
From there, we climbed. You have to do several big glacier traverses - where you go across the glacier with the cravasses - which is a bit more challenging than going perpendicular. The cravasses were deep too, probably simliar to Mt Rainier with 50ish feet deep.
Once we rose above the last glacier, things got really pretty. It’s about a mile and a half walk along a gorgeous ridgeline to get to the actual summit. I got a lot of pictures over this last walk.
And finally, we made it! The last couple hundred feet are pretty uneventful, but it feels much more open than other climbs that I have done. mostly, the surrounding moutains are much more expansive than say, Mt Rainier, so the view from the top is really nice.
We hung out on the summit for a while, and then we started our descent. We took the same course, obviously, but everything changes when you are going down. It’s easier, but it’s a lot more dangerous and a lot easier to slip if you take a wrong step.
We came down below the snow line and back into the green - and everything changed again. The same amazing waterfalls and wildflowers - and then back into the same smoke, were we masked back up to avoid the coughing fits.
It was an amazing trip - Looking at the photos all these years later, I want to go back. I’m going to need to plan a trip next year… Here’s the last few photos that I couldn’t figure out where to fit in with everything else.
I think this was my last climb with that crew - a bit nostalgic actually.