Mt Baker- Coleman Deming Route May 18th 2012

[DanCudlip]

Mt friend Holly and I left Whistler on Thursday evening and parked up behind the convenience store in Glacier at about 11pm. After sleeping in the cars we drove up to the start of the trail just before 7 the next morning and set off.

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?s...1&l=73a49944f5

We crossed the sketchy creek and followed the summer trail to treeline, which we later learned is perhaps not the best way to do it. Would be happy to hear from anyone who has skinned higher up the creek and crossed higher up, avoiding the summer trail all together.

The snow stubbornly refused to soften up despite being in and out of the sun all day, and the whole mountain became engulfed in cloud literally seconds after we left the summit. The first half of the ski down was pretty awful- it felt like skiing on rime it was so froze, and we had to follow the shittly boot pack highway the whole time to make sure we avoided the crevasses.

About half way down there was a break in the clouds and the snow softened up and we got quite a few nice turns. If you hit it top to bottom in primo conditions it could be amazing- Its pretty steep in parts, there are shit loads of cool ice features, and its a ridiculously long run- over a vertical mile before you hit the tree line. Skiing out the summer trail involved a bit of poling along the flat, but over all wasn't too bad.

Then to top off a great day we ran into Chris Davenport and his Spyder land yacht crew who invited us for dinner and some beers with them. Davenport even offered to lend me a pair of shoes so I could get out of my boots. What a ridiculously nice guy!

[LeeLau]

Sux dan - we spent the day gapering in S Garibaldi Park waiting for clouds to lift and doing laps off the Gargoyles and Columnar. Should have gone out today!

[covert]

glad to hear you didn't get hollied out up there

[DanCudlip]

Sux dan - we spent the day gapering in S Garibaldi Park waiting for clouds to lift and doing laps off the Gargoyles and Columnar. Should have gone out today!

That's a bummer man. We managed to bag the Neve in a day last week. Didn't post a TR cos the photos all came out crappy on my iPhone, but you can check them out here if you're interested

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?s...1&l=c3016f0edf

[LeeLau]

First pic is funny - we started at 4am. Were going to bag Garibaldi and summit that. Started up to Atwell instead to see what the weather would let us do but weather closed us out. oh well its not going anywhere and I'd done Garibaldi before. Perhaps try again next week

[3pin]

Nice photos! We went yesterday, and happened to hit the narrow weather window this week pretty well. Camped out Friday night on the road with my wife and two friends, and woke up to cloudless skies at 3:30am on Saturday. Sun was out all day long, but coolish temps kept things from softening very quickly. We climbed the same route up the summer trail, but wound up cutting straight up Kulshan Creek, which popped us out in a pretty nice spot on the Coleman instead of further over the ridge. That is a looong climb, and we definitely slowed down a ton bootpacking the Roman wall. We ran into Davenport lower down and talked with him for a while, turns out Baker was his last volcano of the trip, and they hit it in pretty perfect weather.

We spent a while hanging out on the top, letting things soften up. Amazing place to relax, almost completely calm on the summit. We finally skied down around 3pm, barely softening up on the top, but beautiful corn down below that. Another group advised us to traverse across Heliotrope ridge and descend down into Glacier Creek's canyon, which turned out to be awesome. Steep, long, and perfect corn, that dropped us directly on top of the trailhead and bypassed the sketchy creek crossing at the end of the day. I think the summer route was an easier climb, but that was a really enjoyable descent.

Cool to compare shots, pretty incredible being up there for the first time. Photos from our day here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?...1&l=c39dd385e4

[DanCudlip]

Great to compare notes man! Looks like you had slightly more consistent light and better snow than we did, but looks like you also had to share it with a few more groups (I guess thats what happens on a saturday!)

Thats sweet that you managed to avoid the summer trail on the exit, although I've heard horror stories of people missing the trail/exit in those woods and get lost for fucking ever!