This is an old trip report, but I thought some of you might get a kick out of it.


On June 18th Jeff and I successfully climbed the North Ridge of Mt Baker. We originally planned to climb Liberty Ridge on Mt. Rainier, but due to the recent events (accidents on Liberty Ridge) our wives laid down the law and insisted that we climb something “safer”. I have climbed Liberty Ridge before and found it to be a very safe route… provided you don’t fall. The North Ridge of Baker seemed like a good alternative, so after a favorable weather forecast we set out from Puyallup (near Tacoma) on Wednesday the 16th in Jeff's Motor Home. We bivouaked in great style at the trail head and set out at 1:00 am the next morning for high camp. We cruised to our 7000’ high camp next to Black Buttes in less than 3 hrs. Our plan was to scope out the glacier crossing and have a restful day in the tent so that we could leave for the summit at 2:00 am. By scrambling onto one of the rubble peaks behind our tent we were able to scope out a route through the heavily crevassed Coleman Glacier to the base of the ridge.

We got plenty of sleep but still overslept and didn’t leave camp until 2:45 am. I post holed in misery while Jeff walked right on top of the wind crust. As the sun rose the North Cascades turned blood red and hazy looking like Mordor in the Lord of the Rings, very eerie. As the sun rose, the sky turned bluer and bluer until settling into the most amazing aqua color. What a beautiful day to be in the hills. We were convinced that after our stellar performance on the approach to camp that we would cruise the North Ridge in 6 hrs round trip. Wrong!! It took us 5 hrs just to get to the base of the first roped pitch at about 8500’.

The ice on the first pitch looked like bullet proof blue ice and "steeper'n a church steeple", so we set up a picket belay in the snow just below the ice. I launched into the first pitch glad to leave the snow but soon got gripped from the dinner plates my tools fractured loose. My mountain axe would barely penetrate the ice and required 3 or 4 swings but the ice hammer worked excellent after clearing the first swing dinner plate. I placed 2 ice screws low on the pitch then ran out 150’ of our rope to a belay on our last 2 ice screws. We brought 4 screws but should have brought 6 as our 3 pickets proved useless in the ice, as we will find out in a moment. We discussed the route ahead... to the right or straight up looked vertical but doable, to the left looked like an easy traverse to “gentle slopes”, so Jeff led through that way placing 2 screws as he went leaving him with only pickets for the belay. It sounded like Gimli the Dwarf had set up a blacksmith shop and was shoeing horses and makin’ swords and all kinds of sh#t by all the clangin’ and bangin’ going on around the corner. I couldn't see him but could picture the pickets looking like bent over mushrooms... I followed very carefully! The 2 pickets were driven about a quarter of the way in, but he had clipped them in low, equalized them and tied into a "screamer". It looked about as safe as could be considering the circumstances. The third pitch proved the best . It started with about 20’ of vertical ice where I placed 2 screws followed by 180’ run out of 65 degree ice back to the crest of the ridge where I found snow that would accept our pickets, and an unbelievable view. Looking down on Jeff as I belayed him up the third pitch was truly awesome, the view down to the jumbled Roosevelt Glacier 2000' below was very exposed! The remaining slog to the summit was straight forward but we were back to the brutal post holing.

9 hrs after leaving camp we reached the summit of Mt. Baker 10,778' above sea level. So much for 6 hrs round trip! The view of Bellingham and the San Juan Islands was breath taking. As we were coming up to the summit the weather which had been changing got downright ugly, and things began to get interesting. We were ringed on 3 sides by ominous thunder clouds. The sky darkened, the wind began to blow and it began to snow. Time to descend the standard route pronto!

Boom!... Flash!...lightning lit up the black clouds. Jeff did not seem to feel the danger like I did because he casually stopped, took off his pack and began grumbling about his misplaced gloves threatening to “empty this damn rucksack” unless he found it. All the while I was pissing myself from fright. As we stood to continued down the ridge, our metal climbing equipment began to hum and buzz from immanent static discharge. While it was tempting to throw ourselves on the snow and wail like squaws, we did the brave thing...ran like hell. We glissaded where possible and soon discovered the downside to roped simul-glissading.

I went first down the steep upper portion of the standard route, hoping to hurry Jeff who was still going slowly on the flats. My 210 lbs of Alabama pork loin snapped up the remaining slack in the rope between us and launched Airmoss over my head as if from a medieval siege engine down the slope. As he flew past he said calmly “well... be seeing you”. Luckily he is highly skilled in the arts of the tumbling self arrest. We safely got back to camp 12 hrs after leaving.

The hike back to the RV was sped by thought of ice cold Heinekens waiting in the fridge. The RV didn’t do too well on the way out though. Going down the steep dirt road back to the town of Glacier, the brakes over heated so bad they smoked as if on fire. But enough of such adventure, it was a sleepy ride back to Hobbiton and the Gaffer.