baker via coleman glacier
16-17 august '03

12:28pm we reach the edge of the glacier after hiking 2 hours on the heliotrope ridge trail. its a gorgeous day.. lotsa sunshine and wild flowers! mt baker looms invitingly in the distance... at this point we group into rope teams, pull out our ice-axes and crampons to start ascending the glacier up to the "black buttes" were we will setup camp..

12:30pm another view of the mighty glacier.. notice how 'wrinkled' it is.. the 'wrinkles' are caused by flexing of the snow+ice as the glacier slides over uneven terrain

wahoo, base camp! we setup tents at the base of those huge rocks on the right (so called black buttes).
the peak looks deceivingly close.. ha, it really is far and huge!

3:15pm chillin for abit before setting up tents... by now we've ascended about 3,300' from the trailhead! notice the crevasse (huge crack in the glacier) at the left of the picture. it's amazing to see this much snow during the summer.. but hey, we're on a glacier!

4:35pm a bunch of climbers heading up the glacier to setup camp higher.. thats a snow shovel in the foreground - we use it to flatten the area of snow we camp/cook on, or to dig for fresh snow to melt for water..

4:42pm we pitched our tent at the base of black buttes..

1:20am summit push! we wake up at 1am.. put on our headlamps, crampons, harnesses, iceaxes... and start hiking up the glacier. walking up the glacier was the most amazing experience.. the full moon was bright enough that we could see the peak, the glacial landscape and a sea of clouds (we were above cloud level) extending all the way to the horizon.. through some cracks in the clouds some faint city lights were also visible. the stars were bright against the night sky - we even saw some shooting stars! except for a very soft breeze, the mountain was completely silent. very grand - it felt quite surreal..

the vista just before sunrise. notice the green light on the left - thats the headlamp of a climber..

5:30am a climber passes us by as we watch the sunrise..

6:20am the 3 specks on the right are climbers about to reach the summit plateau.. there were about an hour ahead of us! "Roman Wall" is what they call the steep rock face on the left..

view from the the summit! i'm one of those 3 shadow specks on the right...

7:38am another summit view. checkout the crevasse on the left! the sun's still pretty near the horizon - you can tell from the long shadows of my fellow climbers. we've ascended 3,778' from base camp..

7:39am yours truly - at 10,778 feet! wahhoo!

descending - we didn't stay too long at the summit as it was cold and very windy. notice the rope connecting each of us climbers - typically 3 climbers are connected by 1 rope.. the theory is that if one of us falls (either into a crevasse or steep slope), the others should be be able to stop the fall by braking with our feet and iceaxes!

on the top of the world!

9:28am soaking in glacier views - glaciers are huge, magnificent and beautiful...

9:28am closeup on a crevasse field. crevasses are very, very deep cracks in the glacier.. we had to cross/jump over a good number of them while climbing the mountain..

9:28am contrast the glacier, rock and greenery...

11:33am we arrive back at base camp - phew, what a day!

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