Mt. Baker Easton Glacier Route

Watch Your Step

A buddy, Jason, and I climbed Mt. Baker yesterday. After 3 hours of sleep in the car we headed up around 5 am. The approach to the Easton Glacier takes forever, which is why most people make the trip in two days. But to reduce the time away from the family we powered through it.

This time of the year the mountain is very exposed. There is not direct route so you kind of make it up, trying to avoid the thousands of crevasses. We brought rope and rescue gear but did not end up using any. Jason had some feet issue and stopped around 8500. Another climber coming down said he had to turn back because of a sketchy snow bridge. I pressed on and figured I would evaluate. It was a little slushy (early afternoon) but I made it across fine and felt the risk was low. So I did a solo ascent to the top. It was very quiet and only about 3 other tracks on top.

On the descent I decided to start a glissade from the top. It is pretty steep and there is a significant crevasse a few hundred yards below so I did a quick arrest to stop myself. Of course, not before putting a nice tear in my pants from my crampons.

The descent was really slow since it was a crazy maze of crevasse avoidance. We made the roundtrip in about 14 hours due to some foot injuries and precautions on the upper climb.

All and all it was a good climb for this time of the year.

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