Sunday, June 22, 2014

Mt.Baker Squak glacier ski



photo album here



Becky and I usually climb Mt.Baker as a day trip....start early, top out around noon, home by dinner...but we hadn't camped out in a long time and the weather was too nice not to dawdle our way up the mountain.
We both needed to work a bit Saturday morning, so we didn't get to the trailhead until about 4 in the afternoon....a few hours of hiking and skinning got us to Crag View at the toe of the Squak Glacier. We found a dry campsite in the rocks a little ways away from the many, many other campers up there, and settled in to enjoy the sunset and have some dinner.
I guess the downside of camping right around the solstice in the alpine is that its broad daylight at 4:30 in the morning...but we still managed to snooze for a while and get a leisurely start out of camp.   A solid freeze overnight made cramponing preferable to skinning for the first hour or so, then we were finally able to get the skis off our backpacks.
Slow and steady progress brought us to the summit right around noon...a quick bite to eat and some pictures and then it was back to the Roman Wall where the corn was perfect...like really, absolutely, perfect.  For the next 4,000vf it was no-speed-limit smooth cruisers with only a few crevasses to scoot around.  The last thousand feet to the tent, the snow started to get a bit slow and sticky....but we didn't mind.
Back at camp by early afternoon for a boots-off break, then it was into the forest where we managed to keep skiing all the way to 4000ft...only a couple miles and 700vf from the car.
Sometimes its nice to move swiftly through the mountains with just a daypack... sometimes its nice to bring the camping gear along and just take it easy.