Basic Glacier Climb - Colfax Peak

Our team of six made a one-day climb of Colfax Peak, the tallest of the Black Buttes sub-summits of Mt Baker (Kulshan) and the eighth highest peak in Washington.

Fortunately for us, Peter Clitherow led a Colfax climb the prior week and there were two excellent trip reports from Limor Gavish and Joshua Walther. Our climb generally followed their template and found smooth sailing.

The weather forecasts leading up to the climb showed consistently warm temperatures. Happily, the night before the climb had mostly clear skies and the snow was firm enough for easy climbing with crampons.

Our alpine start left the trailhead at 3:10 a.m. We cruised up the dry trail and booted up the snow starting at the third creek crossing. Once we passed 6000 ft we found a place to rope up and put on crampons. The route up the Coleman glacier was well trodden and as the sun rose the views were glorious.

We reached the Baker-Colfax col around 9:30 a.m. giving us an excellent view to the south that included Glacier Peak and Rainier. Not far above the col, on the first steep incline, we reached a crevasse that was beginning to open up. David, leading the first rope team, took some time to probe around and found a reasonably secure crossing.

After climbing up towards the false summit we headed left and then down to the crossing to the main summit. We took a slightly leftward line to avoid some newish-looking holes but the route to the top was straightforward.

We arrived on the summit around 11 a.m.

We spent some summit time snacking and taking in the views, including the close-up Baker.

The down-climbing felt fairly secure even though the snow was softening in the warm sun. When we reached the crevasse we buried a picket and belayed the crossing.

We all carried snowshoes because of the temperature forecast. Once we were back on the Coleman glacier one rope team decided to try snowshoes while the other team dealt with postholes. After a lot of faffing around, Team Snowshoe was soundly beat by Team Posthole, maybe by an hour. We met back up near the start of the glacier and were back at the trailhead by 5 p.m.

Although Colfax Peak is not as high as Mount Baker it is in many ways a more interesting climb. We were fortunate to have good conditions and had a great time.

Gear: We brought two 40 m glacier ropes (three persons per rope), a 40 m rescue rope, and four pickets (used one).