Basic Glacier Climb - Mount Baker/Coleman Glacier

Mt. Baker summit was our plan B; our original plan was to do Colfax but we changed our plan based on recent beta of a crevasse across our path soon after the Col, which would put us into steep, exposed terrain attempting to end-run it.

Day 1:

Time to camp: 4 hrs
Distance to camp: ~3.75 mi as recorded by Garmin.

We started on Saturday at 10AM from the trailhead towards our camp below the Black Buttes at ~7100 ft. The trail from start till Hogsback camp was in shade, with a few stream crossings - none of them had enough water to cause any issues. Poles were helpful when crossing them.

We reached Hogsback camp in ~2:45 hrs where we stopped to fill up water before continuing up to our camp for the day. We did not rope up in this section and did not put on crampons. We reached Black Buttes camp in ~4 hours from trailhead. The trail from Hogsback to Black Buttes camp was inside a whiteout. We followed topo and footprints to stay on track.

The route was mostly packed with snow with latitudinal cracks that were mostly filled in or a few inches wide at most and did not pose any hazard. We did not pass any crevasse along the way that made us stop and rope up.

We spent the afternoon at the camp digging snow, building some walls around the tents and a kitchen area. After dinner, we set up our ropes before retiring to our tents around 7PM.

Day 2:

Summit push start time: 2AM
Summit time: 6:45AM
Back at camp: 9:35AM
Left camp: Noon
Back to TH: 3PM
Distance: ~1.5 - 2mi from camp to summit

We woke up to a clear sky and some breeze, and it was not very cold. It was a clear sunny day. We started from camp a little past 2AM. The route was straightforward; we stayed high on the route until we came to the col.  We went up a slightly steeper approach climbers-left to top out on the col as there were multiple teams going up the easiest spots and we didn't want to just be standing. Beyond the col, we stayed parallel to / leapfrogged teams from another group - there was plenty of space for 2-3 teams to walk up in parallel.

The Roman Wall was fully packed with no visible crevasses, and offered easy navigation to the top. Getting off of the wall onto the summit plateau was probably the crux. We topped out somewhere in the center, but there were better options just to the climbers left of us that we missed. We dropped on the wall from there instead. The snow was great, hard and packed and provided great traction for crampons both ways.

Summit was a bit windy. Our thermometer registered 20 degrees. We spent some time taking photos, snacking, etc. and then started our descent. We face-out down climbed the Wall and passed by several teams on the way to the col. Snow was still too firm for plunge stepping.

It was hot by the time we got back to camp. We relaxed a bit, ate, packed up and left camp around 1145 - noon. We decided to rope up on the way back because of the cracks we had passed on our way up, more for practicing good hygiene on a glacier than fear of punching through. We unroped at Hogsback camp, refilled some water and continued on to the TH. We got back to our cars at 3PM where we debriefed before heading out.