Mount Baker Lower Coleman Glacier & Seracs

June 7-8 we climbed Baker via Coleman Glacier. We started Saturday at 9:30am and the approach was uneventful. There is a nice new bridge near the trailhead and the two tough creek crossings still had snow bridges over them but they may well be melted out by the next weekend. We arrived at the 6000 foot Hogsback camp at noon but decided to rope up and find better camping on the glacier. There were plenty of good spots and we picked one at around 7200 feet right next to the Heliotrope Ridge, arriving around 1:40pm.

The next morning we set off at 4:30am. We were in a whiteout most of the day but fortunately there was a decent boot track to follow along with wands. One set of wands (orange) seemed to be "permanent" but I wouldn't count on them being there. At least one group turned around due to strong winds and low visibility on the Pumice Ridge, but we found both tolerable when we arrived. There was a bit of a traffic jam on the Roman Wall when we got there. We had a very strong group of 12 and reached the summit plateau at 8:30am after four hours of climbing. The summit itself was extremely windy, and although above the clouds just about our only view was of the tops of the clouds which were high enough to cover all nearby mountains.

We started down at 9:20am and reached camp at 11:30pm. Left camp at 12:30pm and reached the trailhead at 2:45pm.

No crevasses encountered on the route this early in the season. The weather could have been better (no precipitation at least) but we did get spectacular views at times when it cleared a bit, and overall it was an extremely enjoyable climb with a wonderful group.