Trip Report
Mount Baker/Easton Glacier
Route conditions seem to be holding, but be prepared with navigation aids as the snow recedes and the boot paths fade.
Ben Myton
- Sat, Aug 25, 2018 — Sun, Aug 26, 2018
- Mount Baker/Easton Glacier
- Climbing
- Turned Around
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- Road suitable for all vehicles
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Road: Large potholes on the forest service road - passable but slow.
Trail to Portal: Fantastic condition, easy walking up to the Railroad Grade where there are good wildflowers and plenty of berries. Well traveled and marked up past Sandy Camp to Portal where there was running water from the glacier (no melting snow for hours).
Glacier to 8700': Either walk NE up snow from portal, or travel SE to gain the spine and walk up the spine to the glacier. From there the trail is a mix of boot path and exposed glacier, in the exposed section it helps to have a GPS track to avoid wandering. There is a thin bridge covering 8-10' of crevasse at 8100' that will get more spicy as the weather warms. After that it's easy walking to the main route turn at 8700'.
8700' to Summit: Guide groups were choosing to traverse NW from 8700' across to join the Deming Glacier route below the Roman Wall which apparently avoids some narrow bridges/jumps and exposed ice on Easton's route. Our team turned back at 8700.
Weather timing wasn't ideal for our trip, resulting in rain for most of the walk up, part of the alpine start, and the entire walk back down. We did manage to get above the clouds for a while around 3am which gave some terrific views of peaks poking through clouds, and stars above, great motivation.
Water is available at Portal Camp, move north through the established sites following the sound of the waterfall, and then drop west down some rocks to find the small stream. Guides were friendly and willing to share the beta that they had, and 1 bar of Verizon service at the camp kept us informed of the weather trends.
