Mount Baker Crevasse Rescue (& subsequent summit)

[Rob]

I spent the weekend on Mount Baker at our final Mountaineers Basic Climbing Class field trip.

Had spectacular weather and an outstanding trip.

Day one we climbed up to our base camp (had to start about 1/2 a mile from the trail head due to snow that was blocking the roads). Once in camp we roped up immediately and hit the glacier. The teams set up a crevasse rescue scenario and one by one we were lowered into crevasses. We had to self rescue and allow our team to rescue us using Z pulley systems. This took the rest of the day. We went back to camp, had dinner and slept.

Up again and on the ropes by 7 AM we proceeded to practice roped travel techniques. We did some snow belays, team fall arrests, and lots of ice axe self arrests. Some also did additional Z pulley practice (in snow, not glaciers)

Some photos

[Rob]

And here are some photos of me in the crevasse

[longrangekiller]

looks like alot of fun 

[elkboy]

Nice!  I got to do the Easton-Deming route on Baker 10 years ago- was a great climb.  The crater fumaroles were really roaring.

[denali]

very cool, thanks for posting

[Special T]

Cool Pics! It great that you spent the time to learn safty. When i was comming off Rainer from summiting I ran into a couple of guys that were Ice climbers and wanted to get the 30 second rund down on how to do crevasse rescue.  He thought you just ice climbed out... I told him to follow the group closely that was a little farther up the hill....

[Rob]

I told him to follow the group closely that was a little farther up the hill....

Great advice!

The class has been great.  I don't object to using guides, but I would rather spend money on training and equipment and take a little extra time to figure out how to do it without guides.  Teach me to fish so to speak.

The class has been most excellent.  It is like a college level class with robust graduation requirements:
-5 months of classroom work (started in late January, ends mid-June)
-A mid-term and final exam with written and practical's portions
-6 field trips
-three post-class required climbs (one glacier, one rock, one dealers choice or alpine)
-1 day of volunteer work.
-complete a 2 day wilderness first aid class
-complete a 1 day first aid scenario class with SAR
-complete a full day navigation course (1/2 classroom work, 1/2 field work)

I really like that it is taught with a text book, but the instructors are all volunteer.  So it is more of a structured mentoring program.  It has also been nice that the folks I have interacted with in the Everett branch have been supportive of the hunting and shooting sports.  I am not ashamed of my hunting heritage and if this had been a group like Sierra club, well, I am not sure I would have stuck it out.  Made some great friends and learned some outstanding skills.

I am shooting to climb Little Tahoma, Baker, Mt Schuksan, Icy peak/Ruth Peak traverse, and Glacier Peak in the next 2/3 months.  And I now have a solid network of skilled people to climb other challenging peaks with.  I got hooked up with a group to do Mt Shasta last month.  We will do Rainer this year or next too.  Maybe I'll do Denali in 5 years or so, who knows.

Highly recommend!

[pope]

One of your photos seems to show TWO ropes as you prusik out of that hole. Were you belayed from above (on a second rope) as you climbed the rope to get out of that crevasse? Just curious.

[Rob]

Correct.  This was a rescue scenario training session and our first time in crevasses so we had a climbing rope rigged for the crevasse fall scenario, and we were belayed down on a second rope that was tied into a different anchor system.  Additonally there was a safety line anchored in so we could safely maneuver around the glacier without being roped together.   The set up was complicated, but given we had 12 rope teams and around 58 people between students, instructors and assistants, I was impressed with how smoothly they operated. 

We left cars around 7 am, and by 11:45 am this large group had all hiked in 3.5 miles to base camp, dropped gear, roped up, climbed another mile onto the glacier, set up 6 of the complicated crevasse stations in the diagram below, and were dropping folks into the crevasses.  Pretty impressive to get close to 60 people to accomplish all that in under 5 hours...

[pope]

I used to be employed by a local college as a rope leader/instructor. Let's just say you guys processed a similar number of students in roughly the same amount of time.....but you did it with far more attention to student safety. I also completed the basic course (1985) in Tacoma and I remember a set up similar to your diagram. The clowns instructing the college class I mentioned had NO CLUE about safe protocol. After three summers and several close calls, I couldn't tolerate their practices any longer. I did save the college an expensive day in court when, due to poor leadership, a female student had a very close call when she was unsupervised and slid out of control. She went on for two hours about calling her attorney immediately when she returned home. I bought her a Pepsi and talked her out of it.

[Rob]

I have been impressed with the way the Mountaineers run their show.  They are well organized and have a good balance of risk mitigation and safety.

I'm a fan of the DIY approach to getting these climbs done.

I hope the college paid you back for the pepsi.  sounds like a good investment.

[swanny]

Looks like a great time, and way to get out and learn the skills! I'll be heading to Baker this weekend for a climb.

But were there no wilderness ethics with the Mountaineers? That looks like way more than 12 people in one group.

[Rob]

We were in 6 groups that happen to all be in the same area!  (I was told that Mt Baker does not have size limits like some other places.  I did not check the facts on that though)

And not that it matters from an impact perspective, but we were training, not summiting.  So our mob did not all try to cram onto the summit.  We went to an "off the beaten path" part of the glacier so we were out of the way.

I found out that club sponsored climbs on priority destinations like Baker are coordinated by the chapters.  They limit the club sponsored climbs to one chapter per day per climb.  For example, this coming weekend, only one chapter can plan a Mountaineers sponsored climb on Baker.  Once it hits the calendar, no other chapter can plan one for the same window.  additionally they keep the groups size to 6-9 overall.

I hope to summit Baker on the 22nd if the Wx cooperates.

[swanny]

Interesting...

Good luck on your climb! I'm keeping my fingers crossed for weather this weekend, it's not looking great right now. Oh well, you can't always have the views

[Knocker of rocks]

Looks like a great time, and way to get out and learn the skills! I'll be heading to Baker this weekend for a climb.

But were there no wilderness ethics with the Mountaineers? That looks like way more than 12 people in one group.

They were probably out of the Wilderness proper, and in an area where snowmobiles are allowed.  And they carried out their poo

[klikboom]

That's fun, and Baker is my favorite mountain around. Glad to hear the Mountaineers course is delivering for you. I took the basic class from BOEALPS and had a great time, though once i realized i could ski backcountry and not walk down i pretty much quit mountaineering. I took the BC ski course through mountaineers 1.5 years ago and that was awesome but unlike the climbing course we didn't leave with a list of folks to ski with that was a bummer as most of my friends only ski in-bounds. Shuksan is such as awesome mountain too, i still have that summit on my bucket list.

[swanny]

That's fun, and Baker is my favorite mountain around. Glad to hear the Mountaineers course is delivering for you. I took the basic class from BOEALPS and had a great time, though once i realized i could ski backcountry and not walk down i pretty much quit mountaineering. I took the BC ski course through mountaineers 1.5 years ago and that was awesome but unlike the climbing course we didn't leave with a list of folks to ski with that was a bummer as most of my friends only ski in-bounds. Shuksan is such as awesome mountain too, i still have that summit on my bucket list.

How do you feel about splitboarders? I'm always up for getting BC turns in. Hoping to hit Shuksan via Fischer Chimneys later this year, been on the list for far to long

[swanny]

We were in 6 groups that happen to all be in the same area!  (I was told that Mt Baker does not have size limits like some other places.  I did not check the facts on that though)

And not that it matters from an impact perspective, but we were training, not summiting.  So our mob did not all try to cram onto the summit.  We went to an "off the beaten path" part of the glacier so we were out of the way.

I found out that club sponsored climbs on priority destinations like Baker are coordinated by the chapters.  They limit the club sponsored climbs to one chapter per day per climb.  For example, this coming weekend, only one chapter can plan a Mountaineers sponsored climb on Baker.  Once it hits the calendar, no other chapter can plan one for the same window.  additionally they keep the groups size to 6-9 overall.

I hope to summit Baker on the 22nd if the Wx cooperates.

Good luck on your climb this weekend! Hope the weather is better than what we had last weekend. Although we did summit, it wasn't looking very promising on our hike up to camp.

[Rob]

Thanks for checking in, and congrats on your summit.  What route did you take?  Looks like you had the same kind of weather we did.

We did the Easton Route.  Started hiking from Schreibner's Meadow (4,800 feet) at 5:05 AM and arrived at the Portal camp (6,700 feet) at 10:10.  Not speedy, but the only pressure we had to keep moving was the thread of deteriorating snow conditions for the hike into basecamp so we took it nice and easy. 

Our Friday Weather looks like the weather you had.  pretty much light white out with viz down to about 15 yards or so.

We set up camp and as we finished it dropped an inch of wet snow on us.  We elected to take naps and wait for it to blow over.  Around 6pm it let up a bit and we got a couple glimpses of the mountain.    We took advantage of the brief break in Wx and roped up to take an hour glacier walk to get use to our teams, and check out the boot path. 

We decided to be on the rope moving around 3am to try and beat the rotten snow that the predicted sun would bring.  We awoke to clear skies and bright stars. 

We were  roped up and boots on trail at 3:15 AM and took our time to the summit.  We made it made the summit at 8:40 AM.  There was no boot path on the upper portion of the Mountain, so on the Roman wall we hugged Sherman's crater all the way up and it was a little dicey as the bergshrund was pretty close to the edge of the glacier, but it seemed to work OK.  we noted that the other rope teams were doing a switch back up the Roman wall and snaking their way up and that was probably better.  We were reluctant to venture away from the edge since we could not make out what the bergshrund was doing to our west and we knew the way we went would work.  It was pretty steep going directly up that portion though.    (photo with the red line shows the approx. path we took, and you can see the other rope teams doing the switchback to the left)

This has been on my list for a year and I have been on the Easton Glacier a 3 times poking around a little.  Very glad to have had the chance to summit.  Could not have had better weather.  Blue skies and warm with peak winds around 7 MPH. 

Congrats on your summit!  here are a few photos of our trip.

[swanny]

Congrats on the summit! Glad to hear and see the weather worked out for you! 

We did the Coleman Deming route, so we were on the path in the left side of your final image between the two rock bands.

I've got Adams and Glacier Peak left for my Washington volcanoes to climb, hoping to get Adams in this year and plan a 4-5 day trip for Glacier next year.

[Rob]

Excellent

are you taking the traditional southside up Adams, ot a more technical route?

I hope to get Glacier in this July weather permitting.  We have a 3 day trip planned, but 4-5 would be more pleasant.

that will leave me with Rainer.  I think that will be next year as I don't want to brave the crowds.  Thinking a May trip would be better.  We had it lined up this year but the avy danger the guides were reporting pushed us off the mountain and we did Shasta instead

[netcoyote]

Congratulations Rob! Believe it or not I was thinking about you guys this weekend when I was out in the hills and wondering if you had made your Baker trip that we talked about last year. I really commend your effort in doing the groundwork necessary to make your climbing events successful...and most important, SAFE.

I am also glad to see the Mountaineers are producing the same quality training classes that they are known for. The training regimen you describe is pretty much what we used when I lead the crevasse rescue field trips for the Tacoma Mountaineers. You guys had some quality crevasses to work with! We would do our CR work up at Paradise. Several years we had to do the simulations off of the snow banks in the parking lot because the crevasses hadn't opened up yet.

Thanks for posting the pics also. Sure brought back some great memories. Somehow I missed when you started this thread, but I'll be watching it now. Keep us posted of your upcoming trips, I'll be looking forward to see your new summits.

[swanny]

Excellent

are you taking the traditional southside up Adams, ot a more technical route?

I hope to get Glacier in this July weather permitting.  We have a 3 day trip planned, but 4-5 would be more pleasant.

that will leave me with Rainer.  I think that will be next year as I don't want to brave the crowds.  Thinking a May trip would be better.  We had it lined up this year but the avy danger the guides were reporting pushed us off the mountain and we did Shasta instead

I'll probably do the South Side of Adams when I get to it, I'd like to splitboard as much as possible, and then ride down it.

For Rainier, although it's longer I'd highly suggest the Emmons, much less crowded than the DC route with all the guide services. It's a bit longer, but you get a more remote feeling from it. We did it as a 3 day climb which was perfect.

[Rob]

Steve and I were talking about you a week or so ago as well.  Really appreciated you taking the time to have dinner with us end of last year.  We were commenting on how much of our approach has changed since that time and appreciated your insights and encouragement to get some additional training.  Our safety protocols and gear management is far better than it was last Sept.  As an example, last September when we did the glacier travel on our own, we had 65 pound packs and did not even have helmets when on the glacier.  This time we had 38# packs, better technical gear and definitely helmets! The training we got sure beats a "youtube" certification.  Meeting quality folks like you is a real benefit to his site.

Our chapter has had some real weather issues with Baker in the past.  They use to do this trip in mid/late May, but moved it to the first week in June this year in hopes of having less of a hike to the trial head due to closed roads, and the possibility of better weather.  Both panned out as we only had 1/2 a mile to walk to the trail head and as you can see, stunning weather!

We talked to a few of the Tacoma guys who attended some of our classes due to schedule issues for their classes.  They mentioned Paradise and how the crevasses were hit and miss.  We did our snow one class at Stevens - built our snow caves there.  worked out well, but I think paradise would have been a lot more fun!

[Rob]

Excellent

are you taking the traditional southside up Adams, ot a more technical route?

I hope to get Glacier in this July weather permitting.  We have a 3 day trip planned, but 4-5 would be more pleasant.

that will leave me with Rainer.  I think that will be next year as I don't want to brave the crowds.  Thinking a May trip would be better.  We had it lined up this year but the avy danger the guides were reporting pushed us off the mountain and we did Shasta instead

I'll probably do the South Side of Adams when I get to it, I'd like to splitboard as much as possible, and then ride down it.

For Rainier, although it's longer I'd highly suggest the Emmons, much less crowded than the DC route with all the guide services. It's a bit longer, but you get a more remote feeling from it. We did it as a 3 day climb which was perfect.

South side is a hoot.  you will love it.  we will look into the Emmons. 

here is a photo of the glissade shoot at the top of Pikers Peak on Adams when I did it last year!  several hours up, 15 min down!

[swanny]

  looks fun and scary, no stopping in that bad boy