Glacier Creek Road is really rough right now. Don’t get lulled into complacency by the smooth sections, pot holes, sinkholes, and abrupt edges are hiding in the shadows. 

The trail is in great shape. Great tread and logged out. Patchy snow starts near mile 2, just past the turn off for the mountain toilet. There is more snow than trail after the climbers junction and there are many hidden holes and some obvious snow bridges. There was a very obvious boot track, so navigation was not needed, but choosing an alternative route over the snow bridges was necessary. 

Kulshan Creek was not too bad and there were plenty of options for crossing and staying on rocks. The west fork of Heliotrope Creek (before climbers junction) is snow free and it was easy to find rocks to cross on. The middle fork of Heliotrope Creek (the first one after the climbers junction) had a snow bridge that was good enough when it was cold in the morning, but had more holes after noon. It won’t be there long and will be sketchy until it is gone. The final creek crossing had a more solid snow bridge, but it is thin at the edges and I saw a person with a heavy pack punch through. Where the snow was solid, it was easy to walk on and no traction was needed. 

I saw 3 marmots and lots of marmot tracks up high and some band tailed pigeons in the woods. There weren’t many flowers, but there were some very nice marsh marigolds. It was socked in most of the day so it was a great hiking temperature. It never rained and a timely sucker hole showed up when I was at Survey Rock. 

Overnight climb of Mt Baker via the Coleman-Deming (Heliotrope Ridge approach) from June 6-7, 2025.

ROAD had rough spots, some huge potholes and sneaky dips but yes, there was a Prius at the TH. Outhouses were open and stocked on Friday but with the massive amounts of cars there when we left on Sat, who knows how long that TP lasted!

HELIOTROPE RIDGE TRAIL: Snow-free to start and in good shape with some water crossings, with patchy snow beginning around 1.2 miles in.

The larger water crossing of Kulshan Creek was a bit tricky - we went upstream a bit for the best crossing spot - but I had no chance of keeping my feet dry in mesh trail runners. My partner fared better in boots and gaiters.

We followed the trail to where it diverged with the climbers' trail up towards the Hogsback, which was where we were heading. There were some melting out snow bridges before the split, so take care with those areas.

TO BLACK BUTTES CAMP: I put on boots after the stream crossing at the split, as we were basically on snow after this except for a very short ridge section. We climbed up to the Hogsback camping area where there were tent sites melted out and good running water.

We decided to keep climbing to the Black Buttes area to set up camp, which was about 1,200' vertical above the Hogsback sites. No running water here, but it was fairly protected from the wind. We had an absolutely stunning sunset - it blazed on forever!

COLEMAN-DEMING: We left camp at around 4.30 am as sunrise brightened the sky. We high traversed over to the main bootpath from camp, which involved punching through breakable crust hell in the morning, since not many people had gone that way. Footing was much better once we got to the superhighway of tracks.

The route was in pretty good shape with one open crevasse that we crossed on a thinning snowbridge in the morning. We went around it on the way back.

We unroped to climb the steep section of the Roman Wall. The Wall had good bucket steps which made it pretty straightforward. We down-climbed face-in on the steepest section of the descent for the 20-30 feet (guesstimate). It was moderately cold and windy in the AM on the ridge but I did ok with 3-season boots.

Once up top, it was a mellow walk over to the summit bump. We sat for a bit and enjoyed the views, but it was pretty chilly in the sustained breeze, and we didn't wait overly long before making our descent.

The snow was still fairly firm on initial descent, but softened up by the time we got to the bottom of the Roman wall. The glacier below had been baking, and the post-holing horror began as we slowly and sloppily made our way back to camp...but we eventually made it.

We had actually brought snowshoes up to camp and might have benefited from stashing them at the base of the Roman Wall, but...you know, hindsight and all that.

The exit from camp went pretty quickly, and for some reason the snow on our descent was better for plunge-stepping than the snow we encountered above camp. 

Glad to have finally checked this one off my list!

• Expect lots of people on a beautiful weekend! Hogsback was a tent city when we left.
• Don't hang out in the fall zone of the Colfax Peak serac! If you look at past photos of the debris zone, it's wild how much ice and rock can blast down off that peak.
• I really need to become a better skier so I can ski these peaks instead of slogging on foot...those skiers sounded so much happier than us on the way out  😆

WANT MORE PHOTOS? Follow along on Instagram @thenomadicartist

For the first 1.5 miles the trail was very accessible. There were two streams rushing pretty fast which were intermediate to difficult to cross. the last 1.5 miles were all snow, heavy snow pack. I felt secure and scrambled up to the ridge. Slid down on my butt - was fun!

No recent trip reports for Heliotrope Ridge, but it was a beautiful bluebird day at Baker so I decided to give this hike a shot. Forest road to the trailhead had pretty big potholes in the middle section, but any car can pass as long as they're careful. There are snowy sections appearing on the road around 1 mile from the TH, with snow completely covering the road 0.5 mi from the TH. I passed the intermittent snow sections no problem with my SUV (no chains) but a friendly backcountry skier told me a truck got stuck in the snow in the last 0.5 mile, so I parked and hiked up the last bend.

Trail is packed snow but fairly easy to follow (bring a map for tricky sections of the route though) until you hit the junction between Heliotrope Ridge and the Creek Crossing Bypass Spur. I couldn't find the turnoff to Heliotrope Ridge as it seemed everyone else on the trail went up the open meadow towards the Bypass Spur to backcountry ski or snowboard. After postholing around for 15 min, I gave up, ate lunch and headed back. Probably that last 0.5 mile hasn't been trail-broken yet.

Microspikes were perfect for most of the trail but if you want to do the last 0.5 miles to Heliotrope Ridge, bring snowshoes.

We set out from home to hike Lake Ann, but ended up hiking Heliotrope as Rt 542, was closed for "dangerous tree removal", blocking access to most of the trails above The Excelsior Ridge parking lot.  This was quite unexpected for a lot of folks who ended up with us on the Heliotrope Ridge trail. I am not sure how long the crews will have the road closed.

The 6 mile roundtrip hike was very pleasant with the terminus affording wonderful close up views of the Coleman Glacier.  We started hiking about 10 am with temperatures quite chilly in the upper 30s. The stream crossings were very challenging due to water volume and ice on the rocks.  Trekking poles were extremely helpful!