We used this outing as a chance to practice skills for a planned Mount Baker summit attempt next month. We hiked in on a beautiful day with heavy packs carrying ropes, harnesses, pickets, helmets, mountaineering boots, crampons, ice axes, and helmets.
We arrived at the parking about 11:00 AM, unloaded everything and were hiking by 11:30. The trail is mostly dry with occasional patches of snow all the way to Chocolate Falls. The falls were running strong today. We were in hiking boots or mountaineering boots, with gaiters. Some of us with microspikes most without. We set up camp just above the snow line and enjoyed an afternoon with blue skies. We practiced glissading and snow safety skills.
Knowing that weather was coming in, and that the snow was pretty soft, we began our summit attempt at 2:00 AM. Some of us in microspikes, most in mountaineering boots. We followed the rocks nearly to the monitoring station. For the last stretch, mountaineering boots added crampons. We turned off headlamps at the point, so it was probably around 5:15 sunrise. Once we arrived at the monitoring station, we set up our rope lines and began the long ascent. The snow was pretty soft, so footing was fine all the way up. Route-finding was challenging at times in the dark, but there are ample boot tracks to follow up, up, up. The morning mist turned to sleet somewhere along the way and the wind picked up. We pushed on. We had a large group and found that one group traveled faster than another, so the fast group became pretty cold waiting on the slower group. We were all fine when we were moving, but stopping on the mountain gave us a chance to realize just how soaked our gear was from the rain and time for water to work its way further in.
After we joined up with the Monitor Ridge Climbing Route, we took stock of our situation. The wind was getting stronger, there was no sign of the sun breaking out of the cloudy skies. Sustained winds, periodic gusts, and moisture blowing along with it. Having climbed 4200 feet with about 600 feet left to the crater rim, we noted some hypothermia setting in and made the hard decision to turn back.
We hiked back down the steep wall near the trail junction and then removed crampons, put away ropes and harnesses, and began the descent. After we lost about 1000 feet of elevation, the wind dropped down and everyone started to warm up. The snow was very soft which made for some fun, but wet, glissade shoots and the visibility improved almost every step of the way so we could see our runouts. We arrived at camp about 1:00 and enjoyed the skies clearing up a bit, pouring water out of our boots and changing into dry clothes. A little coffee and lunch and packing up our gear and we were hiking down by 2:30. We were back at the cars by 4:00 and ready for the long Memorial Day drive home.
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