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 😆
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