Mount Baker — Friday, Jul. 18, 2025

Hiked up the Coleman-Deming solo on Mount Baker overnight. Car to summit push, didn't sleep on the trail. Arrived at the Heliotrope trailhead 4pm Friday, napped in the car for 4 hours and started hiking 8:15pm. Crossed all 3 of the streams with daylight, all were easily passable, especially with trekking poles.

Arrived at the base of the glacier 9:40pm. Even with my GPS route mapped out I still got a little turned around going up the glacier initially, but found my way back to the trail and footprints. Lots of crevasses opening up all over the trail, but most were passable or a walk-around was easy to find. Thick fog rolled in starting at sunset and followed me all the way up to the Roman wall. The dirt/rock ridge leading up to the Roman wall is a little longer and more dried out than normal, but not so long that it would be worth taking off crampons/rope at that point. Roman wall is very stepped out, making it easy to stairmaster up to the summit crater, even with the steepness of the wall.

Arrived at the true summit just before 6am. Summit was sunny but windy. Clear views of Rainier and Adams to the south. The pea soup fog extended to 3/4 of the way up the Roman wall during the descent.

Footprints/trail were very clear and stepped out on the descent all the way to the campsites. Arrived back at the trailhead 10:40am. Napped 2 hours in the car before driving out. 

LAYERS WORN:

• sun hoody
• R1 fleece
• soft shell jacket
• puffy jacket (for breaks)
• hard shell
• light hiking pants
• hard shell pants
• ski socks
• mountaineering boots and crampons
• gloves
• windproof/waterproof mittens
• buff
• helmet
• ski goggles