Coleman Pinnacle has been on my to-do list for some time. I was in the area several years back but didn’t complete the trip due to weather. On that trip the weather was so marginal we never did see any of the surrounding mountains or the big ones nearby. This trip was completely different.
I managed to convince two frequent companions (PeggyG and Trailcat) to join me on this ski trip even though it was a long drive and more importantly, even though I was (and still am) a novice skier.
We met on the north end of town at 6:30am and after a short Starbucks run managed to get to the parking to at Baker and started up the snowy road by 10am. Thankfully, with the sunny weather forecast we all remember to liberally apply the SPF before leaving!
The route had us following the road up to Artist Point where it ends and then transitions to a trail. At about 5000 (with no snow) there is a trail junction. Heading right (north) takes one up Table Mtn. Our route had as following the left (easterly) trail as it a slow arching traverse around the south slopes of Table Mtn. For the most part I think our route in the snow had us below the trail. On this first traverse we could see the remains of several small shallow avalanches. With the nicely consolidated snow and the early hour we felt it was safe to continue so off we went on our adventure.
Due west of Huntoon Point there is a small saddle on Ptarmigan Ridge which is where we crossed over the ridge the first time. It’s also here that we got our first eye gawking view of Coleman Pinnacle and Mt Baker. Wow. Coleman Pinnacle looked like a small sharkfin on the ridge. It was a ways away but we knew we’d make decent progress on the skis. From this pass we dropped over onto the NW side of the ridge and began yet another traverse. This one was a long one. The snow was hard. The slope was moderately steep, and there were cornices on the ridge crest way above our heads. No dilly dallying here. We continued on until we again crossed over the ridge east of Pt 5831. From here we began our 3rd traverse on the ridge (SE side). We were down below the trail so it had us doing a moderately steep rising traverse up the bowl (about 300’) where we rounded the south side of the pinnacle, and stopping at a saddle (about 6160’). Getting up to this saddle had steep zig-zag traverses up a very large snowfield. It was absolutely amazing getting up to this saddle. Trailcat did it all on skis. Peggy and I did the last 30’ in boots.
Peggy elected to not summit because she was hungry. Trailcat and I dropped our packs and quickly headed up to the summit (the NW side of which was heavily corniced). We stayed in the trees and managed to find a class 2-2+ route up to the summit. We didn’t stay long since while the days are getting longer we still had a long way out and the snow was sure to be getting soft. So it was a quick trip back down to Peggy and our packs. For the most part we followed our track out. The one exception was traverse across the south side of Table Mtn. We had followed our tracks from the morning. But about half way across the slope I heard Trailcat in front of me yell something like “look at that!” A ways in front of him was a slow moving slurry of a mess of an avalanche moving downhill. It sounded like a slushy Slurpy moving downhill. Even thought it was small, slow moving, and shallow we didn’t want to continue to push our luck so we dropped way down into the basin to be safer. We were back to the car by about 6pm.
Stats: 13+ miles, 3800’+ gain, 8 hours (including summit time).
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