Mount Baker Coleman-Deming Climb

North Cascades, Mount Baker Wilderness, Washington · United States

Moderate3 daysNorth America~£900 est.

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Overview

Mount Baker holds more ice than every other Cascade volcano except Rainier, and the Coleman-Deming route uses the best of it: a broad glacier highway rising from the flower meadows of Heliotrope Ridge to the 3,286 m summit plateau. Halfway up you smell it — sulphur drifting from Sherman Crater, a reminder that the mountain under your crampons is very much alive. This is the Pacific Northwest's great teaching mountain. Most three-day guided trips bundle a full day of crevasse-rescue and rope-team skills at camp on the moraine at 1,800 m before the 2 a.m. summit push, which saves its sting for the Roman Wall — 300 m of 35-degree snow that feels considerably steeper on descent. From the top, the San Juan Islands float in the haze to the west and the North Cascades saw away eastward. The access town is Glacier, Washington, ninety minutes from Bellingham. Climb June to August; late season opens crevasses and complicates the route. Guided three-day climbs cost about £850. The catch is whiteout: Baker sits first in line for Pacific weather, and navigation on a featureless glacier is the skill that matters most here.