July 23rd :
First camp roughly 6 miles up into the hike. Looking up into the beautiful summit, I can hear her asking me if I am going to be ready for tomorrow and the next day. Honestly I felt I was dying at times, me going so slow, keeping the whole troope held up. At times wondering if I would be able to cut it the next day, only to be egged on by the insensate swarms of black flies or “if I reach that ridge I can finally stop singing ‘I am Henry the 8th I am’ “. By the time we hit the first alpine meadow I was singing something to the tune of 76th verse same as the first.
Although the final ridge to our first camp was hard on my mentality… I doubt it was as hard on my body as I feel I deserved it to be. It is really incredible up here, massive glacial runoff waterfalls, tumbling seracs, broken glaciers blue and dirty in their beauty. Parts of me want to climb down into the runoff next to me and feel the freezing water pour refreshingly over my sun burnt skin.
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On a walkabout after setting up camp we headed over towards a small boulder section and found a pool of runoff that had been cutoff from the feed and had warmed significantly in the sun. What a beauty to be sitting at the foot of a glacier resting your feet in a pool the temperature of tepid bath water.
July 24th
A quick pee behind my epiphany rock and a delicious cup of camp coffee after a warm night filled with stars. Through the top of our tent you could see big dipper dumping its bucket of diamonds into the universal mix that is the Milky Way. Up here the closest light pollution is from 60 miles away, and hardly reaches the skies around the Mt Baker Wilderness. The wind is still blowing down the slope, cascading down the ridge about a thousand feet above us.
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We made it to high camp!! Just below Colfax peak, 7500 feet, and the summit of Mt Baker looms outside the ‘backdoor’ of our tent. So much closer then we were down at first camp on the Hogsback.
The part I was most worried about is now over, all that lies ahead is the summit and the return all of the way back to the truck.. Now that I get a closer look I wonder if is should be worried about the summit itself and not what I just came up. The crevasse all over the mountain breathe life into the snowfields with their deep blue depths and wide chasms. Along various edges where the snow bends around the jagged rocks you can hear some ice chunks and boulders dropping. Some the size of tennis balls other the size of mini coopers.
July 25th
2 am start turned into a 3:30 am start on the summit at 7:30 left 8:30 back at high camp by 11:45. Starting out under a night sky is almost better when it comes to will power, however your first step over a crevasse as dark as the sky is enough to remind you how thankful you are that an experienced person like Mark (my uncle) is leading the group. Of course as we started up the pumice fin my legs and will power started to waiver. Then the Roman Headwall, where we were taking steps up and ice face… resorting to front pointing with our crampons up an ice runnel.
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Our names now signed into the summit register… the crater was still smoking...
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We tromped down to high camp, and along the way came across relatively fresh Black Bear tracks in the snowfield. It was another few hours down to our first camp on Hogsback…. then we went down that horrific rock ridge out of the glaciers and alpine meadows.
It was almost pure elation when we started crossing the various streams and waterfalls through the forest back to the truck.
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