Mt. Baker Smorgasbord

In 2003 my friend Ben Manfredi, on one of his final ski adventures, soloed the Roosevelt and Coleman Headwalls in a back to back double hitter that – to this day – remains one of my fav trip reports of his (Mt. Baker Duo). At the time I was disappointed. I wanted to be there with him, but couldn’t because of work. Ever since then, I’ve wanted to ski these routes. Over the years I’ve managed to ski the east and west lobes of the Coleman Headwall, but never the Roosevelt. 

With great weather forecasted, now was the time. 

Seth Holten, Woods, Tim Black and Alex Stoll joined me. Woods and I came with 3-4 days food and the rest with two days. My hope was to remain and capitalize on good weather. Two problems: the forecasted good weather was short lived and the hoped for good snow was spotty, especially up high. 

So with the purloined ‘mostly sunny’ weather and good snow, the team decided to join me on a grand tour of 4 different glaciers in a low level route that took us across the Coleman and Roosevelt glaciers, down the Mazama glacier, up to Hadley Peak, down the Hadley Glacier and up the Bastille Glacier to Pt. 7776. From that high point we returned to the Roosevelt and Coleman Glaciers, and ultimately camp. The others left and Woods and I stayed until the next day, at which point the weather changed to snowfall and since neither of us wanted to ski in a cloud, we skied basically non-stop to the car. It was awesome! 

Although it wasn’t the dreamed for adventure I’d planned, I did ski onto 4 glaciers I hadn’t been on (see more about the Washington Glacier Ski Project here). This felt like an accomplishment with the weather this season being as formidable as most non-Washingtonians imagine it to be.

So no matter that I was dismayed to yet again be denied on the complete Roosevelt descent, I’ll come back with high hopes because, as Ben stated in his trip report in 2003, “I called Jason that night to make plans for the remainder of my vacation. He was bummed he had to work but with a trip to the north side of Adams in the works, it was all good.” That last four words are sage advice. “IT WAS ALL GOOD.” 

It sure was. 

We came. We saw. We left. And we had a blast. 

We’ll be back. 

Here’s some more pictures. Enjoy.