Eldorado Peak - East Ridge

 Sometimes you just gotta go and take a look. That was my philosophy this spring, where we lacked good weather windows and corn cycles. After a great uncertain-forecast day on Baker, I set my sights on Eldorado. It’s one of the 50 classics, and a popular easy climb in the cascades. We got to the trailhead on Sunday night, where we scoped out the river crossing and talked to a party of three also going up the next day. After a few hours of sleep, we were on the move at 03:00. The initial steep bushwacking was brutal, but we gained elevation fast. We were passed by two trail-runners but still felt good about our pace. 

Keenan being one with the Talus

Eventually we made it out to the Talus field, where we slogged and scraped our skis up for hours. By the time we made it out of the Talus field, we almost caught up with some snowshoers. We put on skins near the NOLS tents and worked our way onto the Eldorado Glacier where we were passed by the party of three. Though it was a whiteout, we decided to keep going since we still had visibility and a skin track.

As we followed the track, a solo splitboarder caught up to us named Emily. Since it was a whiteout on a glacier, we decided it’d be good if we all stuck together. After some traversing, we realized the skintrack went too far, and as I checked my phone, I dropped by glove on the steep crusted slope. Keenan went after it but his ski came off and flew down the hill out of site. Momentarily, the clouds parted and we saw his ski 300’ below. Once we regrouped, we headed up to the summit knife-edge, topping out at 11:00.

Keenan going down to his ski

Me nearing the summit 

From there, we skied down great snow and after a few hours of talus and bushwack suffering, made it back to the car at 15:00. While we didn’t get great views, it was still a great day and I met a new partner.

Mount Baker - Squak Glacier

 After climbing it the previous summer, I really wanted to ski Baker. The weather was looking iffy but Keenan and I figured we could get beta from the snow goat race the day before. We drove up Saturday evening with no issue and quickly got to work getting gear together for the next day. There was one other party at the trailhead planning to ski the day after, and we enjoyed a nice conversation with them.

Ski touring essentials

We set off around 04:00 and tried skinning the trail. After realizing walking would be much more efficient, we switched back and finally switched to skinning when the route departed from the scott paul trail. We felt a little behind schedule but still confident. As we exited the trees, we saw Baker tower over us. It was pretty cloudy at that elevation but this spring, I had decided to get out and at least take a look so we decided to keep going until it didn’t make any more sense. 

Keenan and the slog

The slog up the glacier was draining but I was feeling good. My running from the spring was paying off and I was dashing ahead of keenan. We took breaks every hour or so and by the time we reached 7k, keenan was drained. The clouds had went below us by then so we were feeling confident we could summit. We kept slogging along. The squak was super filled in with no crevasses we actually needed to get around so we chose not to rope up. At 11:30, we reached the base of the roman wall, where the true fun began.

​​Keenan bonking 

Above the clouds

As I booted up the Roman Wall, I kept thinking the top looked only 20 meters away but once I got to that point, a new 20 meters appeared. Eventually I made it up 45 minutes later, with keenan taking almost double the time. We walked over to the true summit and enjoyed the amazing views and Keenan’s  text from his grandpa asking about the weather up there. It was pretty good. 

Summit

We started our descent at 13:30. The roman wall skied well, though it could’ve been a tiny bit softer. Halfway down the Squak, we entered a whiteout but knowing there were no cracks along our route, we just followed the tracks, going very relaxed. The Squak descent felt endless but eventually, we hit the treeline. The snow got a lot stickier but we quickly hit the trail. From there it was an endless walk back to the car where we took off our packs, thankful to live in a state with these beautiful mountains.