Mt. Baker, Sholes/Rainbow/Park Dinking Around

July 12, 2004

Paul Belitz, Dave Coleman, Amar Andalkar

We headed to Baker for some August turns. Leaving Seattle at 4:40 saw us leaving the parking lot at Artist's Point at 8:30, after I ripped two buckles off my pack. (Guess the Orange Beast is dying. Time to either bust out the wallet or the sewing machine.) I managed to lash my skis to my pack with some webbing I happened to have along, and off down the trail we went. I was feeling fresh and strong for a welcome change, in a quick hour and a half we reached our bivy spot from the previous year. We changed into boots, and I set off across the Sholes a bit ahead of Amar and Dave. First I tried to traverse too low, which put me on glacial ice and crevasses, so I popped off my skis, hiked up a bit, and traversed. From my new vantage I could see the large cracks spanning the slope, so I sidestepped/sideslipped down, hopped over a two foot high rib of ice, and traversed between the crevasses to where the icy suncupped snow gave a smooth passage to the flats. Two quick hop turns and I was down on the glacier, where I popped my skis, pulled the foam pad out of my pack, and waited. And waited. After a while I saw Amar, far below where I had crossed, perched on the edge of a large crack. I heard him converse with Dave for several minutes until they decided to go up and follow my tracks. Some sidestepping and Amar took the same path as I had. After a few minutes Dave did the same. We hiked toward the Portals. We popped over the rock spine and were treated to an unobstructed view of the Park.

Here's Baker from Coleman Pinnacle	Dave sidesteps up on the first slope down to the Portals.	Amar at the Portals, with the Park in the background.

After a bite to eat and a few gulps of water we donned skis and started the traverse over the snowfields to the Rainbow. Then we ran into another rock rib. Amar didn't like the looks of the downclimb, but I found an easier passage; after javelin-ing my skis into the snow below, I scrambed down. Dave also got his skis to stick in the snow, but Amar was less lucky. His less-than-effective ski brakes barely slowed his ski down, it stopped thirty feet below in an icy runnel filled with rocks. To add injury to insult, Amar slipped and took a short ride down the runnel before managing to arrest with his Whippets. Reunited with his skis, he soon joined Dave and me, and we debated where we wanted to go. Dave was keen on the Park, but Amar wasn't, and I was somewhat ambivalent. In retrospect, the decision is clear (we should've gone for it), but whatever. We took a run down the Rainbow, and got some cool photos of the exposed glacial ice. From there, Dave insisted on a Coleman Serac Shot (TM), and I was game, so I hike and they skinned up to the lower edge of the Park. Amar had had enough for one day, so he waited at the rock while Dave and I headed up into the lowest serac field. We took several photos and ripped some nice turns, though the slope wasn't very steep. It's hard to look good when the terrain is flat.

We skied to the end of the Park. Lots of cool patterns in the ice.	Then we skinned out.....	up the little finger of smooth snow between the seracs.

Here's Dave, at the top of the snow finger seen in the previous pic.	Here's me, at the same point. My God, I'm growing an Afro!	Then we skied! Nice!

After skiing down a bit we hiked out through the Portals, where I greatly enjoyed the figure 11 past the crevassed slope that we had skied that morning, to the short, very steep (~50+ degrees?) lobe of the Sholes that I hadn't had the balls or skills to ski last year. I booted up the thing first, being thankful for my whippets. Dave followed, but Amar didn't like the idea of climbing something so steep, so he kept traversing and found a longer, but flatter way to get back to our shoes. I was psyched to ski it, so I ditched my crampons and went for it. I'll admit it, I was a bit too aggressive, and hit the steepest upper section with some speed. A quick check and I hopped into the first turn, still carrying quite some speed. My stance got too wide and I dragged a whippet in the chattering second turn, but then I regained control and realized that slow hop turns are sometimes a good idea after all, even on a slope this short. Seven turns dropped me the 300 or so feet, and I finished at the bottom with adrenaline coursing through my system. Good steeps training.

I start down. I like this pic only because of the background.	I keep going past Dave. This short run was the second best of the day.	Ditto. The corn was very sun-baked, and showed tracks well.

The hike out, as usual, was a bitch, complete with the prerequisite moron tourists:

"Did you find anything to ski?"
See the white stuff on the mountain?
"That looks heavy!"
No shit?
"Did you go skiing today?"
No, I just carry skis when I go hiking for kicks!

A long wait at a restaurant in Glacier provided a significant delay; I got back to my room at 11:30. All the remaining skiing is flat, guess it's time to rock climb. I'm looking forward to November.

Dave skis so fast it's a blur. Seriously!	Amar came down, too.	Ditto, with the Headwall in the background.