Mount Baker I

Kyle, Leah, Chris, and I headed to Hamilton, Washington on Saturday morning to begin our trek towards the summit of Mount Baker. The road was snowed in to about a mile beyond the trailhead, so we parked, packed up, and started towards the trailhead. Because of the snow and not so clearly marked trails we headed in on the wrong trail--so we climbed up and down a few steep ridges. (see photo to the right of Chris heading up one of these ridges) Using Chris' and Kyle's incredible navigation skills, a compass, and a GPS we finally found ourselves in the valley below the ridge we needed for base camp. Unfortunately, there were a few obstacles...too big double plastic boots, the weather had began to chance (lots of snow and high avalance danger), Kyle wasn't feeling great, and we weren't as far as we had hoped due to the trail issues. So, we set up camp prepared to re-evaluate the situation in a few hours. The snow kept falling as a few hours passed and we decided that it would be best to forego the summit attempt. We slept through the night waking up in a cloud of fog, packed up, and headed back out through the valley and onto the correct trail. The trip was a blast despite the inability to summit--I learned so much about mountaineering and gear in my first trip of such nature. We are going to attempt to summit with better weather and better boots in 3-4 weeks. Here are some photos, a snapshot of what's to come!!! You can see more photos below by clicking on the northern most flag on the map (Hamilton, Washington).