Baker North Ridge Attempt
- Greg Luesink
- May 24
- 6 min read
JC and I tried our hand on the classic route up Baker, but weather does as weather will.
In the February 2025, the valley froze for just long enough to get some practice swinging my ice tools on top-rope. For the prior two winters, I'd only had the courage to go out with more experienced ice climbers. This season, I was curious to extend my comfort zone and practice more independently. Jas and our friend Brody joined for some road-side shenanigans just outside of Hope. Jas and I managed to get two days out on ice to get more comfortable climbing in a strange medium. After Jas climbed, I set up a top-rope solo for a few extra pitches of ice while Jas cozied up in a blanket to snap some photos.
By spring, I was looking towards climbing Baker North Ridge, which had been a goal since 2024. My friend JC, a pilot from Quebec, reached out asking if I wanted to do Baker - the answer was yes! A couple other buddies like Ben and Joseph were interested, but in the end they were unavailable to join JC and me. After some back and forth, we finally landed (cause he's a pilot... ba dom tsss) on a date that worked well and crossed our fingers for good weather. The forecast was reasonably good for the weekend of May 23-25th.
I'd summited Baker twice before, once on snowshoes and the next on skis with Jas, but both times from the south via the Easton Glacier. This time, we would be driving to the Heliotrope Trailhead on the north side of the volcano. Steep alpine ice is the main attraction of Baker's North Ridge, which lures many amateur alpinists to swing their tools in a spectacular setting. Speaking of tools, this trip required a more elaborate packing list than prior ones up Baker. In addition to glacier gear and our ski touring gear, we packed ice tools, ice screws, half-twin ropes, and some alpine draws and anchors.
Greg's Gear:
JC flew in on Saturday morning, on an absolutely bluebird day. He arrived at Jas' and my place around noon, and we quickly went through our gear before resting and relaxing that afternoon.
Repacking
Around 7 pm, we ate a double dose of burgers, then drove off to cross the border, planning to sleep at the trailhead. Surprisingly, it was one of the easiest border crossings I'd ever experienced, and we passed through without so much as a second glance.
The road to Heliotrope is fairly decent, being paved for the majority of the way, with potholes and some gravel along the way. We caught our first glimpse of Baker halfway up the road, with a little mushroom cloud on top of it. The rest of the sky was crystal clear, so we weren't too worried about it.
We arrived at the trailhead, where we'd intended to hammock camp. Instead, I remembered a cool feature of the 1999 Honda CRV, which is that the front seats can lay back completely horizontal in line with the back seats, allowing for a lounge-like bed. We decided it would be faster to just sleep in the car. I just wished that I'd brought a pillow, turns out a door-handle isn't comfortable on the face...
My wrist started buzzing at 1 am after a fitful 3 or so hours of "sleep". Invigorated about the adventure ahead, I mixed my bowl of chia, yogurt, nuts, and berries for breakfast. We set off by 2 am from the trailhead, skis A-framed on our backs while we walked in our trail shoes. After about an hour and a half, we hit snowline and transitioned to our skis, much to our shoulder's relief.
We zig-zagged our way up the unpleasantly sloppy snow until we reached the campsite low on the glacier of many other parties vying for the summit. Ahead of us on the glacier were flickering headlamps, assumably two other parties heading to climb North Ridge. Notably, the cloud we'd seen the night before had lingered, covering the summit and upper sections of the North Ridge. In addition, the wind had picked up, causing us to don layers to abate the biting cold.
We found the travel to be quite straightforward, with most of the crevasses filled-in and covered by snow bridges on the Coleman Glacier. By this time, we already had an inkling that our trip was not going to end in the summit. 70-80kph wind gusts nearly toppled us over and forced us to stop and brace ourselves mid-stride.
Meanwhile, Baker's toupee never once thinned out. To the West and to the South, the clouds loomed dark and ominous, feeding a steady resupply of clouds to the summit. Despite the wind driving clouds up and over the summit, they cleared once reaching the North side. Soon, the sun rose over the horizon, and we were treated to some spectacular views.
At this point, we assessed the situation ahead of us, using an acronym from JC's pilot training, FORDEC:
FACTS: high winds and low visibility would make for some treacherous climbing conditions, especially for our relatively low ice-climbing experience.
OPTIONS: due to the conditions, we ruled out summiting. What remained was to turn around, or continue to the base of the ridge to get a closer look and see if the clouds would clear.
RISKS: turning around had minimal risks due to the mellow glacier travel, while continuing to the base of the ridge did not pose much of a risk either being on low angle glacier.
DECIDE: we decided to press on until "it didn't make sense any more." If the wind and clouds persisted, we would stop at the base of the ridge and turn back. If they cleared, we would "Circle-back" and reassess.
EXECUTE: we pressed on towards the ridge!
CIRCLE-BACK: stop and reconsider at the next check-point (base of North Ridge).
Before long, we were at the base of the ridge, looking up at the densely shrouded route. Out of curiosity, we wrapped around the Eastern aspect of the ridge to see what access would be like. If we could gain the ridge, that would still be a neat experience. Alas, bergschrunds and crevasses guarded the slopes leading to the ridge, causing us to determine it was not worth advancing.
Looking Northeast, I pulled out my scope and surveyed my home Chilliwack River Valley from afar. I quickly spotted Cheam Peak, which Jas and I had recently biked-to-ski, as well as the rest of the Cheam Range, Border Peaks, Larrabee, and Slesse.
Above us was the icefall, holding onto blue ice, rock, and snow. Not somewhere to hang out for long!
We had agreed to assess the day using FORDEC again, but it didn't take more than a second to decide that turning around without gaining the ridge was the only logical option. The North Ridge looked about as unappealing as swimming with sharks.
JC and I transitioned to downhill mode on our skis, unroped, and prepared to endure the awfully sticky snow. What ensued were probably the worst turns of the year. Such brutally mushy snow!
Due to the traversing route we took across the glacier, we needed to put our skins back on to get back over to the camp sites of other climbers. Dodging crevasses, we maneuvered our way through the rolling folds of the Coleman Glacier.
All day, the wind had been absurdly strong, forcing us to pause and brace. On the way back was no different, and we couldn't help but chuckle at how bad the weather turned out to be on our hopeful summit day.
After some time, we were back at the shoe-stash. Somewhere in the next 100m of skiing back to the edge of the snowline, both JC and I must have slid through someone's sooty leftover campfire ashes. Our skis were coated in a gnarly black film, which transferred itself onto our packs... gross! After an annoyingly long walk down the trail with our A-framed packs, we reached the car before noon.
Overall, there is never a day waisted in the mountains. Despite not summiting, it was a fun day to hang out with JC after a while of not having seen each other. Baker isn't going anywhere, so we will just have to try it again another time.
As always with the mountains, they will always be there; it's our job to make decisions that ensure we will still be here too!
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