Mount Baker Summit Climb

Be prepared before you go

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Guides
Mountain Madness (206-937-8389; www.mountainmadness.com) has a 10-year history of climbing Mount Baker, and a five-to-one ratio of guests to guides. The three-day Mount Baker Summit Climb includes one day of backpacking to base camp (a 3,300-foot elevation gain), one day of instruction on the techniques of glacier travel, and one day to summit and return to Seattle.

Cost for the course is $595 per person, which includes food, transportation to the mountain and back, and group equipment. Add an extra $125 if you want to rent a climbing harness, ice axe, helmet, plastic mountaineering boots, crampons, trekking poles and sleeping bag.

Conditioning
Even though this is considered a"beginner's mountain," it is not easy. The first day consists of a 3-mile hike to base camp with a heavy backpack (assume your share will be 50 to 60 pounds). On summit day, you will be hiking 4,200 vertical feet to the top with a light pack. After returning to base camp, you have to carry your full pack down another 3,300 feet to the car. It makes for a long day and you'll need strong legs and a strong heart to go the distance.

The best training for this climb is walk up and down steep hills with a heavy pack. I started training about five months before the trip, lifting leg weights, running and stair-stepping. About three months before, I added day hikes with increasingly heavy packs until I got to the point it was comfortable.

Clothes
Cotton is your worst enemy on the mountain. Be sure to bring synthetic, moisture-wicking clothes that will keep you warm and dry. Mountains make their own weather, and it can be capricious: We had wind, sleet, snow, rain and hot sun in the course of 24 hours. The clothing/gear list provided is comprehensive: I followed it exactly and had everything I needed.

The Route
The trip begins at Schreiber's Meadows, a popular trailhead about a 2.5-hour drive north of Seattle. After hiking through a flat meadows filled with lupine, daisies and mossy ponds, you come to the glacial moraine—a boulder-filled slope that now carries rushing meltwater. Early in the season it's difficult to cross the streams—there's a swinging footbridge across the largest—but by August they're down to a near-trickle and you can cross with no problems.

After the river crossing the trail kicks into high gear and you start climbing up into the forest. The trail switchbacks up for about a mile before it levels out in a wide high-alpine valley. On a clear day this will give you your first view of Mount Baker. At the sign in the middle of the valley take a right up to the railroad grade, and follow the narrow trail along the lateral moraine above the steep valley scooped out long ago by the Easton Glacier. At the end of this relatively level tightrope walk is one last push up to base camp, usually in snow.

To the summit, we climbed the Easton Glacier route on the southwest side of Mount Baker. (A less popular route is the Coleman climb on the north side.) The actual route to the summit will vary throughout the season, depending on the location of crevasses. The climbing season is short in the North Cascades; the best months to try are July and August.