Mount Baker North Side Ice Climbing Course / by Alasdair Turner

I just got back from a trip on Mount Baker.  The trip was an alpine ice climbing course for American Alpine Institute.  We had incredible weather and mostly good conditions so in addition to learning the typical skills that are a part of this course we decided to try climbing a route that very rarely sees ascents.  It turned out that the Cockscomb route was not in condition and we were stopped 900ft from the summit.  From there we down climbed onto the Park Glacier in an attempt to summit via the Park Headwall.  This too was not climbable and our only option was very serious glacier travel and navigation back to the other side of the mountain.  This was a traverse of 4 large glaciers that cover over half of the mountain.  Below are a couple of photos of our trip.