Quick report
A bare Baker. Put on some clothes why don't you! Haha. Early season but interesting to see the mountain without its full winter coat. Plenty of cracks open but the route to the top does go. Consistent snowline is around 5,500' with certainly plenty of thin coverage spots on lower Heliotrope. Saw a few other skiers out on Heliotrope but nobody else out on the glacier. Very large natural serac avalanche off of the Colfax serac. No other avalanche activity noted.
Weather
- Cloud Cover
- scattered
- Wind Loading
- light
- Rain Elevation
- 5500 - 6000
- Recent Snowfall
- 5-10, depending on elevation
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
Calm wind, scattered clouds. Cold in the shade but quite warm in the sun. Lovely fall day with low sun angle.
Snowpack
Snowpack is building but obviously pretty thin still. We encountered patchy snow on the trail beneath treeline, then consistent snow coverage at the base of the Hogsback at ~5,500'. Snow was clearly rained on in the last system, with only a few cms (3-5 cm) on top of a progressively harder rain crust interface. As we ascended the depth on top of the rain crust deepened; by 6,500' on the glacier the depth of new snow grew to ~10cm. On the glacier proper, snow was dry, with little wind effect. Below 6,500' or so there were pockets of rime interspersed with dry snow. Seemed there was strong hogsback winds coming over Heliotrope / Lightning Rod, making for some rimey conditions. The higher we ascended under the Black Buttes, the drier and more consistent the snow surface became. Near Pumice Ridge we began to encounter more rime. The Roman Wall was rimed up, with pockets of dry snow. Lots of open crevasses, not surprisingly. We roped up for the entirety of the glacier and belayed the final crevasse before Pumice Ridge with an ice-screw anchor.
Avalanche
- Size
- D2.5
- Type
- I
- Aspect
- NE
- Trigger
- NI
- Elevation
- 8600 ft
Colfax serac released a few refrigerator sized blocks in a serac fall avalanche in the last few days. Frequent offender back in action.