In July 2018, I climbed Mount Baker, a 10,780ft (3,286m) volcano near Seattle. Mount Baker is part of the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, a series of volcanoes encircling the Pacific Ocean from Japan to the Americas. Baker is also the second-most glaciated peak in the Cascade Range.
Day 1: Clouds rolled in as we pitched base camp at 5,500 ft. A streak of sunlight tore through to illuminate, for a matter of seconds, a thin sliver of the Coleman glacier.
Day 2: By morning, a “sun-dog” had appeared high above, and we enjoyed clear views of the summit. I stayed up past 10pm for sunset and twilight views of the mountain before crawling into my tent for 2 hours of sleep.
Summit Day: At midnight, we woke to start our slow march, winding up the steep “Roman Wall” and reaching the summit not long after dawn. The top offered spectacular views of impressive Glacier Peak and — much bigger, at the horizon — Mount Rainier.
