The morning after our hike into Mount Baker, we hiked up to Survey rock, where we worked on navigation skills and how to orient a map. We also eyed a good size serac to practice ice climbing on.
After our morning lesson, we headed back to camp where we reviewed crevasse rescue and climbed a rope slung over a branch using a prussic knot. This turned out to be very exhausting but works quite well.
Afterwards, we packed our day packs and went for a walk to the serac we found earlier and practiced setting ice screws and building v-thread anchors.
We then hiked back to camp, had dinner, hung out and went to bed.
The following day I led our group over the glacier and around crevasses to the serac we were at the previous afternoon and pract
iced ice climbing. I realized the more I was around crevasses, the more comfortable I got with them. Leading really made me comfortable with them. It all comes down to accepting that if you fall in, your rope team will save you and you'll be able to self rescue, and if you're injured, they will know how to haul you out!
It was a lot of fun but challenging at the same time. We used two ice tools, one ice tool and a mountaineering axe, and just a mountaineering axe. This challenged us for a situation that we may run into when traveling on a glacier.
After the fun day of ice climbing, we returned to camp, where we ate dinner and planned a route for the next day when we would navigate across the glacier for some bigger ice. Matt led us over and the big ice we had hoped for was covered with snow, so headed back down the glacier near a huge cave where we had lunch and practiced leading on ice. Although not steep us, it did allow us to get used to setting ice screws and building ice anchors, which is a little different then rock anchors.
Afterwards, we hiked back to camp where we plotted a route up to the Thunder Glacier, a navigation challenge our instructor gave us. We each took sections of the route to navigate. I had the first and largest chunk of the trip. I was to lead and navigate us up to about 7,000 feet.
The next morning, I led us out of camp and up to 7,000 feet as planned, where we had lunch. Matt triangulated where we were and I got us very close to where I had planned on.
Matt took the lead after lunch and we went up through several passes to see if we could get down to the glacier. As it turned out, the map we had been using was over 20 years old and due to melting of the glacier, very inaccurate. It turns out that we couldn't get down to the glacier because it was very steep and getting back up would just be exhausting.
We opted not to hike down and our instructor told us that we did just what he wanted and he knew we wouldn't be able to get down to begin with.
After our long day we headed back to camp where we hung out, ate dinner and had a great time. The next morning we packed up our camp and hiked back out. A lot of snow had melted over the past several days so we were able to follow the summer trailed for a good portion of the hike and were able to move very quick.
When we got close to the trailhead, we past some climbers heading in. As they walked past, I noticed that they smelled clean! I was reminded of the joke Appalachian Trail hikers have, that they can smell day hikers a mile way!
After returning to our van, we drove back to Glacier where we got baked goods and headed to the ranger station to plan our next section of our trip!
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