[dicey]

On short notice, I rounded up the posse to join a friends' attempt on Mt. Blum over the weekend. I had never been to the area, and had high expectations. Laurie, Joe and I left Seattle at the crack of 5 am to meet Chris and Melissa in Burlington at 6. We arrived at the Baker Lake trailhead, packed up and hit the trail a bit before 8am. A bit before the bridge over blum creek, we left the trail (790ft) and headed up through a jungle of devils' club, downed timber and gardens of moss. We picked up the faint bootpath, and followed it straight uphill, aided by about 7 flags in 4000 feet. The path is very steep, tricky and climby in many spots, and easily lost about 1/2 way up. We put on snowshoes at 2900ft, and continued up. After a while, I stopped commenting on the light up ahead through the trees. Time after time, we came to little benches, only to be faced with another slope, seemingly steeper than the last. Finally we reached the 5000ft level, and began our traverse to Blum lakes. I was getting desperate for views after being trapped in the woods on a never ending stairclimber all day. We made it to lower Blum by 5pm, nine freakin' hours after leaving the trailhead this morning. We were all pretty beat, so we set up camp rapidly, knowing an early start in the morning was necessary if we wanted to have a shot at summiting Blum. Our hopes of getting to the water we could hear flowing from the outlet were dashed by our inability to get to it without actually jumping down 6 feet into it. It would be impossible to climb out, so we ended up having to melt snow for water and dinner. In bed and cozy by 9pm, with the alarm set for 4am. Cloud cover during the night kept the temps moderate, and the nearly full moon, made headlamp use optional as we trudged out of camp towards middle blum lake at 5am. Crossing middle blums' outlet looked nearly impossible and dangerous, so we opted to walk across the lake near the shore. This was a bit nervewracking and spooky. A hint of a crack or noise from the ice below would have sent me to shore faster than you could blink an eye! Fortunately, this part went smoothly. At the S.Easterly end of the lake we kicked steps up a steep broad gully for about 1000ft. To the west, the full moon above Baker was sublime. There was no wind, but dark clouds appeared to be building to the west. Routefinding was hampered at this point by several factors. Low light seemed to blend ridges into each other, and our altimeters were reading lower than we actually were. We ended up several hundred feet above upper blum lake where we wanted to be to access a broad gully that would gain the south ridge. We didn't have a whole lot of time to correct this error and continue on if we wanted to get back to the trailhead before dark. We crossed our fingers and continued on, hoping we could traverse the rocky ridge in front of us on it's north or south side. We predictably cliffed out almost immediately. I was more bummed about not getting the views to the east than I was about not summiting Blum. We sat up on the ridge watching the sun rise for about an hour and booted to the top of a minor peak to the west before heading back down to camp. We rested for an hour before packing up camp and left by 11am. The trip down was an unpleasant posthole marathon, and throughout it's duration a sharp volly of four letter words repeatedly broke the usual peace and tranquility of the surrounding forest. We broke out of the green canopy onto the Baker lake trail, scratched, bruised and exhausted, and limped our way back to the trailhead by 4:30pm. Will I be back? I don't think so, at least not anytime soon. The effort to reward ratio is a little too heavy on the effort side. I might feel differently when I can walk again Some pics:

2 labels

Mt Blum

Hagen Mtn

baker sunday am

Almost cliffed out

along hagen ridge

Seahpo Peak

icy peak sunday am

Hagen cirque

[naturealbeing]

Dam...I was really looking forward to those pictures to the east from the summit of Blum. Are you sure your not ready to go back up there tomorrow for those shots? All kidding aside, what a great attempt and I'm sure the hunger and drive will resume after you recuperate. Thanks for sharing your reports and pics, I always look forward to reading them. Great FUN! Cheers!

[Backpacker Joe]

Yes, another good one on you Dicey....

[Tazz]

Sweet! Great try. beautiful shots.

[Jeff R]

What was missing was the rain, with some rain, even a little, the summit would have been no contest!

[Tom]

Definitely a summer peak. I'm still trying to figure out where you guys got cliffed out. Did you try to ascend the ridge on the south side of uppermost Blum Lake? That's where Ed and I cliffed out trying to come down out of Berdeen.

[dicey]