[Brushbuffalo]

VIDEOS ADDED ( courtesy of Tim S.)

Lively Lisa

Kozy Katy and Jovial James

Gallant Gavin, Cool Craig, and Joyous Jeremiah

Cool Craig, eager to get to 'Craig' View to camp

I have friends who skied this not long before the mega-melt. But today Lively Lisa is happy not to be skiin' this spiky frozen sea. Me too!

Tenacious Tim, my great friend for all of his 47 years.

Baker climb via Squak Glacier July 22-23, 2021 I have never seen anything like it. "Like what?" you ask. Melting on the upper mountain, dramatically unmistakable and unmistakably dramatic above about 9,000'. As we started up from the now- popular camp at Crag View, conditions on the Squak Glacier early on July 23 were quite normal, with good cramponing and minimal crevasses, with the ones evident being easily crossed or circumvented. But as we climbed into a cloud at around 8500' and traversed over to the west edge of Sherman Crater, I was astounded at the surface appearance of the glacier. Normally in mid to late July the surface is still "white" and has modest suncups. But this time, the surface was dirty brown and gray and was completely molded into what are better described as "supercups". It most closely resembled in appearance a wind-battered sea with the unorganized waves being frozen.

love/ hate these alpine starts on big mountains

dramatic sunrise

dramatic moonset

creeping toward Mount Doom among normal suncups.

Supercups!

Suncup mutation= supercups.....so strange!

Where's the snow?

It was rather amazing, and this is coming from someone who was a researcher with the (now-defunct) Mount Baker Volcano Research Center and a climber of Baker since 1964. I know this mountain. Most of the others in our group had no idea that the surface conditions surrounding us weren't normal, except for my continual exclamations of astoundedness. As I babbled on, they quickly were impressed that this was as far from the typical as 116 °F in June is in Portland! These were not typical pointed, nearly vertically-sided neve penitentes.....as common for late season those appeared on the summit snow dome filling Carmelo Crater (the summit 'half-crater"). These 'supercups' were different from anything I've seen anywhere, on this continent or on others. Our photos don't adequately portray the size and extent of the oddity. As we commenced with the final ascent up the south part of the Roman Wall, there was a narrow boot-built path that made it easier to negotiate the supercups. The bergschrund was huge, larger than I recall in previous ascents and separated into two en echelon sections, but on our climb was easily bypassed (may be difficult now, two weeks later). However, due to a steep cliff band above, the path led across the headwall to near the conventional finish to the Roman Wall when climbing via the Coleman. At this point the ice and snow were melted right down to bare ground, except for pebble-strewn patches of hard slippery water ice. This was a bottle-neck during our climb, with hoards of rope teams of climbers who had climbed the Easton Glacier passing in close proximity going up or down. It was a potential tangled-rope- sliding- climbers disaster in the making, with several terrified-looking novices in some of those groups seemingly frozen in place. Once we got past that stressful situation we huddled briefly in the lee of the low exposed rubbly rim of the melting-out Carmelo Crater....a feature that has been apparent in late season for the past decade or so. Visibility was poor and a steady 20-25 mph west wind was chilling. Fortunately the air temp was only in the low 40s and the cloud cap was only spitting a few drops.

Someone we passed thought Lively Lisa's classic MSR Thunderbird axe looked like a pencil But she is primarily thinking " what view?"

....and another T-bird! These things are heavy but unbreakable. But pencil? Don't write well. We still can't see the resemblance. The dude must have been hallucinating.

We followed the boot path through a field of neve penitentes to the true summit (Grant's Peak), which was more bare than I have ever seen it, certainly for the third week of July. Also, it is important to stress that there are big crevasses and even moulin (Jake ) on the summit snow dome. Many teams unrope or walk with ropes in loose coils across the dome...I strongly discourage that practice. Crevasses have appeared literally feet from the base of the final short walk to the peak. It would be a tragedy to safely negotiate the complexity of crevasses getting to this place only to have a mishap so close to the top.

slogging up the dirt path to Grant's Peak

#81

No summit views now. Clear in two hours

Here's my theory that might explain the "supercups" and dirty brown snow surface. Key points are heat, melting, bare ground, and wind. During the extraordinary heat spell the Pacific Northwest endured in late June of this year, the freezing level rose to over 17,000' and stayed that high for a few days. This led to rapid snow melting all over but particularly in this case high on Mt. Baker. The melting was so extreme that a significantly greater area of rock was exposed compared to normal. Blowing across unfrozen bare ground the wind would pick up finer particles (sand and smaller) and deposit them on the remaining snow surface. Normal suncups, with depressions separated by rounded ridges, would accumulate more wind-blown debris in the depressions due to gravity and the slightly lower wind velocity there. Dust accumulations in the 'lows' would have a lower albedo (reflectivity) and absorb more solar radiation. This will accelerate melting, deepening the lows, while at the same time the ridges will become more prominent, thus letting less dust accumulate on the ridges. This runaway feedback process will lead in time to "supercups". A note about our team: We were an eclectic mix of veterans and novices: Tim S., Lisa L., James V., Gavin S., Jeremiah R., Craig P., Katy F., and Doug M. For climbs of glaciated peaks, my requirements are only 4: 1)Desire 2)fitness 3)training 4)equipment. All 8 demonstrated great desire. Their fitness was outstanding (one member completed a very difficult mountain 50 km the day after our climb!), although the old dog was lagging behind on the approach hike. Then again, these energetic youngsters could by age be either my children or grandchildren. As needed, I give adequate training in snow travel and crevasse rescue before a climb. And the "McKeever Free Rental Shop" supplies clothing, boots, and equipment as much as needed and possible to allow those who don't have the gear. This was my #81 summit on Baker . This was one of the best groups, but I have never seen the mountain this "ugly"! Of course, the summit cleared a couple of hours after we stood there!

Contrast the surface at 10,000...'

...with it at 8,000'

I am going out on a limb and hypothesizing that this extent of melting on the upper portion of Baker is so exceptional that it might be a once in a century phenomenon. Have others of you seen similar effects on other volcanoes this season? Other pictures ( each of our 8 provided photos):

Squak Glacier and Sherman Peak

Resting on descent at west edge of Sherman Crater

Colfax Peak and 'dirty' vs. 'clean' snow

Tenacious Tim

Spectacularly full

"there we were" ( view from quarry off NF-12)

Lisa. Squeezed this climb in just a week before going home to Texas

Squak Glacier has the best early season moderate ski terrain

climber's trail from Scott Paul to Crag View

grubbing it (clockwise: Cool Craig, Lively Lisa, Gallant Gavin, Kozy Katy, Jovial James, The Doug, Tenacious Tim, Joyous Jeremiah

Bad hair Brushbuffalo

"Will be fun to tell my friends in Texas that we climbed that!"

Can you ever get too many flowers?

[Malachai Constant]

We noticed Baker did not "look right" for this tine of year when biking the Centenial Trail from Snohomish. Emmons broke up way earlier this year also.

[olderthanIusedtobe]

Hood was practically bald other than glaciers already by early July. Haven't seen it for about a month now, I shudder to think what it looks like currently. I'm sure the glaciers are getting hammered this summer.

[Sculpin]

I was shocked to see almost no snow on the northwest side of Mt. Adams on the 19th of July. The permanent snow fields were still there down lower , but very little around the Adams Glacier:

Compare to this image from August 7 2010 (two weeks later!): http://www.nwhikers.org/forums/uploads/d9/9d/7272fc02774d1def98ae8628a121d99d_320x240.jpg

[Malachai Constant]

Emmons Glacier July 4

[timberghost]

Glad we didn't start talking climate change being the cause

[Brushbuffalo]

Time will tell. This is weather.

[silence]

Yikes .... that looks sad!!

[zephyr]

[Brushbuffalo]

[timberghost]

Good to hear

[drm]

This is excerpted from the Rainier climber's blog entry for May 1, well before the big heat wave:

[mosey]

[Sculpin]

[Brushbuffalo]