This climb was Sherlock Hirning's idea. Sherlock, Ralph Bodenner and I had been on Mount Rainier together in 2001, along with Bjorn Freeman-Benson, Brian Dipert and about fifteen others on an RMI-led ascent.

Ralph, who has quite a lot of glacier experience, agreed to lead the rope team. Ralph also invited his friend Dan Perrakis, who has been up Baker before and is an experienced rescue climber.

We took the Coleman/Deming route, which starts with a hike through the forest, then up the side of the Coleman Glacier to a saddle at around 9000 feet, then onto the Deming Glacier and up the Roman Wall, a forty degree snow chute.

After hiking in and getting onto the glacier we made camp at around 7000 feet, on a ledge of snow protected from the wind and away from all the other tents that were clustered along the route at that level. It had rained sporadically while we hiked in, and as we got our camp established and made dinner it alternated between light rain, snow and mist. The sky was overcast, and in fact for much of the trip we were in the clouds, with only fleeting views of the mountain.

After dinner we had another four hours of daylight. Nobody knew enough jokes to fill the time, we had no playing cards so I suggested a game of bocce. We used volcanic rocks (red ones and black ones) and had a fine game. (The first round was interesting: I gave the jack to Dan and said "throw it anywhere" and of course he threw it over the cliff, down a 45 degree slope of snow.)

Sherlock and I had it in our minds that we would be getting up early, like perhaps 2:00 AM, to get on the climb by 3:00. Dan and Ralph didn't want to get up that early, didn't want to be on the glaciers at the same time as all the other teams, and thought maybe 4:00 AM would be a good time to get up. By the time we got ourselves dressed, fed, ready and on the rope it was almost 5:30, and it had been daylight (though it was still cloudy) for an hour or more.

The glaciers were impressive; there were many crevasses, including a few that we needed to hop over and a few others with snow bridges that needed to be crossed. The snow was good and firm, making walking (with crampons) relatively easy. With the absence of sunshine our late start didn't seem to be a problem. We gradually shed layers of clothes, until we got up into the winds above 8500 feet and had to put on our jackets.

Ralph, on the lead, set a pace that was for the most part fine and not too fast. I was the senior member of the group (by nine years) and the slowest climber. Sherlock doesn't have a lot of glacier climbing experience (nor do I) but he's a strong hiker, a distance runner and plays Ultimate Frisbee. Dan and Ralph are in their mid-twenties and are both very strong climbers. I'm not that physically active and was at my limit but we made good time up the mountain, passing a few other groups along the way and summiting at around 10:00. (The final pitch up the Roman Wall was brutal for me. Ralph decided he didn't want to be downhill from another team that looked "kind of sketchy" so he moved us out into the passing lane for the final push to the top.)

Aside from a cold wind above 9000 feet we had good weather. It was cloudy most of the way so we didn't get too hot and the snow stayed firm. (That's the reason for an early start; if the sun had been out we would have been faced with an ugly, slushy descent.) The top of the mountain was above the clouds so we enjoyed the sunshine and the views of cloudtops before heading back down. On the way out, after breaking camp and hiking off the glacier Sherlock and I met two climbers who had summited at 7:30 AM. They told us that conditions earlier had been nasty, with freezing rain at the top. We were lucky to have missed that.