Femme Beckey Expedition: May 16th-June 8th, 2023
Written by: Miriam Caron, July 2023
Expedition Members: Lizzie Wenger, Miriam Caron, Sierra Smith, & Ella Meyer

Mountain Six - Mt. Baker via Easton Glacier 
June 3rd-4th


After Forbidden Peak, Mt. Baker felt like a mellow treat. The most challenging part of the entire climb was finding a place to park our car at the trailhead and set up our camp at the base of the Easton glacier. 


Extremely busy camp on Easton glacier.

While walking to the trailhead, Sierra counted 243 cars. We witnessed the intense crowds for several reasons: we decided to start our climb on a Saturday, Mt. Baker is in relatively close proximity to Bellingham and Seattle, and the popular Coleman glacier route was inaccessible due to road closures. Easton glacier is also a popular area for guiding services to teach crevasse rescue and rope management, and this definitely contributed to a particularly busy day. Once we did find a free patch of snow among the hundreds of other climbers and skiers, we settled in for the evening.


Line of people leaving low camp on Easton glacier.

The next morning, we roped up around 7,500 ft. but did not need to place any snow protection the whole way up the mountain. After dodging snow debris from other climbers on the Roman Headwall, we reached Mt. Baker summit at 10,786 ft. around 10am. Sierra and I enjoyed a summit Pop-Tart (an old climbing tradition of ours) then made our way back down to camp around 4pm and back to the car by 8pm.


Sierra on rope.


Mt Baker summit view.


Summit kiss!


Summit pop tart tradition.


Sierra helping to take down camp.

When we arrived at the trailhead on Sunday June 4th almost all the 243 cars were vacated. Sierra then achieved true hero status when she dropped her pack and jogged to the car, over a mile away, while Lizzie and I lounged by the packs. A true friend. While Liz and I waited for our carriage, we recognized the climbing rangers from Camp Sherman on Mt. Rainier hanging out in their decked-out pickups. We were delighted that they remembered us as “the gay lady climbing team,” and one of them even gave us a “protect trans youth” patch his friend had made, which I wore to the Denver pride festival later in June.

Stay tuned for the last installment of Femme Beckey's Back to Back Cascade Adventure, a summit of Mt. Shuksan!