zhong - Apr 15, 2024 11:42 am Date Climbed: Apr 13, 2024
Baring from Hwy 2, the south slope (FR 6028)
Note, this is not the standard route from Barclay Lake TH.
2 of us walked 3.78 miles (accordind to Gaia) of forest road 6028, because the gate was closed. The report we read (from Matt Juhasz on April 2nd) was that this gate was not locked.
Looks like they put a new gate here (doesn't look very new, but a different color). There's a second gate on the road, but that's wide open.
We followed Matt's GPS track (many thanks). Very steep forest slope with loose ground, burned logs. Got very dirty.
Once reach the ridge, it's more straightforward.
Now go down to a bowl, and up the steep gully between the 2 Baring peaks. Near the col, head left. See photo for going down from the ridge and photo for going up the gully.
Condition:
1. The gate is locked: bring bike. Good gravel road.
See photo
2. We put snowshoes on, about 3-400' below the forested ridge.
3. need snowshoes most of the rest of the track, except to take them off when it gets too steep. The gully is steep, avalanche prone. Now the snow is sticky, so safe enough. We glissaded down.
4. we circled to the peak's west side from the south, mostly stayed on snow.
5. need ice axe on the steep slope.
6. helmet on the burnt forest slope (you can easily kicks rocks down to your climbing partner). It's steep and loose.
See photo
I'm out of shape. For reference, this took me 6 hours to go up and 4 hours to get down. My partner is ~1 hr faster. Plus the road walk (~1:20 each way).
Successfully summited Baring Mountain on a second attempt!
I wrote a previous report that speaks to the trail up to the basin before the col, so I won't cover that again.
Climbing partner and I broke trail from 3/4 along the ridge all the way to the summit. Total time was about 6 hours up, 4 hours down. Spoke to a party that came after us and it took them about 9 hours, so even with a broken trail to follow this route is extremely long. The main issue on this route is avalanche danger. Once the warming starts, the col up to the saddle is a perfect slide area and old cornices along the basin threaten to fall. Trees and the surrounding cliffs are primed to drop snow onto the col as temps increase, potentially triggering slides. Case in point, as we were coming back along the ridge we heard the loud rumble of an avalanche that sounded like it came from Baring. We spoke to a couple coming back from Barclay Lake who said they saw avalanche debris coming off of Baring, probably the same one we heard. Hard to tell exactly where it came from, but you definitely don't want to be up there mid afternoon this time of year. A 7:00am-8:00am start is doable but earlier is better. If you plan to do this or any other trail in the back/sidecountry, please educate yourself on avalanche risks. NWAC offers free Avalanche Awareness classes that at least get you the basics. I asked one of the other groups out there if they had avalanche training since I was hoping someone was AIARE certified and was met with blank stares. I won't try to tell someone how to live their life, but it's scary how dangerous of terrain you can get into without even knowing it, myself included when I first started out.
When we got to the basin around 9:30am there was still a healthy crust on the snow that gave us the confidence to pick our way across and start up the col. 2/3 of the way up the col it appeared the snow hadn't gone through a thaw/freeze cycle yet so we were sinking to our knees in thick powder. The snowpack felt stable and there was no wind slab, so we kept at it. The 'vertical snow wall' at the top of the col was extremely intimidating and included a bonus 5' tall drift in the middle of it. I have two pictures of the wall, one from the bottom and one from the top of my climbing partner heading down so you can get a sense of the scale. He cut the path through the drift when I was about ready to call it, so credit goes to him for our simmit! Once above the snow wall, we took the path of least resistance to the summit, trying to stick to trees and rocks as best as possible and avoid open snow fields. There was what appeared to be some 2-3" wind slab in a few spots that sketched us out, but it wasn't reactive and seemed bonded to the snow below. I'm no avy expert though. The clouds had been blowing across the summit all morning so it was the inside of a ping pong ball when we got up there, but there were a few cloud breaks at least to give us a bit of a view of the north peak and across to Merchant. After a brief break we headed down and met a few other groups on their way up, 8-9 other people in total.
The snow was pretty consistent on the way back to the snow wall, but by the time we were heading down the wall the snow on it was getting really sticky and clumpy. Time to GTFO! Although the col is shaded from direct sun for the most part, the upper layer was starting to get sticky from generalized temperature increase and we were knocking small rollers down. There was no propagation though and they weren't picking up any further snow. Apparently one of the groups behind us glissaded down, but that seemed like an unnecessary risk to me so we plunge stepped the whole way. Got across the basin with no issues and back to the ridge down! Incredibly intense and rewarding day, hopefully won't be doing it again for quite a while. The bootpack should serve well for a bit, but with the loose wet avy danger, I would highly suggest avoiding Baring for now since it's extremely difficult to get out there before the snow gets soft.
Rough timeline below, honestly we should have set a turnaround time of 12:00 but got lucky this time.
7:00am - Start
8:30am - Top of ridge
9:30am - Start of basin
10:00am - Bottom of col
11:30am - Top of col
1:00pm - Summit
5:00pm - Cars
TimboSlice - Mar 26, 2022 6:19 pm Date Climbed: Mar 26, 2022
Baring Conditions 3/26/2022
No summit today but wanted to leave some up to date route information for others that might want to try as the weather (hopefully) gets nicer. Currently, the snow starts right below the ridge and slowly gets deeper as you traverse the ridge until there's a good few feet. With the warm weather it was extremely soft, making travel difficult since you sink in to mid calf with each step. There are some harder/icy spots once you start side-hilling along the ridge, so I'd put on crampons there. There were some chonky cornices overhanging where the trail would run through the basin, but they'll be difficult to see from the basin itself. The gully to the saddle was covered in fresh loose wet avalanche debris. North summit and traverse up the ridge from the saddle looked fairly clear of snow, but it was hard to tell with how far away I still was. With a cold snap to firm up the snow this would be doable, but otherwise it may be wise to wait until the ridge has melted out and there's just enough snow to cover the gully to the saddle. The trail takes a stupidly long time so this isn't one to be racing a warming snow pack on unless you want to do a real alpine start.
Some route finding information: trail leaves from the Barclay lot up the old forest service road 6024 behind the bathroom, not down the main lake trail. Can be confusing in the dark. Trail leaves the road right before the stream, basically go up the stream bank on the right side and you should be able to pick up the trail there. The first flag is hard to see from the road. From there the trail is relatively easy to follow, it splits and rejoins a few times but I always stuck left and kept finding more trail markers. Once you gain the ridge the trail markers are few and far between and the trail was totally lost in the snow. You can fudge it following Gaia and just stick to the correct side of the ridge when the trail dips below it. The only really important spot is the turn at 47.77871, -121.44662 to cut under the top of the ridge and then traverse to the basin under the gully.
The trail is extremely challenging. I thought the ridge would be a nice walk and even that was hard! It took 1:40 to get up the half mile road walk and up the ridge, then another 1:50 to get to where I stopped above the basin. I'm in pretty good shape and that was all I had in me for the way up, considering the way down from the ridge is just as stressful/difficult.
Bagged Baring Mountain on Friday. This sentinel of HWY 2 has been on my RADAR for some time to come. I had some multi-path GPS issues in my recordings: 3913 feet gain, 7.4 miles, 11 hrs C2C (more on this), Moving Time: 5:30, Total Time 11:37. After a 5:40 wake-up call, we hit the trailhead at 9 AM. Coffee and marionberry pie took their time to consume. The day looked perfect for climbing.
I've hiked and climbed a lot of steep stuff over the years, and have been on the search for some of the steepest, hardest hiking trails in WA. Yes, I know in this group it's probably most of our boot paths up to some proper climbing, so I should just switch my focus, however, Baring Mountain consistently comes up in the top 5 hard trails and is the third steepest peak in Washinton. I now consider "trails" such as Mailbox Peak, the Kamikaze route up Teneriffe, and others as much more trail-like, and not really all that challenging. The bar has been raised - I personally like lots of scrambling.
Overall the trail is as advertised - it's a very rooty and dirt trodden goat path up to the ridge. Fortunately, someone flagged the trail with pink ribbon pretty well - I say this as there were two areas where we lost the trail and ribbons and wondered if somehow someone neglected to identify the path on the more interesting bits, just when we needed them, or perhaps we were off route. The exercise is left to the reader. The upper quarter of the route is covered in hard-packed snow. We opted to find more non-snow - dirt, rock, and blowdowns, and as a result, got off the path a bit too far to the right, and ended up retreating from a couple of questionable cliffy areas, until we went left, and followed the gully straight up the snow. If we had donned microspikes earlier, we would have stayed on the snow and probably made better time to the ridge - this remained a theme throughout the day. At the end of the day, descending from the ridge, we were able to find more of the missing flagging, making the initial third of the way a bit more manageable. Many people complain about the difficulty, roughness, and downright crappy terrain up this path. I found parts to be quite beautiful. There are many interesting rock formations and amazing giant trees and roots growing around the rocks resembling a giant bonsai garden. Just be aware that as you ascend, there are a couple of spots about 2/3rd of the way up that have some significant exposure on the right side of the path. A fall would be most unfortunate. As we ascended, Tailgunner, Wing, and Merchant Peaks come into view (peaks to add to the ever-increasing list of things one must climb), revealing breathtaking mountain vistas - which were only better on the descent in the waning sunlight of the evening's Alpenglow. My advice for this section is to don your microspikes when you hit the snow as it will make the uphill progress much faster. We also wore ours the entire descent from the ridge as the dirt is steep, loose, and overall it just helped us with our stability.
We made the ridge in just under two hours including our unplanned circuitous route-finding and cliff band navigation and began a quick traverse to the beginning of the basin. We figured we were making pretty good time for a couple of old guys and would have the summit in no time. The ridge is an absolutely gorgeous walk, with lots of mossy rocks, and amazing views to the left. As we approached the area where the path veers off the ridge as it eventually will cliff you out, we followed the flagging which appeared to follow the summer route. Much of the time we were able to follow some boot tracks, but somehow the snow was too hard for these to persist and we generally kept to the right and headed up. Note, it is best to keep left and try to hug the ridge as close as possible in our post-trip assessment - we descended this route as you can see from our GPX track which was a much better route - I wish we did this ascending. Although steep, it would have been much easier and would have saved us a bit of time as well. We ended up losing the flagging and traversed around for about two hours up steep forest slopes, trying to avoid a series of rocky outcrops and other steep terrains. We were in crampons here and I suggest putting these on sooner vs. later. I was not sure from the terrain if we were aiming for what ended up being the correct saddle to the left or if we needed to go right of the rocky ridge which ended up being the direct ridge to South Baring. We initially were going directly up the ridge leading to South Baring - in retrospect a navigation error. We eventually veered left and saw blue sky which I assumed was the path to the pass leading to the basin and the beginning of the next stage of the climb.
Upon cresting the pass, we found several current boot tracks and both peaks of Baring came into view. Finally, we saw our objective, and the route finding challenges came to a glorious end! In retrospect, we felt this last part of the climb up the steep forest to be the most difficult of the day, and another party we met on Baring concurred as well. It was steeper than even the dreaded snow wall. We made good time up the col, noting a lot of avalanche debris from trees and rocks. We reached the saddle or notch in quick order relative to the previous route segment and made for the snow wall. It was early afternoon and the sun had warmed the snow which was soft for the accent up the snow wall. There were visible steps up, however, these were not very structurally sound and we forced on kicking in some bomber steps - even so, my footing gave way a couple of times - fortunately, the run out here is safe with no exposure so I was not overly concerned. Upon reaching the top of the snow well, we met another party of two who has just summited. We exchanged some notes about the day and route and agreed that the steep forest section was the most challenging we both encountered for the day.
Unkle and I made the summit which was fairly easy and we enjoyed a few minutes of the views which are spectacular. I love how you can see down the Skykomish valley, out towards Puget Sound, the Olympics and even the Seattle skyline - much of the Alpine Lake Wilderness is visible as we enjoyed a different vantage of many of the peaks from the north. We descended quickly to the snow wall and hoped that the steps would be in decent condition and not too soft from the sun. I recall the other climbers commenting after pausing to chat with us, that "the wall would not climb itself", so I took lead on the descent, careful to rekick in the steps as the snow was soft, and ensuing my axe was securely plunged with each step-down. We each took the wall down separately so if one of us fell, the other would not take out the other. After 10 minutes of down climbing, we reached the saddle and began a rapid plunge-step descent.
On the descent a large tree log cascaded down the hill above us, aiming for our path. Fortunately, it hit a large rock outcropping and came to a stop. This thing would have taken us out like a baseball bat. Please pay attention and practice good situational awareness in this area. The mountain was very kinetic the rest of the day. We heard three sizeable avalanches from South Baring and several large rapports of rockfall off Baring, startling us with their explosive percussion. One of the avalanches happened on our final push-up Baring, and given the echo, I initially thought it was directly above us. We would have been swept off the mountain and over the edge, however fortunately I realized it was on the other peak and was mindful given the increasing afternoon sun that we would be well served to summit and get off as quickly as possible. We quickened our pace to get off the col and out of the avalanche debris path, ascending to pass and taking a lunch break.
As we began our final push to get to the ridge, we planned to take a more direct down. Fortunately, the climbers ahead of us shared our plans and we followed their tracks down to the ridge and made much better time down. We took the ridge out enjoying the late afternoon views of the peaks to the West. As we reached the point of descent down the final steep path, we donned our microspikes and had more success following the flagging down, realizing our navigation mistakes from earlier in the day. About halfway down the path, I realized that I recognized almost none of the trail. I must have blocked out the memory of the ascent, but it seemed completely foreign. I know on many trips, descending at the end of a climb that I often realize just how long some of these trips and ascents are, as I am reminded on the way down, and often amazed and surprised at just how long or far up we came earlier in the day. This is a beautiful mountain to climb. I am so happy to have done it with a lot of snow cover as the gully in the summer does not look as appealing. South Baring has some appeal as an objective, and why not, we nearly inadvertently climbed it from the forest.
rtgomez90 - Jul 30, 2019 1:58 pm Date Climbed: May 13, 2019
standard rte
5:50 c2c
wojcock - Jun 3, 2019 11:06 pm Date Climbed: Jun 1, 2019
Baring - dirty Aasgard
Steep uphill begins right where the creek bed marked with a cairn/pink ribbon is. Snow starts at base of couloir and is very slushy. I punched through twice up to my hips. Still able to glissade must of the way down. Views from the top were worth the pain.
spephsteph - Mar 5, 2019 12:19 pm Date Climbed: May 12, 2018
Baring Mountain
Via standard west route. Trip report and gpx: https://www.peakbagger.com/climber/ascent.aspx?aid=961238
Peaker - Oct 31, 2018 9:40 pm Date Climbed: Oct 13, 2018
In The Fall
Nice hike on a clear fall day. Fun summit area with the big drop on the north side.
Steep, muddy and rooty trail. The lower portion is more challenging than the upper portions of this climb. Great Views!
ZakG - Apr 30, 2017 1:58 am Date Climbed: May 20, 1997
Family Climb
We nearly turned back at the notch because the snow wall was incredibly steep, but Dad thought it looked doable, even though he was the least experienced snow climber of all of us. Glad he inspired us to go to the top. The glissade back down from the notch to the basin was probably the most fun one I have done. I couldn't exactly say why. My theory is that it is more fun to glissade with your Dad.
Didn't have the right gear but made it to the top anyway.
mrjenks85 - Oct 6, 2015 11:42 am Date Climbed: Mar 8, 2015
Baring in Spring
My dog and I hiked this one while it still had a few feet of snow in the gully and the on summit. Made it much easier on the dog's feet (and mine) not having to hop over boulders. I did this again in late June (not recommended, really hot, no shade, no water) Definitely do this in the spring when there is still snow. Also you get the treat of doing the short snow climb as shown in the SP pictures. In summer this is just a quick scramble, not really noteworthy. Great views. Will make you want to go climb Gunn and Merchant
Walkoutnow - May 15, 2015 10:30 am Date Climbed: May 2, 2015
Fun day out
This mountain has a challenge to it from the get-go. Saw only 5 people. Snow in the chute was just soft enough and low enough to suck, but other than that a straight forward and challenging climb up to a stunning summit.
Perfect weather. Cool in the forest, warm but not hot in the sun. Route is steep all the way but easy to follow. Talked to 6 base jumpers. One group said they had an extra chute if I wanted to join them. Not!
Vic Hanson - Sep 20, 2014 12:16 am Date Climbed: Sep 12, 2014
Seriously steep!
It was a nice cool morning so I pushed hard, arrived at the top of the rock gully at 11:43, in an hour and 37 min. Reached the saddle at 12:30, staying on the left side of the gully most of the way, and at the summit by 1:00. Total distance RT was 5.3 miles with 4,492 feet of gain. Glad it was dry coming back down, trekking poles were nice! Total time was 6:10 with about 45 min. on top and taking pics.
adcla02 - Aug 3, 2014 10:38 am Date Climbed: Aug 2, 2014
8/2/14 - Solo
Nice climb, crux is descending the first dirt hill, very long and nerve racking. Very little snow at this point, no snow wall above the notch.
setrent - May 8, 2014 11:52 am Date Climbed: May 8, 2014
NW Ridge
The steep trail and some wallowing in the soft snow slowed us down, but we were treated to excellent views from the summit. A fun climb, do not underestimate the approach!
ThorsChosen - Mar 27, 2014 12:29 am Date Climbed: Mar 24, 2014
Baring Mountain
Steep fun climb in deep snow. Beautiful day with great views from the summit.
Low clouds and drizzle. Never saw anything beyond 100 feet in any direction. became very muddy, wet and cold. Otherwise, had a great time. Met a mountain goat coming down the other peak.
zhong - Apr 15, 2024 11:42 am Date Climbed: Apr 13, 2024
Baring from Hwy 2, the south slope (FR 6028)Note, this is not the standard route from Barclay Lake TH.
2 of us walked 3.78 miles (accordind to Gaia) of forest road 6028, because the gate was closed. The report we read (from Matt Juhasz on April 2nd) was that this gate was not locked.
Looks like they put a new gate here (doesn't look very new, but a different color). There's a second gate on the road, but that's wide open.
We followed Matt's GPS track (many thanks). Very steep forest slope with loose ground, burned logs. Got very dirty.
Once reach the ridge, it's more straightforward.
Now go down to a bowl, and up the steep gully between the 2 Baring peaks. Near the col, head left. See photo for going down from the ridge and photo for going up the gully.
Condition:
1. The gate is locked: bring bike. Good gravel road.
See photo
2. We put snowshoes on, about 3-400' below the forested ridge.
3. need snowshoes most of the rest of the track, except to take them off when it gets too steep. The gully is steep, avalanche prone. Now the snow is sticky, so safe enough. We glissaded down.
4. we circled to the peak's west side from the south, mostly stayed on snow.
5. need ice axe on the steep slope.
6. helmet on the burnt forest slope (you can easily kicks rocks down to your climbing partner). It's steep and loose.
See photo
I'm out of shape. For reference, this took me 6 hours to go up and 4 hours to get down. My partner is ~1 hr faster. Plus the road walk (~1:20 each way).
TimboSlice - Apr 23, 2022 9:25 pm Date Climbed: Apr 23, 2022
Second Time's the CharmSuccessfully summited Baring Mountain on a second attempt!
I wrote a previous report that speaks to the trail up to the basin before the col, so I won't cover that again.
Climbing partner and I broke trail from 3/4 along the ridge all the way to the summit. Total time was about 6 hours up, 4 hours down. Spoke to a party that came after us and it took them about 9 hours, so even with a broken trail to follow this route is extremely long. The main issue on this route is avalanche danger. Once the warming starts, the col up to the saddle is a perfect slide area and old cornices along the basin threaten to fall. Trees and the surrounding cliffs are primed to drop snow onto the col as temps increase, potentially triggering slides. Case in point, as we were coming back along the ridge we heard the loud rumble of an avalanche that sounded like it came from Baring. We spoke to a couple coming back from Barclay Lake who said they saw avalanche debris coming off of Baring, probably the same one we heard. Hard to tell exactly where it came from, but you definitely don't want to be up there mid afternoon this time of year. A 7:00am-8:00am start is doable but earlier is better. If you plan to do this or any other trail in the back/sidecountry, please educate yourself on avalanche risks. NWAC offers free Avalanche Awareness classes that at least get you the basics. I asked one of the other groups out there if they had avalanche training since I was hoping someone was AIARE certified and was met with blank stares. I won't try to tell someone how to live their life, but it's scary how dangerous of terrain you can get into without even knowing it, myself included when I first started out.
When we got to the basin around 9:30am there was still a healthy crust on the snow that gave us the confidence to pick our way across and start up the col. 2/3 of the way up the col it appeared the snow hadn't gone through a thaw/freeze cycle yet so we were sinking to our knees in thick powder. The snowpack felt stable and there was no wind slab, so we kept at it. The 'vertical snow wall' at the top of the col was extremely intimidating and included a bonus 5' tall drift in the middle of it. I have two pictures of the wall, one from the bottom and one from the top of my climbing partner heading down so you can get a sense of the scale. He cut the path through the drift when I was about ready to call it, so credit goes to him for our simmit! Once above the snow wall, we took the path of least resistance to the summit, trying to stick to trees and rocks as best as possible and avoid open snow fields. There was what appeared to be some 2-3" wind slab in a few spots that sketched us out, but it wasn't reactive and seemed bonded to the snow below. I'm no avy expert though. The clouds had been blowing across the summit all morning so it was the inside of a ping pong ball when we got up there, but there were a few cloud breaks at least to give us a bit of a view of the north peak and across to Merchant. After a brief break we headed down and met a few other groups on their way up, 8-9 other people in total.
The snow was pretty consistent on the way back to the snow wall, but by the time we were heading down the wall the snow on it was getting really sticky and clumpy. Time to GTFO! Although the col is shaded from direct sun for the most part, the upper layer was starting to get sticky from generalized temperature increase and we were knocking small rollers down. There was no propagation though and they weren't picking up any further snow. Apparently one of the groups behind us glissaded down, but that seemed like an unnecessary risk to me so we plunge stepped the whole way. Got across the basin with no issues and back to the ridge down! Incredibly intense and rewarding day, hopefully won't be doing it again for quite a while. The bootpack should serve well for a bit, but with the loose wet avy danger, I would highly suggest avoiding Baring for now since it's extremely difficult to get out there before the snow gets soft.
Rough timeline below, honestly we should have set a turnaround time of 12:00 but got lucky this time.
7:00am - Start
8:30am - Top of ridge
9:30am - Start of basin
10:00am - Bottom of col
11:30am - Top of col
1:00pm - Summit
5:00pm - Cars
TimboSlice - Mar 26, 2022 6:19 pm Date Climbed: Mar 26, 2022
Baring Conditions 3/26/2022No summit today but wanted to leave some up to date route information for others that might want to try as the weather (hopefully) gets nicer. Currently, the snow starts right below the ridge and slowly gets deeper as you traverse the ridge until there's a good few feet. With the warm weather it was extremely soft, making travel difficult since you sink in to mid calf with each step. There are some harder/icy spots once you start side-hilling along the ridge, so I'd put on crampons there. There were some chonky cornices overhanging where the trail would run through the basin, but they'll be difficult to see from the basin itself. The gully to the saddle was covered in fresh loose wet avalanche debris. North summit and traverse up the ridge from the saddle looked fairly clear of snow, but it was hard to tell with how far away I still was. With a cold snap to firm up the snow this would be doable, but otherwise it may be wise to wait until the ridge has melted out and there's just enough snow to cover the gully to the saddle. The trail takes a stupidly long time so this isn't one to be racing a warming snow pack on unless you want to do a real alpine start.
Some route finding information: trail leaves from the Barclay lot up the old forest service road 6024 behind the bathroom, not down the main lake trail. Can be confusing in the dark. Trail leaves the road right before the stream, basically go up the stream bank on the right side and you should be able to pick up the trail there. The first flag is hard to see from the road. From there the trail is relatively easy to follow, it splits and rejoins a few times but I always stuck left and kept finding more trail markers. Once you gain the ridge the trail markers are few and far between and the trail was totally lost in the snow. You can fudge it following Gaia and just stick to the correct side of the ridge when the trail dips below it. The only really important spot is the turn at 47.77871, -121.44662 to cut under the top of the ridge and then traverse to the basin under the gully.
The trail is extremely challenging. I thought the ridge would be a nice walk and even that was hard! It took 1:40 to get up the half mile road walk and up the ridge, then another 1:50 to get to where I stopped above the basin. I'm in pretty good shape and that was all I had in me for the way up, considering the way down from the ridge is just as stressful/difficult.
markhadland@gmail.com - May 17, 2021 11:25 am Date Climbed: May 14, 2021
Baring SummitBagged Baring Mountain on Friday. This sentinel of HWY 2 has been on my RADAR for some time to come. I had some multi-path GPS issues in my recordings: 3913 feet gain, 7.4 miles, 11 hrs C2C (more on this), Moving Time: 5:30, Total Time 11:37. After a 5:40 wake-up call, we hit the trailhead at 9 AM. Coffee and marionberry pie took their time to consume. The day looked perfect for climbing.
I've hiked and climbed a lot of steep stuff over the years, and have been on the search for some of the steepest, hardest hiking trails in WA. Yes, I know in this group it's probably most of our boot paths up to some proper climbing, so I should just switch my focus, however, Baring Mountain consistently comes up in the top 5 hard trails and is the third steepest peak in Washinton. I now consider "trails" such as Mailbox Peak, the Kamikaze route up Teneriffe, and others as much more trail-like, and not really all that challenging. The bar has been raised - I personally like lots of scrambling.
Overall the trail is as advertised - it's a very rooty and dirt trodden goat path up to the ridge. Fortunately, someone flagged the trail with pink ribbon pretty well - I say this as there were two areas where we lost the trail and ribbons and wondered if somehow someone neglected to identify the path on the more interesting bits, just when we needed them, or perhaps we were off route. The exercise is left to the reader. The upper quarter of the route is covered in hard-packed snow. We opted to find more non-snow - dirt, rock, and blowdowns, and as a result, got off the path a bit too far to the right, and ended up retreating from a couple of questionable cliffy areas, until we went left, and followed the gully straight up the snow. If we had donned microspikes earlier, we would have stayed on the snow and probably made better time to the ridge - this remained a theme throughout the day. At the end of the day, descending from the ridge, we were able to find more of the missing flagging, making the initial third of the way a bit more manageable. Many people complain about the difficulty, roughness, and downright crappy terrain up this path. I found parts to be quite beautiful. There are many interesting rock formations and amazing giant trees and roots growing around the rocks resembling a giant bonsai garden. Just be aware that as you ascend, there are a couple of spots about 2/3rd of the way up that have some significant exposure on the right side of the path. A fall would be most unfortunate. As we ascended, Tailgunner, Wing, and Merchant Peaks come into view (peaks to add to the ever-increasing list of things one must climb), revealing breathtaking mountain vistas - which were only better on the descent in the waning sunlight of the evening's Alpenglow. My advice for this section is to don your microspikes when you hit the snow as it will make the uphill progress much faster. We also wore ours the entire descent from the ridge as the dirt is steep, loose, and overall it just helped us with our stability.
We made the ridge in just under two hours including our unplanned circuitous route-finding and cliff band navigation and began a quick traverse to the beginning of the basin. We figured we were making pretty good time for a couple of old guys and would have the summit in no time. The ridge is an absolutely gorgeous walk, with lots of mossy rocks, and amazing views to the left. As we approached the area where the path veers off the ridge as it eventually will cliff you out, we followed the flagging which appeared to follow the summer route. Much of the time we were able to follow some boot tracks, but somehow the snow was too hard for these to persist and we generally kept to the right and headed up. Note, it is best to keep left and try to hug the ridge as close as possible in our post-trip assessment - we descended this route as you can see from our GPX track which was a much better route - I wish we did this ascending. Although steep, it would have been much easier and would have saved us a bit of time as well. We ended up losing the flagging and traversed around for about two hours up steep forest slopes, trying to avoid a series of rocky outcrops and other steep terrains. We were in crampons here and I suggest putting these on sooner vs. later. I was not sure from the terrain if we were aiming for what ended up being the correct saddle to the left or if we needed to go right of the rocky ridge which ended up being the direct ridge to South Baring. We initially were going directly up the ridge leading to South Baring - in retrospect a navigation error. We eventually veered left and saw blue sky which I assumed was the path to the pass leading to the basin and the beginning of the next stage of the climb.
Upon cresting the pass, we found several current boot tracks and both peaks of Baring came into view. Finally, we saw our objective, and the route finding challenges came to a glorious end! In retrospect, we felt this last part of the climb up the steep forest to be the most difficult of the day, and another party we met on Baring concurred as well. It was steeper than even the dreaded snow wall. We made good time up the col, noting a lot of avalanche debris from trees and rocks. We reached the saddle or notch in quick order relative to the previous route segment and made for the snow wall. It was early afternoon and the sun had warmed the snow which was soft for the accent up the snow wall. There were visible steps up, however, these were not very structurally sound and we forced on kicking in some bomber steps - even so, my footing gave way a couple of times - fortunately, the run out here is safe with no exposure so I was not overly concerned. Upon reaching the top of the snow well, we met another party of two who has just summited. We exchanged some notes about the day and route and agreed that the steep forest section was the most challenging we both encountered for the day.
Unkle and I made the summit which was fairly easy and we enjoyed a few minutes of the views which are spectacular. I love how you can see down the Skykomish valley, out towards Puget Sound, the Olympics and even the Seattle skyline - much of the Alpine Lake Wilderness is visible as we enjoyed a different vantage of many of the peaks from the north. We descended quickly to the snow wall and hoped that the steps would be in decent condition and not too soft from the sun. I recall the other climbers commenting after pausing to chat with us, that "the wall would not climb itself", so I took lead on the descent, careful to rekick in the steps as the snow was soft, and ensuing my axe was securely plunged with each step-down. We each took the wall down separately so if one of us fell, the other would not take out the other. After 10 minutes of down climbing, we reached the saddle and began a rapid plunge-step descent.
On the descent a large tree log cascaded down the hill above us, aiming for our path. Fortunately, it hit a large rock outcropping and came to a stop. This thing would have taken us out like a baseball bat. Please pay attention and practice good situational awareness in this area. The mountain was very kinetic the rest of the day. We heard three sizeable avalanches from South Baring and several large rapports of rockfall off Baring, startling us with their explosive percussion. One of the avalanches happened on our final push-up Baring, and given the echo, I initially thought it was directly above us. We would have been swept off the mountain and over the edge, however fortunately I realized it was on the other peak and was mindful given the increasing afternoon sun that we would be well served to summit and get off as quickly as possible. We quickened our pace to get off the col and out of the avalanche debris path, ascending to pass and taking a lunch break.
As we began our final push to get to the ridge, we planned to take a more direct down. Fortunately, the climbers ahead of us shared our plans and we followed their tracks down to the ridge and made much better time down. We took the ridge out enjoying the late afternoon views of the peaks to the West. As we reached the point of descent down the final steep path, we donned our microspikes and had more success following the flagging down, realizing our navigation mistakes from earlier in the day. About halfway down the path, I realized that I recognized almost none of the trail. I must have blocked out the memory of the ascent, but it seemed completely foreign. I know on many trips, descending at the end of a climb that I often realize just how long some of these trips and ascents are, as I am reminded on the way down, and often amazed and surprised at just how long or far up we came earlier in the day. This is a beautiful mountain to climb. I am so happy to have done it with a lot of snow cover as the gully in the summer does not look as appealing. South Baring has some appeal as an objective, and why not, we nearly inadvertently climbed it from the forest.
rtgomez90 - Jul 30, 2019 1:58 pm Date Climbed: May 13, 2019
standard rte5:50 c2c
wojcock - Jun 3, 2019 11:06 pm Date Climbed: Jun 1, 2019
Baring - dirty AasgardSteep uphill begins right where the creek bed marked with a cairn/pink ribbon is. Snow starts at base of couloir and is very slushy. I punched through twice up to my hips. Still able to glissade must of the way down. Views from the top were worth the pain.
spephsteph - Mar 5, 2019 12:19 pm Date Climbed: May 12, 2018
Baring MountainVia standard west route. Trip report and gpx: https://www.peakbagger.com/climber/ascent.aspx?aid=961238
Peaker - Oct 31, 2018 9:40 pm Date Climbed: Oct 13, 2018
In The FallNice hike on a clear fall day. Fun summit area with the big drop on the north side.
beaudaddy85 - Jul 27, 2018 1:57 pm Date Climbed: Jul 1, 2016
Steep TrailSteep, muddy and rooty trail. The lower portion is more challenging than the upper portions of this climb. Great Views!
ZakG - Apr 30, 2017 1:58 am Date Climbed: May 20, 1997
Family ClimbWe nearly turned back at the notch because the snow wall was incredibly steep, but Dad thought it looked doable, even though he was the least experienced snow climber of all of us. Glad he inspired us to go to the top. The glissade back down from the notch to the basin was probably the most fun one I have done. I couldn't exactly say why. My theory is that it is more fun to glissade with your Dad.
chandlerhaberlack - Jul 29, 2016 5:15 pm Date Climbed: Mar 9, 2015
Snowy AscentDidn't have the right gear but made it to the top anyway.
mrjenks85 - Oct 6, 2015 11:42 am Date Climbed: Mar 8, 2015
Baring in SpringMy dog and I hiked this one while it still had a few feet of snow in the gully and the on summit. Made it much easier on the dog's feet (and mine) not having to hop over boulders. I did this again in late June (not recommended, really hot, no shade, no water) Definitely do this in the spring when there is still snow. Also you get the treat of doing the short snow climb as shown in the SP pictures. In summer this is just a quick scramble, not really noteworthy. Great views. Will make you want to go climb Gunn and Merchant
Walkoutnow - May 15, 2015 10:30 am Date Climbed: May 2, 2015
Fun day outThis mountain has a challenge to it from the get-go. Saw only 5 people. Snow in the chute was just soft enough and low enough to suck, but other than that a straight forward and challenging climb up to a stunning summit.
Dundeel - Sep 22, 2014 3:52 pm Date Climbed: Sep 21, 2014
Baring It AllPerfect weather. Cool in the forest, warm but not hot in the sun. Route is steep all the way but easy to follow. Talked to 6 base jumpers. One group said they had an extra chute if I wanted to join them. Not!
Vic Hanson - Sep 20, 2014 12:16 am Date Climbed: Sep 12, 2014
Seriously steep!It was a nice cool morning so I pushed hard, arrived at the top of the rock gully at 11:43, in an hour and 37 min. Reached the saddle at 12:30, staying on the left side of the gully most of the way, and at the summit by 1:00. Total distance RT was 5.3 miles with 4,492 feet of gain. Glad it was dry coming back down, trekking poles were nice! Total time was 6:10 with about 45 min. on top and taking pics.
adcla02 - Aug 3, 2014 10:38 am Date Climbed: Aug 2, 2014
8/2/14 - SoloNice climb, crux is descending the first dirt hill, very long and nerve racking. Very little snow at this point, no snow wall above the notch.
setrent - May 8, 2014 11:52 am Date Climbed: May 8, 2014
NW RidgeThe steep trail and some wallowing in the soft snow slowed us down, but we were treated to excellent views from the summit. A fun climb, do not underestimate the approach!
ThorsChosen - Mar 27, 2014 12:29 am Date Climbed: Mar 24, 2014
Baring MountainSteep fun climb in deep snow. Beautiful day with great views from the summit.
kevinsa - Sep 17, 2012 11:46 pm Date Climbed: Sep 27, 2007
Mt. BaringOne of few mountains where the bottom of the climb is tougher than the top. Having said that, well worth the time.
tcingrum - Jul 15, 2012 11:25 pm Date Climbed: Sep 5, 2010
FoggerLow clouds and drizzle. Never saw anything beyond 100 feet in any direction. became very muddy, wet and cold. Otherwise, had a great time. Met a mountain goat coming down the other peak.