• Destination: Mount Baring (7743')
• Date: Feb 06, 2010
• Elevation Gain: 3900'
• Round Trip Distance: c.6 miles
• Equipment: The ten essentials, ice axe, crampons 
• Time car to car: 7.5 hours

    Those of you who ski at Stevens Pass or crag in Leavenworth have probably noticed the dramatic double humped peak looming on the north side of Highway 2 just past Index. Baring Mountain caught Chris' attention as a possible winter ascent. Our dream team, consisting of George "Mountain Man" Reeves, Jim "Smilin' Jim" Lapp, Jenny "Legs" Baker, Chris "Beautiful and Neat" Danilson, and myself, met in Mt. Vernon at 6:30am. Turning off the highway at Baring (don't blink or you'll miss it!); we drove up a decent forest road 4.2 miles and were on the trail about 8:30am. The first few minutes of hiking are blissfully flat, then SHAZAM! the climber's trail starts for an unrelenting 1,800 vertical feet. The steepness of the trail had me sweating, cursing, and comparing it to parts of the Eldorado and the Pyramid/Colonial Basin approaches, both trails I despise each time I'm on them. Of course, once back at the apres-climb pub with a glass of wine in me, they seem fine. Selective memory is a wonderful thing.
The trail was in pretty decent shape until we got to the upper part where there was patchy snow, some of it quite hard, overlying mud. Jenny, the only one without plastic boots, was not amused. Fortunately, once on the ridge at 4,000 feet it was pleasant strolling on about an inch of soft snow. Love those ridge walks!!! We had tantalizing peeks of our objective through the trees and across the valley to Merchant and Gunn Peaks.
You must eventually lose the ridge, descend and traverse through a forest, then pop over the ridge, at which point you view the obvious route to the summit. In the forest the snow was icy and steep; we donned crampons and were much happier. Looking over at the snow gulley leading to the saddle between the main and the south peak, what to our wondering eyes did appear but a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer! NOT! But we did see 4 ant-sized climbers wallowing in snow up to their man parts. At this point we decided to rest on our laurels (asses) for a bit and let those nice folks (suckers) kick us a stairway to heaven in all that powder.
Chris, being the Type A overachiever that he is, could only relax for a nanosecond or two, then he had to show those Everett pansies how the Big Boys from Skagit "git 'er done". Soon he was leading the pack, kicking his way up, making friends and making us proud.
From the saddle, the Everett boys led the first push but were plum tuckered out shortly. Jenny, George, and I plowed through deep snow between small trees to the top (mostly Jenny: they don't call her "Legs" for nothing!) We were on the broad summit 4:20 hrs after leaving the car. It was a sunny day with views all around, but the chilly gusting wind convinced us to descend quickly.
Lolling in sunshine in the snowy basin, we had a lovely lunch. There's nothing like a snow picnic to put you in a good mood and make you forget all that tedious down-climbing you must do before getting back to the car. We wore our crampons on the upper part of the climber's trail; that made the descent much easier. Smilin' Jim entertained us with his unprovoked uproarious outbursts of laughter, and Big Blue got us home safely despite a muffler roaring like a 747. The day had been a success: good weather, good conditions, good friends, good times had by all.