Mount Baker

Elevation (feet): 10,778
Elevation (meters): 3,284
Continent: North America
Country: United States
Range/Region: Cascade Range
State: Washington
Latitude: 48.776895
Longitude: -121.814532
Difficulty: Basic Snow/Ice Climb
Best months for climbing: May, Jun, Jul, Aug
Volcanic status: Active
Most recent eruption: 1880
Year first climbed: 1868
First successful climber(s): E.T. Coleman, T. Stratton, J. Tenant, D. Ogilvey
Nearest major airport: Seattle, WA or Vancouver, BC
Convenient Center: Bellingham, WA


Mount Baker is the third highest mountain in the state of Washington. Its icy volcanic dome rises just 15 miles south of the U.S.-Canadian border, and 35 miles east of Bellingham, Washington. It receives a great deal of precipitation, and set the current world record for most snow in one year, having received 1,140 inches (95 feet) / 2,896 cm (29 meters) of snowfall in the winter of 1998-99.

Mount Baker supports twelve glaciers, providing some of the best variety of glacier climbing opportunities in the lower 48 United States.

Its summit crater is ice-filled, leveling out on top to form a relatively flat 35-acre ice summit. A unique network of ice caverns tunnels through the ice, a phenomenon that is known to exist on only two other North American peaks, Mount Rainier and Mount Wrangell.

Baker has steamed consistently throughout history, and had at least eight known eruptions to its credit in the nineteenth century. No eruptive activity has been recorded since 1880, though with the 1980 eruption of Mount Saint Helens, scientists are more attentively monitoring several Cascade volcanoes, including Mount Baker.