A Love Letter to Mount Baker
By Shea McCrary
AWExpeditions has run expeditions on Mount Baker for years because of its perfect setting for mountaineering training. Baked into AWE’s trips on Komo Kulshan is our bond with the Summit Scholarship Foundation. Carly, one of the summit scholarship recipients, shares part of her story here.
It’s 12 a.m. The rustling of tents and sleeping bags can be heard throughout Sandy Camp. Anxiety and adrenaline are equally present as rope teams sleepily assemble and begin their push toward the summit of Mount Baker.
Being from Washington, Mount Baker has naturally been a consistent backdrop throughout my life — visible from winding roads on camping trips with my family and visits to my two best friends at Western Washington University in Bellingham. The very familiar mountain I once observed from a distance is somewhere I can, in many ways, now call home.
Mount Baker has seen me at my worst, my best, and everywhere in between. In 2024, I was a recipient of the Summit Scholarship Foundation’s Mount Baker Glacier 2 scholarship, which included both a summit attempt and comprehensive glacier school over five days. This trip humbled me in every way imaginable. It was unquestionably the longest time I had ever spent in a tent — on snow, no less — and the physical and emotional toll of climbing a mountain under my own power was something I wasn’t prepared for.
My first summit of Mount Baker happened on that very trip, on my 19th birthday. The push was hard. The descent was hard. What wasn’t hard was the decision to come back. I still think about sitting around our homemade snow table at camp, surrounded by women — guides and fellow clients alike — who were older and wiser than me, listening to their stories about what had brought them there. Together, we sang, laughed, and cried.
Every year since, I’ve made a point to summit Baker on my birthday. Last year I joined another all-women’s expedition; this year I’m returning with my closest friends. Each of these trips honors the expedition that got me hooked on mountaineering in the first place.
This is the place where I have watched women summit their first mountain, walk on their first glacier, and tie into their first rope team. Where I’ve watched teammates break through their own doubts to reach a personal summit. Where women have shown up for each other in ways that would have been unimaginable to me just a few years ago. Where glitter gets passed from rope team to rope team as we paint our faces and make the final push toward the top.
It is a place like no other. The dense forests, wildflower-covered Railroad Grade, vast glaciers, and lively atmosphere are things I struggle to put into words. You sleep under thousands of stars on the edge of Baker’s glacier, live alongside the wildlife that calls the mountain home — including the largest marmots you’ve ever seen — and for a few days, fully coexist with the mountain itself.
On one of my most recent Baker summits, I joined the Summit Scholarship’s Rope Team Rising expedition as an alumna. Our first night brought thunder, rain, and wind. On paper, that sounds miserable — but sitting in my bivy listening to the rain, I felt completely at peace. That moment, on my fifth summit of the mountain, was only possible because of the ever-changing environment that comes with a peak as complex as Baker.
As I continue building my guiding career, Mount Baker will always be dear to me. My best attempt at describing it is the one above — but honestly, the better advice is to come see it for yourself.
Written by Carly Dykes, Summit Scholarship recipient in 2024 and close working partner with AWExpeditions.
Photo by Sunny Stroeer