Colfax Peak Spring Survey

Colfax Peak Spring Survey

April 24, 2025

Eric and Juliette

12 miles, 6.5kft gain

4am – 1pm

Results: Colfax summit has 17.3ft snow accumulation since late summer measurement. Summit is at 9,457.2ft +/-0.1ft NGVD29

Colfax Peak is one of the two remaining icecap peaks in the contiguous US, and one of the five former icecap peaks. I’m trying to track seasonal variation in heights of all of these five peaks, which means measuring them at the minimum snow time of year (late summer) and maximum snow time of year (mid spring). Based on the nearest snotel sites (Nooksack, Wells Creek, Marten Ridge, and Elbow Lake), the peak snow time of year is, on average, between late April and early May. The snow depth has never been measured on Colfax Peak in the spring, so it’s not certain exactly what date this has historically occurred.

By measuring snow accumulation at peak depth on the icecap peaks, I can start understanding why they are, in general, losing elevation. It is certainly due to rising temperatures and increased melting, but is unknown how much snow accumulation variations are also affecting this. The official elevation of an icecap peak is its elevation at minimum snow time of year. Historically these elevation have remained relatively constant, but I’ve discovered that in the past 20-30 years these five peaks have in general been shrinking significantly.

I first measured Colfax Peak with professional surveying equipment on Sept 3, 2024, and found it was at an elevation 9439.9ft (NGVD29 datum). I planned to return in late April to measure it again. Thursday, April 25th was a good weather window, and I was flexible enough that I had time to squeeze in the trip in the morning and then squeeze my work in for the day in the afternoon/evening.

The two main routes for Colfax are the Coleman-Deming route from the northwest, and the Easton glacier route from the south. The Easton route is currently open for snowmobiling in the Baker recreation area, and I considered using my snowmobile to help with access. But one drawback is spring conditions are generally very icy in the early morning, which lead to overheating issues with a snowmobile. It’s really best to wait until mid day to snowmobile when the snow is slushy. That would delay the survey trip, though. The Easton route is much longer with much more gain if going without a snowmobile to shorten the approach.

If we took the Coleman-Deming route we could start at any time. This also had the advantage that the upper section of the route would likely be shaded from the sun and might hold some good poweder skiing, which isn’t common in April. My friend Talon had just done this route up Baker and said it was in good condition with parking close to the trailhead. So that was the plan.

We drove up Wednesday evening after rush hour and slept at the edge of snowline at the intersection between roads NF 3600 and NF 39 at 3600ft. Thursday 4am we started skinning up the road for 0.3 miles until we hit the trailhead. I had broken my primary set of skis the previous weekend on East Fury, so had to use my backup pair. They were heavier and took a bit of time to get used to, but still functioned.

From there some skin tracks continued up the road, likely headed for the Grouse Creek variation. I had never done that approach before, and we knew the standard trail approach worked, so we went for that.

The snow was patchy and melted out for the first 45 minutes, so we carried our skis up to about 4500ft. From there the snow got deep and continuous and we started skinning. At the edge of treeline we saw a guided group of snowshoers camped out and just getting up at sunrise. We continued up the icy slopes using ski crampons, then roped up on the edge of the Coleman Glacier. We followed a good skin track, and saw lots of old ski tracks. This is indeed a popular destination this time of year.

We passed two more tents just as the sun was rising, and climbers were just getting out and starting to move. Progress was fast and crevasses were generally well filled in. By the 5 hour mark we reached the Colfax-Baker col, then skinned steeply up to the base of East Colfax. We had to cross one partially-open bergshcrund, but it pinched off at the end and was no problem. On the other side we ditched skis and switched to crampons.

We followed old boot tracks up and around East Colfax, then those tracks turned into ski tracks and descended the south face. We continued to the col and booted up to the summit of Colfax by 9:30am. I quickly set up the Trimble DA2 unit on the tripod with the 1ft antenna rod. I packed snow around the legs so they wouldn’t melt down, then started logging data. For a backup measurement, I took my sight level and measured declination down to a melted out rock outcrop. I then hiked over to the rock outcrop and back sighted up to the ice summit. I would later use the known lidar-derived elevation of the rock outcrop and the distance between points and trigonometry to get a backup measurement of the icecap elevation.

After one hour of data logging we packed up and headed down. We booted back to the skis, tagging East Colfax on the way, then had an amazing ski out. The upper Coleman glacier above 7000ft was fun powder skiing, but then it got a bit crusty, then icy down in the trees. We got back to the trail and the edge of continuous snow after about an hour. We then booted down, passing a few parties on their way up. We skied the last section of road to the truck by 1pm, and were soon headed back to Seattle.

I processed the measurements with OPUS after 24 hours and found the top of the icecap was at 9457.2ft +/-0.08ft. NGVD29. This means there is an additional 17.3ft of snow accumulation on the summit since the September measurement. Interestingly, this is less snow accumulation than on the East Fury ice summit (22ft accumulation since Oct 2024). I would expect Colfax to have more accumulation since it is over 1000ft taller, and higher elevation locations generally receive higher snowfall amounts. It is possible localized wind effects are resulting in different accumulations.

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