Jeff wanted to play with his ice tools and come to think of it so did I.  So one Sunday morning we set out for the Coleman Icefall on the north side of Mt. Baker.  The icefall is a short hike up the Heliotrope Ridge trail and an all too popular spot for people who want to play with their ice tools.
 

A pretty waterfall on the way up the trail.  Unfortunately I doubt if it freezes in winter - not enough altitude.
 

An early mist still covers the icefall.  We would eventually be treated to an abundance of sunshine while apparently it rained buckets in Seattle.
I love it when that happens.
 

Crossing a dirty section to get to the nicer ice.  Note there are already some people clambering around.
 
 

It was kind of warm so we didn't want to lead on the potentially soft ice.  We set up top ropes in a couple places.  Unfortunately we only found one really nice long section of vertical ice but another group was on it.  We had to settle for shorter climbs.  Fortunately one was nicely overhanging.  We also did a fair amount of just bouldering around and also exploring looking for other spots to top rope.  The crevasses are a fantastic labyrinth and it is fun to get lost in its reaches and wander about only to find yourself back where you started.
 

Single-gender partially naked ice climbing.
 

Ditto.
 

A really cool pointy serac.
 

Jeff on our way back to dirt world.
 

My work here is done.