Washington State Wiki
Advertisement
Mountbaker

Mount Baker in Whatcom County.

Mount Baker, or Koma Kulshan, is an active glaciated andesitic stratovolcano in the Cascade Volcanic Arc and the North Cascades of Washington State. It is the second-most active volcano in the range after Mount Saint Helens. It is about 31 miles due east of the city of Bellingham, Whatcom County, making it the northernmost volcano in the Cascade Range but not the northernmost of the Cascade Volcanic Arc, which extends north into the Coast Mountains. Mount Baker is the youngest volcano in the Mount Baker volcanic field. Older volcanic edifices have mostly eroded away due to glaciation. After Mount Rainier, Mount Baker is the most heavily glaciated of the Cascade volcanoes; the volume of snow and ice on Mount Baker is greater than that of all the other Cascades volcanoes (except Rainier) combined. It is also one of the snowiest places in the world; in 1999, Mount Baker Ski Area, located 14 km (8.4 mi) to the northeast, set the world record for snowfall in a single season—1,140 inches (95 feet or 2,896 cm). At 10,778 feet, it is the fourth-highest mountain in Washington State and the sixth-highest in the Cascade Range. Located in the Mount Baker Wilderness, it is visible from much of Greater Victoria, Greater Vancouver and south to Seattle in Washington. Indigenous natives have known the mountain for thousands of years, but the first written record of the mountain is from the Spanish. Spanish explorer Gonzalo Lopez de Haro mapped it in 1790 as the Gran Montaña del Carmelo, "Great Mount Carmel". The explorer George Vancouver renamed the mountain for 3rd Lieutenant Joseph Baker of HMS Discovery, who saw it on April 30, 1792.

Advertisement