Mount Baker, also known as Koma Kulshan or simply Kulshan, is a 10,781-foot (3,286 m) active glacier-covered andesitic stratovolcano in the Cascade Volcanic Arc and the North Cascades of Washington State in the United States. Mount Baker has the second-most thermally active crater in the Cascade Range after Mount St. Helens. About 30 miles (48 km) due east of the city of Bellingham, Whatcom County, Mount Baker is the youngest volcano in the Mount Baker volcanic field. While volcanism has persisted here for some 1.5 million years, the current volcanic cone is likely no more than 140,000 years old, and possibly no older than 80–90,000 years. Older volcanic edifices have mostly eroded away due to glaciation. After Mount Rainier, Mount Baker has the heaviest glacier cover of the Cascade Range volcanoes; the volume of snow and ice on Mount Baker, 0.43 cu mi (1.79 km3) 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 9 mi (14.5 km) to the northeast, set the world record for recorded snowfall in a single season—1,140 in (29 m; 95 ft). Mount Baker is the third-highest mountain in Washington and the fifth-highest in the Cascade Range, if Little Tahoma Peak, a subpeak of Mount Rainier, and Shastina, a subpeak of Mount Shasta, are not counted. Located in the Mount Baker Wilderness, it is visible from much of Greater Victoria, Nanaimo, and Greater Vancouver in British Columbia, and to the south, from Seattle (and on clear days Tacoma) in Washington. Indigenous peoples have known the mountain for thousands of years, but the first written record of the mountain is from Spanish explorer Gonzalo Lopez de Haro, who mapped it in 1790 as Gran Montaña del Carmelo. The explorer George Vancouver later named the mountain for 3rd Lieutenant Joseph Baker of HMS Discovery, who saw it on April 30, 1792.
Name and etymology Mount Baker is known to the several Indigenous peoples surrounding the mountain by different names. The Nooksack, who live in the closest proximity to the north face of the mountain, have multiple names for different areas of the mountain. The name Kweq' Smánit, meaning "white mountain," refers to Mount Baker as a whole, and specifically, to the glacier-covered summit above 7,000 feet. The open slopes of Mt. Baker, between about 5,000 feet and 7,000 feet, are known as Kwelshán, meaning "shooting place," referring to the act of going hunting up on the slopes. The third main name for the mountain is Spelhpálhx̠en, meaning "many meadows," refers to the sheltered meadows below around 5,500 feet. The Upper Skagit peoples, who live in the closest proximity to the south face of the mountain along the Skagit River watershed, call the mountain təqʷubəʔ in Lushootseed, which means "permanently snow-covered mountain." This name is also used for Mount Rainier, and is anglicized as Tacoma or Tahoma. Other Indigenous peoples, such as the Lummi or Halkomelem-speaking peoples, use names for the mountain borrowed from the Nooksack term, as, due to the distance to the mountain from the core homelands of those peoples, only those closely related to the Nooksack might travel to hunt and gather with them at Kwelshán. Thus, the names for Mount Baker in Lummi and Halkomelem are Kwelshan and Kwelxá:lxw respectively. The name in the nearby Thompson language, kʷəlhéləxʷ, may be a loan from Nooksack or Halkomelem. The first Europeans to see and name the mountain were the Spanish. Gonzalo Lopez de Haro was the first European to record the mountain, calling it Gran Montaña del Carmelo, meaning "Great Mount Carmel". The current English name for the mountain, Mount Baker, was chosen by George Vancouver. Vancouver named the mountain for 3rd Lieutenant Joseph Baker of HMS Discovery, who saw it on April 30, 1792. Mount Baker is sometimes also known by the alternative English name "Kulshan" which is the anglicized form of the Nooksack name Kwelshán. The other related name, "Koma Kulshan," is likely the Anglicized version of the Nooksack phrase, Kwóma Kwelshán, meaning "go up into the mountains to Kwelshán."
History
Prior to European colonization, the Nooksack and Upper Skagit peoples hunted and gathered on the north and south faces of the mountain. For the Nooksack, Mount Baker is extremely important in traditional religious beliefs, and was historically a great source of wealth (in the form of mountain goat wool, a highly prized commodity) and food. Nooksack families would travel via the North Fork (Nooksack: Chuw7álich) or Middle Fork (Nooksack: Nuxwt'íqw'em) of the Nooksack River to the alpine meadows where they would set up temporary summer camps to dry picked berries and meat. From those camps, people would disperse across the mountain to pick berries or hunt. The high slopes of the mountain were prime territory for hunting deer, elk, mountain goat, bear, marmot, and grouse. Nooksack families held almost exclusive usage rights to the northwestern areas of the mountain, while the usage rights to the southeastern half were held by Skagit families. Certain families of tribes such as the Lummi or Halkomelem-speaking peoples could travel to the mountain if they were intermarried and closely allied with Nooksack families. This meant that some groups which had more hostile relations with the Nooksack, such as the Thompson, were generally barred from the mountain. In 1790, Manuel Quimper of the Spanish Navy set sail from Nootka, a temporary settlement on Vancouver Island, with orders to explore the newly discovered Strait of Juan de Fuca. Accompanying Quimper was first-pilot Gonzalo Lopez de Haro, who drew detailed charts during the six-week expedition. Although Quimper's journal of the voyage does not refer to the mountain, one of Haro's manuscript charts includes a sketch of Mount Baker. The Spanish named the snowy volcano La Gran Montana del Carmelo, as it reminded them of the white-clad monks of the Carmelite Monastery.
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