Editing Mount Baker (section)

===First European ascent===
Edmund Thomas Coleman, an Englishman who resided in [[Victoria, British Columbia]], Canada and a veteran of the [[Alps]], made the first attempt to ascend the mountain in 1866. He chose a route via the [[Skagit River]], but was forced to turn back when local Native Americans refused him passage.<ref name="USFSClmbHst">{{cite web |title=A Brief History of Mt. Baker |work=Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest&nbsp;— Climbing Mt. Baker |publisher=[[United States Forest Service]] |date=2007-10-26 |url=http://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/mbs/specialplaces/?cid=stelprdb5275892 |access-date=2008-05-11 }}</ref>

Later that same year, Coleman recruited [[Whatcom County]] settlers Edward Eldridge, John Bennett, and John Tennant to aid him in his second attempt to scale the mountain. After approaching via the North Fork of the Nooksack River, the party navigated through what is now known as [[Coleman Glacier (Washington)|Coleman Glacier]] and ascended to within several hundred feet of the summit before turning back in the face of an "overhanging cornice of ice" and threatening weather.<ref name="USFSClmbHst"/> Coleman later returned to the mountain after two years. At 4:00&nbsp;pm on August&nbsp;17, 1868, Coleman, Eldridge, Tennant and two new companions (David Ogilvy and Thomas Stratton) scaled the summit via the Middle Fork Nooksack River, Marmot Ridge, Coleman Glacier, and the north margin of the Roman Wall.<ref name="USFSClmbHst"/>