So I had been wanting to do a real "alpine" mountain for a while (at least a year). This meant something really big, with snow and that required the use of crampons and ice axe to see if I liked it. After much research I had chosen Mt. Adams as my destination because I had heard it was the easiest beginner choice. It is in the south of Washington state so quite a far drive but it was worth it to me as anything closer would be a lot more technically challenging.
Anyways I had no luck finding a partner so had decided to go it alone. My plan was to head out from work around lunch time and drive straight down to the trailhead, sleep Friday night, wake up around 2-3 a.m. Saturday morning and go up and back in 1 day. Then I would return on Saturday evening or Sunday depending how I felt.
I was all packed and ready to go at work Friday a.m. when I saw a Facebook post from someone looking for a partner to climb Mt. Adams! I couldn't believe my luck, what are the chances of finding someone looking to drive 7 hours away and climb a huge mountain in one day on the same weekend as you? I will definitely post looking for a partner next time because obviously it can happen!
I messaged the guy who posted (Alan) and after some back and forth we agreed to meet Saturday afternoon and do the 1 day ascent on Sunday. Essentially delaying my plan by 1 day but it was worth it to have a partner and someone who was experienced. Little did I know he would turn out to be a great guy and we'd get along very well also.
With that said we met up on Sat at 12 and headed down. I won't bore you with the details of the drive but we made it to the town of Hood River around 8:00 p.m. which was about an hour away from our destination and stopped to grab groceries and some dinner. We finally got our first peak of Mt. Adams to the north and Mt. Hood to the south. I thought it was really cool that you could see both peaks from the parking lot of this grocery store so I took some pictures. The below pics are from the same spot (just rotated 180°). The one on the left is Mt. Adams (looking North) and the one on the right is Mt. Hood (looking South).
So with our logistics handled we headed north to the town of Trout Lake to grab our permits and head on up the FSR's to the trailhead. Nothing too exciting about this but I'm glad Alan decided we should take his truck down instead of my sedan. While we did see 1 or 2 sedans at the parking lot the one group we spoke to said it was a rental and I don't think it would have been good for my car. We arrived at the parking lot around 9:30 and had a beer and set up our sleeping arrangements. I had brought my tent and Alan was sleeping in the bed of his truck. One cool thing we saw was a deer not 20 feet from my tent who couldn't care less about us. Didn't get any pics though.
Woke up at 2:30 a.m. after a fitful ~4 hours of sleep and immediately broke camp and prepared for the ascent. I was full of nervous energy and caffeinated energy (thanks Nos) so was doing everything very quickly. At 3:10 we set off in the dark with our headlights illuminating the path.
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| We knew we were headed the right way. |
The first 2 hours weren't too exciting, just standard route finding in the dark. We walked up a small snow slope without aid but when we arrived at the Crescent Glacier we donned our crampons (me for the first time ever) and headed up. Little did I know I wouldn't remove those crampons until 4 hours later at the summit.
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| Top of crescent glacier looking towards lunch counter. |
Our first real objective / marker was the lunch counter. A rocky plateau where many people who split the hike in to 2 days choose to camp for protection from the wind. We saw tons of tents and by the time we were up there most had already headed up. After trudging through the snow we took a break before beginning the ascent to Pikers Peak, a false summit.
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| At lunch counter looking up towards Pikers Peak |
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| Alan taking a break. Probably wisely applying sunscreen. |
After gobbling down some granola bars and beef jerky we began the ascent up the hardest part of the trip, the section from the Lunch Counter to Pikers Peak.
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| About halfway up, looking down from where I had come |
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| Alan taking a pic of me at nearly the top, I was really slowing down! |
So this section took me just under 2 hours. Alan was blazing past me at this point, he actually had a nap at the false summit for 15 minutes while I made my way up. I thought he had left and I would see him at the summit but he stuck around and waited, what a nice guy. It was getting increasingly difficult for me and my pace was slowing tremendously. I remember telling myself ok 100 steps and then a break, 10 minutes later ok 50 steps and a break.... etc. etc.
I had heard that once you get to the top of Pikers it can be quite demotivating to see you still have a few hundred vertical feet of elevation to gain (thats why its called a false summit) so I really wasn't prepared for what I saw.
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| I still gotta climb that! |
I couldn't believe that I still had to go up that! It looked a lot worse than it was though as about 45 minutes later (and that includes another quick snack break) I had made it to the summit.
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| Summit wind break w/ people resting and celebrating |
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| Alan and I at the top |
Yay I made it! Total time of 5:40 to the top for me, 5:20 for Alan. Descending was waaaaaay faster because we were able to glissade down (2:20 down) which is really fun. Alan took some videos of that but I haven't got them yet I'll share when I do. Not much to say about the descent or the long drive home. We did have a little excitement when we were having beers at the parking lot and saw a helicopter circling the mountain. Turns out someone had slipped and banged their noggin on some rocks and was medivaced. It was a woman and her husband was actually in the parking lot with us and needed a ride! Of course as good old Canadians we gave him a ride to the ranger station for which he was very grateful (I had to ride in the bed). The drive home sucked! The border crossing was even worse! Thats it! Amazing experience and I'll definitely be doing some more in the near future. Next stop Baker!
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| Celebratory beers |
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