October 3, 2005
Talus Fields of Mt. Adams
Mt. Adams (12,276’, 3742m)
After looking forward to climbing Mr. Adams for weeks I can say that the two best moments of the trip occured when we got inside the tent on Saturday night, and when we finally arrived at the car on Sunday afternoon.
Neither Susana nor I had ever been to Mt. Adams and I thought a late-season summit attempt would be fun before the snow closed the road for 8 months. The trail for the South Spur route of Mt. Adams starts at 5600’, directly south of the peak. It was surprisingly cold when we got out of the car, and snow flurries began five minutes into the hike, building to serious snowfall. The ground remained dry until the timber line, after which point we lost sight of the route and realized, in the middle of a wonderful talus field where the ridge was and had to climb 500’ up the side through snow-covered crap-rock and ash. Once we were back on the proper ridge, the route-finding was much easier, but the visibility was poor and the strong west wind made you want to look east when the gusts would kick up. Fortunately once on the ridge it’s easy to stay on-route on the ascent even with little visibility. The clouds began to break for a half-hour as we reached our destination, giving us views of the warm valley below and the false peak above. Except for some intentional detours over to the parallel snow fields for easier hiking, it was a fairly consistent slog up to the Lunch Counter, a flat shoulder that would serve for our overnight camp at 9400’ (2865m). Or at least we think it was the Lunch Counter.
We set up camp in one of the pre-built slabs with a rock wall giving partial shelter to the wind. Our 4-season tent that was ordered weeks ago still hadn’t arrived, so this would be one last interesting night in the Sierra Designs circus tent. I set as many guy-lines as I could to help it hold shape in the wind while we waited for the stove to melt some snow so we could warm up. And we waited. I haven’t done a lot of high-elevation camping and most places this high in Washington would put you at the summit (there are only 6 other mountains in Washington higher than the Lunch Counter). So I was a little bit concerned at the time it was taking to turn our snow into a rolling boil, specifically for the amount of fuel that we brought. Finally we had some hot tea and freeze-dried love.
Susana and I were both a little too tired and cold to talk, but the wind whipping the tent kept us from crashing out early. They say that with every thousand feet the temperature drops 3 degrees. I had always thought there were few places in the Cascades where this would matter much — the temperature might drop a few degrees during the course of a day hike as you climbed up. But if the town of Hood River near sea level down below was 40 degrees Saturday night, that put us at around 12 (-11C). I wasn’t expecting temperatures this cold, but fortunately we were prepared with parkas and extra clothing. Still, the whipping of the tent walls with the fierce wind prevented us from getting much sleep.
Sunday
Sunday morning began as I poked my head out of the sleeping bag at 7am to realize that the wind had died down, but unfortunately the visibility was even worse. It was a no-brainer that this would be our turn-around point, so we were in no hurry to get out of our warm sleeping bags. But eventually we got up with some hot granola, thawed our frozen water bottles and packed up to begin our descent. I thought it would be easier if we got some use from our crampons and descended the west edge of the benign Crescent Glacier. Somehow we got off-course and realized much lower, as the glacier became wider than we had realized, that we could actually be on the crevassed Mazama Glacier. Fortunately we had stayed along the edge and on clear ice, and more importantly, avoided falling into a crevasse. We backtracked up the rock wasting much time and skirted around the top of the Crescent Glacier, back to the ridge, this time sure we were on the east side of the Cresent Glacier. The visibility was so poor that it was difficult to keep on the ridge with all the buttresses and minor ridges coming out of it. After descending for awhile and sensing we were off course, we would look to the east or west and determine it was that ridge at the edge of our visibility that was the proper ridge, and would skirt latterly to it over snow-covered talus. When we got to what we thought was the proper ridge, we’d realize that it was the next ridge that was the main ridge, again owing to the poor visibility. This continued several more times as we made our way down. Not much fun was had by all.
As we got closer to the car the snowfall was unrelenting and I was concerned that the road would be snowy on the way out. The guidebook warns that if your car gets snowed-in late in the season, it can potentially stay there all winter until the road thaws out. But the snow at the trailhead was light and we’ll have our car for another winter, until we can attempt Mt. Adams in clearer weather and packed snow next summer.
We took SR23 to Randal on the way back, which is a dirt road in places, for a beautiful, scenic shortcut. Dinner in Morton. On the couch by 8.
See more photos of the marvelous weekend.
Posted by scotts at October 3, 2005 1:04 PM