I decided it
was time to get out of my home range and explore Mount Adams a bit.I’ve climbed Adams twice and both times I
wished I had time to explore the lower trails and hoped to go back and do that.
I used the
WTA to find a trail that was not too crowded and I used Google Earth to find
and area that was not too scorched.
It looked
like the Camp Riley trail to Sheep Lake was a good one, so we went.The drive is 3 hours and I’m not at all used
to such high elevations so I planned a pretty mellow trip
We started
our hike at about 11:30 on a Wednesday morning.Before we started our hike my love who is here from New Zealand, took a
quick bathroom break near the trail head.When she emerged from the woods she reported she had been stung
twice!Not the best start to a hike, but
she took it well and was still very eager to hike.
The trail
beautiful but it was pretty dry, so we let water sources decide where we would
camp.We found a little lake about 3
miles up the trail and filled our water bottles and silnylon water bag there
and then backtracked to a pretty campsite with lots of furniture.The campsite was surrounded by dead trees.
The moon was
full and we enjoyed the show as it lit up Mount Adams snow fields in the night.
We opted to sleep under the tarp instead of in the tent. With the tarp hung very high we had a nice
view.In the night we saw hawks and bats.
In the
morning woodpeckers joined the dawn chorus.One woodpecker found a very loud log to peck on and another in a
distance answered each time.After a
breakfast of rice with milk, sugar and blueberries, we casually packed up and
hiked to Camp Riley.We were feeling the
heat and the elevation so we took a multi-hour break at Riley Creek and then
packed up.As we were packing up two
women arrived.They were going to have a
bridal party in the woods to stay covid safe.The bride to be and her friend hung a white llama piñata to mark the
spot where her friends would meet her in small groups over the course of the
weekend.
The trail
was hot and the elevation was sapping us, as we hiked up to Sheep Lake and then
all the way around to the far side of the lake to get the best view of Mount
Adams.We were very hot and tired when
we arrived but eventually we managed to get the tarp tent up (bowfin 2) and get
dinner in us.We pitched the tarp
because we expected lots of bug and condensation near the lake.
The Mountain
was having nearly constant rock slides and put on quite a show of noise and
dust.My fiancé loved it.There were very few bugs and almost no condensation;
we could have gotten away with not pitching the tent.
In the
morning we got up and slowly packed and then made our way back to the camp
below the little lake.On the way down we
took another very long break near camp Riley.
After we
left Camp Riley I realized I had left my reading glasses behind and I had to
back track to get them.
Back in the
campsite surrounded by dead trees, things were different. The trees were making
all kinds of popping and cracking noises due to a slight breeze.All the noise was a bit unreal.
That night
we opted to sleep directly under the stars with no tarp. We wanted a better
view of the night hawks.The hawks
however did not come back.Maybe they
did not come back because they could see us?
The next day
we hiked back to the car and found 17 cars at the trail head because it was Saturday.There was only one other car at the trail
head when we arrived.
We really
enjoyed our trip and were glad we went.We were also really glad that we planned a low mileage trip due to the
heat and elevation sapping us.
Patches is 13 and was not up for a hike like this.
Mount Adams at nearly 12,300 feet is the second tallest mountain in Washington State. Unlike most of the other tall peaks in Washington, Mount Adams can be climbed by folks with little in the way of technical climbing skills. Crampons or micro spikes and an ice axe are good to have though. When I climbed Mount Adams in 2008 I did it in running shoes with no traction devices and although I had an ice axe, I did not use it, since I could not get my trekking poles to collapse.
My daughter and I spent a few months training for this hike by doing progressively more difficult hikes in the Olympics. My nearly sixteen mile hike to black and white lakes did wonders for my conditioning. Together we did Putvin, Mildred, Camp Pleasant and Sundown pass as our conditioning days hikes. I had hoped to do Jupiter as well.
Once trained and presented with a good weather window and after much debate, we opted to take two days to do our climb. On a Wednesday morning we packed up and headed for Cold Springs camp. We arrived at Trout Lake to get our climbing permits at 4:00pm.
The ranger who sold us our permits was very helpful, she was filled with good advice and she was not at all condescending. She told us that Cold Springs was no longer a campground, since the fire, nothing had been done to repair the campground and it was now dispersed camping. With that information we opted to camp at Morrison Creek.
The Ranger also gave us plastic bags to haul our poop out in. My daughter was determined to not have to use one of those bags. I was just glad that I had a floorless tent that would afford me the privacy I would need if I had to use the dreaded bag up at Lunch Counter.
We took a Pokémon Go break in the town of Trout Lake before we headed up to camp. Morrison Creek was quite rough, the campground loop road was insane and the few picnic tables were scattered seemingly haphazardly around the campground. We finally found a nice enough spot near the water where we set up our tents. My daughter was borrowing my Shires rain shadow 3 person tent and I was using my fairly new MLD Duomid.
Our car camp at Morrison Creek
Shires Rainshadow 3 on the left and MLD Duomid on the right.
We caught a few rock type Pokémon with incense at Morrison Creek before we had dinner and went to bed. My daughter lucked out and caught a Charizard that I never even saw on my phone.
Night at Morrison Creek Camp
The night was very bright as the moon was over half full and it reflected light off of snow covered Mount Adams just above us.
I had to take a couple of pills to help me sleep. At 7:30 am we got up and started packing and by 9pm we were at the South Climb Trial head at Cold Springs.
The hike up to Lunch Counter was mostly uneventful except for in one spot. There was a place where we ended up climbing up a stairway made of ice. A lot of other people went up that awful stairway too.
We were both terrified of it, but we made it up. I stashed my trekking poles and used my ice axe, my daughter who had never used an ice axe said she felt safer using trekking poles. As soon as we got to the top of the ice staircase of terror, we saw two hikers with two dogs who had found a better way up on an actual trail. Upon hearing that there was a better way, we were relieved that we would not have to descend the same way.
We were not able to find much water on the hike up, other than Morrison Creek everything was dry. Water was coming off the bottom of Crescent glacier, but I did not see it in time and did not want to go back for it. We had to gain 4,000 feet with fully loaded overnight packs and did not want to do any backtracking.
It was windy and uncomfortable when we hit Lunch Counter at 6pm and we were very tired. I cooked dinner and melted snow for water in a semi-exhausted state. The wind forced both of us to hide under my Duomid while we ate and cooked.
My daughters rainshadow tarp tent was not doing well I the wind. The spot it was in was not big enough to pitch it properly and it’s just not designed for a large wind load.
After dinner the wind just kept getting stronger and I began to panic a little bit. I asked another camper about the wind forecast, he said the forecast called for for 20mph gusts. I felt that the wind was already 20mph. My husband sent me a forecast that called for 10mph winds dying down to 6mph and a low of 13.
Nothing was making much sense. Should we pack up and head for lower ground with just an hour to go before sunset?
We opted to take down my daughter's tarp tent that was just barley standing up and cram into my Duomid. The Duomid is meant to hold two and it is build to shed wind and nasty weather of all sorts. Tucked snugly into my Duomid my daughter fell asleep instantly.
I laid awake for awhile. I was worried that our bottomless Duomid tarp tent would blow away and leave us exposed up there.
When I got up in the night I saw that clouds were moving in below us and from the Northwest. Was a snow storm coming? Were we going to die up there?
I put some extra rocks over the tent stakes and hoped that my tarp tent would not rip into pieces in the night. I remembered that MLD makes really high quality gear and the odds of my Duomid shredding in the wind were really low. Also, I decided if the tent did blow away I would not matter if I was awake or asleep when it happened. So I took a sleeping pill, put my earplugs in and attempted to sleep.
Other than having to get up six or seven times and brave the cold winds so I could answer the call of nature, I slept well. My body was doing its usual high elevation trick, emergency dumping of fluid in order to thicken the blood and raise the ratio of red blood cells to plasma.
Dirty glacier grit blew into the tent all night long and the winds never stopped. An occasional gus would wake me up. Everytime I woke up I noticed that all of
our gear was just a little bit dirtier than the time before.
All in all in was a pretty terrible night of camping on Lunch Counter. It was not my worse ever night of camping, but pretty close.
At 7am I woke up to clear sunny skies and no wind! Yes, our trip was on. I woke up my daughter and said “Let’s climb this mountain”. She hopped up. We left my tent up, ate some snacks, packed for a day hike and started up the mountain.
As soon as we reached the snow I put on my hiking crampons and my daughter put on microspikes and we began are interminable snow slog.
My daughter is a little faster than me, but she prefers to follow me so I can set an all day long pace. If my daughter hikes at her pace, she is quickly winded. The only pace I seem to have is a slow all day pace, I blame it on my excessive inertia. In other words, I need to lose about twenty pounds.
When we finally topped Piker's Peak my daughter was overwhelmed by the task that lay ahead. I reassured her that it was not as bad as it looked. Mountains mess with your sense of scale. Once you climb Pikers Peak and get your first look at the summit, it feels like you have a whole mountain left to climb, a whole different Mountain.
In a way it’s true. Pikers Peak is the fifth highest point in the state and is a volcano in its own right. But the true summit of Mount Adams is just 800 feet higher, in spite of looking to be about 3,000 feet higher when you are so tired and confused by the mountain scenery.
As we started our final push up the summit my daughter was very cold and miserable and feeling quite overwhelmed. I saw that she was upset and I told her we could turn back then and there and I would not be upset by it. She said that if she turned back she would hate herself for not finishing the job and she was going to push on no matter what. I fed her hard candies for the rest of the way as her mittens would not let her open the wrappers.
We reached the summit at about 1:15. The summit was windy and cold as usual and my daughter had been complaining of cold all the way up, so we did not stay on top for long. We posed for a picture on top of the summit shack. The top of the old forest service look out on the summit is the highest point of the hike. I jogged out and tagged the true geological summit while my daughter stayed at the miners shack and took pictures.
While preparing for our long decent back to Lunch Counter, we could not get my daughters trekking poles to collapse and her hip belt would not buckle. She was getting more and more upset. I felt that she had a touch of elevation sickness and suggested that we get back down to Lunch Counter quickly.
After all that work we only spent about 20 minutes on the summit. Our summit view was cloudy with just the tips of other volcanoes peaking out above the clouds.
We took off our crampons and microspikes, stashed our trekking poles as best we could and got out our ice axes for the descent. My daughter had never used an ice axe before, so I gave her a quick lesson on how to hold the axe, how to glissade and how to self arrest.
The first few glissades were quite steep and it was a struggle to stay in control, we were both scared, but we never were really in any danger as we went down very, very slow. We dug our ice axes in as a brakes and as soon as that quit working we self arrested over and over and over.
At the top of the second shoot my daughter proclaimed “I don’t like glissading” I said “I don’t either, it’s scary, but let’s get it over with” We glissaded almost the entire way back down to Lunch Counter.
It had taken us 4 hours to climb to the summit from Lunch Counter but it only took us an hour and ten minutes to slide back down from the summit.
Back down at Lunch Counter we did not waste any time packing up for our trip back to the trailhead. I would have been okay with spending another night on Lunch Counter since the wind had died down. My daughter wanted to get back down to the trail head and other facilities below.
We were able to do a little bit more glissading below Lunch Counter.
Our route across the Crescent Glacier on the way down.
On the way up we took a scary icy snow staircase.
The only excitement on the way down was losing the trail while trying to avoid descending the icy staircase from hell onto crescent glacier. Some other hikers lost the trail too, but they had a friend on the other side of the Crescent Glacier who showed us the way down.
Their friend had glissaded in a spot that the rest of us felt was too steep and he ended up on the other side of the glacier from those of us who had tried to find a trail down.
Once we were free of all the snow and the trail began to widen and feel like a normal trail, my daughter raced ahead. At that point, I slowed down and took pictures and reminisced about our trip. I felt really strong until about half a mile before the end of the trail, and then I started to flag. I stopped and ate some candy and drank some water and that helped a bit.
We reunited at the trail head at about 6pm. I dumped my gargantuan plastic bag of poop into the nearly full receptacle and we drove back down to Trout Lake for the night.
We spent the night at the county campground. We both wanted a shower but we were too tired to take one. After a long hard hike I always go for a short walk. I call it my post hike, hike. It really helps to combat the stiffness and soreness that always set in the next day. We utilized that time to search for Pokémon in the campground, but did not find many.
Next we devoured a bunch of food and crashed into our separate tents for the night. I slept solid through the night and I never do that. We got up at about seven the next day and we packed up and drove home
12 miles round trip with 6,700 feet elevation gain
A note about our footwear: We both hiked up and down in running shoes, my daughter wore microspikes over her shoes and I wore ultralight Kahtoola hiking crampons over my shoes.
The lower trail
Just above Lunch Counter
Pikers Peak
Us on the summit
Looking North from the summit
Prayer flags on the summit
Glisadding back to lunch Counter
Packing up to leave our camp at Lunch Counter after coming down from the summit
Finally everything fell into place and I was able to climb Mount Adams. I had been training for this hike all summer. Multiple potential trip partners backed out, I did not know if I could get a babysitter and then when everything seemed to be pulling together I went into a manic episode. I was barely able to drive; it was probably foolish of me to set out on such an expedition in the state of mind I was in. My husband prodded me to do it anyway, he said that doing it might clear my head and he was right. My head was relatively clear during the entire hike.
I drove to Mount Adams via Portland and then across a toll bridge. That was an insane route but I was too manic to read a map or think straight so I just did what my GPS told me to do. Somehow I managed to drive to the trailhead, get a climbing permit and meet up with Joe and Ryan. Our fourth partner (Ryan’s cousin) arrived in the night while we were sleeping and he slept in his car. He brought crampons and ice axes for himself and Ryan.
After some discussion we decided to do Adams as a day hike. Two of the group members were not outfitted for backpacking. Ryan only owned cotton clothing and he did not have sunglasses. When I learned how unprepared Ryan was I began to worry. I was afraid he would get too cold hiking in blue jeans, dress shoes with no tread and a cotton shirt and cotton socks. He was dressed in cotton from head to toe! I worried that we would have to turn back due to him being unprepared. I lent him a pair of wool socks to wear on his hands but I think he wore them on his feet instead and he wore his own cotton socks on his hands. Dan lent him a hoody.
We pitched our tents and went to bed early. We got up at 2:30 am and started our hike in the dark at 3:15 am. The guy who was so poorly prepared led the way and he hiked fast. He hiked too fast for me and I was having trouble keeping up. Again I began to worry; I knew I could not keep up that pace for 6.5 miles and some 7,000 feet up. I did not know it at the time, but Joe was unhappy with the fast pace too. He kept stopping and suggesting that we look at the stars. I thought he was doing this just for me, because I lagging behind. Later I learned that he was having trouble with the pace as well.
A mile or so into the hike we lost sight of Ryan and his cousin. Joe and I lost the trail at about the same time that they went out of sight. We got far enough off trail that we had to do a tiny bit of rock scrambling. I was terrified when I saw the rock that Joe wanted me to climb up. I could not see the foot holds; all I could see was loose rock. I imagined myself falling backwards and getting hurt too badly to finish the climb. Joe saw that I was panicked and he helped me up.
Once we got over the rocks our pace slowed down to a more comfortable level. Then it was just a steady slog up the rocky trail in the dark with Perseids meteors and the crescent moon showering down on us.
Joe and I caught up to Ryan and his cousin at the Crescent Glacier. By then it was full daylight and the group stopped to put on crampons. I had opted to leave my crampons at home. When I looked around I saw that everyone one else on the mountain had crampons and I began to feel like I was out of my element. In spite of my misgivings I was able to walk up the first snow field. The traction was good and crampons were not needed. When we got to the steeper snow fields above lunch counter (9,000 feet) I got off the ice and walked up on the rocks. Walking up on the rocks was hard going and I wished that I had brought my crampons. I left my crampons at base camp because I did not want to have wear heavy hiking boots. I knew my boots would slow me down and give me blisters. It is a shame that my crampons will not stay on my trail runners. They were made for trail running shoes and they used to stay on my shoes when I first got them.
When we got to the top of the false summit (Pikers Peak 11,598 feet) I started to get an altitude headache and I got my first view of the true summit. I was very tired by that time and the summit looked like an insurmountable obstacle. I was very tempted to quit because I felt like I was holding up my group and I did not think I could do it. But I was wrong. I was not holding up my group. They were suffering just as much as I was!
The true looks brown while the false summit is black. The summit shack is visible in this picture.
My group went ahead a bit while I paused on Pikers peak to take pictures. I was the only one who had a good working camera. Joe’s camera battery was going dead and Dan only had cell phone camera. While I was taking pictures I asked some other climbers how much higher the summit was and they told me it was only 600 feet above us. I must have really been tired from the climb and the elevation, because when I looked at the summit I really thought it was 3,000 feet up. When I learned that it was only 600 feet above me I relaxed and I knew I was going to make it. But still, I was a bit worried about the looks of the trail on the ridge, just below the summit shack. I was afraid it might be too icy to walk with my running shoes.
The trail was not icy and I made it up to the true summit with no troubles. I had to take 5 steps, rest, take another five steps just like going to Camp Muir. Near the summit Dan laid down on the rocks and started holding his head. I was worried that he had altitude sickness but he claimed that he was feeling fine and was just laying there waiting for me.
Dan resting
Me on the summit, Mount Rainier in the background
Ryan summited well ahead of everyone else and when we got to the summit he was ready to go down. He was cold and his eyes were hurting for lack of sunglasses. Ryan claimed to have been on the summit for two hours waiting for us. Ryan looked cold and miserable.
What not to wear
360 degree summit view
Joe says we summited at 11 and spent one hour at the top. I was not looking at my watch at all and to me it felt like we were only up there for 15 minutes. We found the virtual geocache at the summit shack, but we did not find the regular cache. It was too windy on the ridge and all the rocks were stuck together with ice. I divided my summit time between taking pictures and sitting on the roof of the shack. We had a lot of company on the summit but it was all good company.
The trail was crowded, but it was crowded with back country people, good people. I did not see a shred of toilet paper or litter on the trail. The only trash I saw was what was left over from the old summit mining operations. I also did not see anyone carrying a fishing pole up the trail. But there was a fishing lure on the summit bench mark. I'd like to do a linear regression, something like number of hikers with fishing poles vs. number of toilet paper blossoms. But, I don't relish the idea of looking for and counting piles of turds.
The view from the top was good but we were above the clouds so we could only see the tops of other mountains sticking up out of the clouds. The mountains we saw were Hood, Rainer, Saint Helens and Glacier Peak. We could barley see Saint Helens because clouds were almost up to the top of it.
As we headed down some clouds briefly descended onto the false summit. Luckily the clouds left quickly and did not block our view of the route down. Sulfur scented mud started flowing down the trail near the summit and my shoes got muddy. It was trippy and I felt like I was looking at a miniature lahar. For most of the hike I could smell the sulfur, but it was only when we got near the summit that I figured out what the smell was.
The snow softened up quite a bit by the time we headed down and I was glad for that since I did not have crampons. Joe, Ryan and Dan took the first Glissade down (Ryan in blue jeans) but I opted to walk. After my near death experience glissading on Mount Ellinor I’m pretty much terrified of glissading. I went down on the rocks and got to the bottom of the glissade chute at the same time as the rest of the group. At the second glissade chute Ryan and Dan took the glissade and that was the last time we saw them.
Joe was not sure if he wanted to glissade, he said that the first glissade made him nauseous. Joe was getting nauseous, headachy and dizzy and he said he felt dehydrated. But I thought he had elevation sickness and I encouraged him to get down the mountain fast. While Joe was deciding if he was going to glissade or not I told him that what ever he decided I would meet him at the bottom of the chute. I headed down on the rocks. When I looked back I saw that Joe had decided to go down the rocks too. But he did not have trekking poles so he had to use his ice axe for stability. He could have gone down the snow with his crampons but they had hurt his feet on the way up so he didn’t want to put them on again.
I waited for Joe at the bottom of the chute, when he got to me he said he was really feeling bad so I suggested that we try to get down to a lower elevation as quickly as possible. I wanted to get off the mountain too but I was really afraid of glissading and could not very easily go down on the snow without crampons. I panicked, I was really scared, I knew I was going to die up there on the mountain, and then I came to my senses. Joe showed me how to hold my trekking poles while glissading. I had my ice axe with me, but could not use it because my trekking poles refused to collapse and I could not very well glissade with fully extended trekking poles hanging out of my pack! The glissade was fine but I panicked a few times. Twice I said to Joe “I can’t stop!” And I was sure I was going to die and then I stopped myself both times and both times I said “Oh I can stop”. I must have been a funny sight to see! I probably never went over 5 miles per hour on the glissade. For the most part Joe chose to ski down the slope on his boots rather than glissade. So we went down the mountain together, me on my butt in the glissade chute and Joe right next to me on his feet. Getting down the mountain was a team effort; I think we both would have struggled if we had been alone.
Icy rocks and clouds near the summit
When we got down to the rocks at lunch counter we rested up until Joe felt well enough to walk, we also retrieved our water bottles at Lunch counter (9,000 feet). We had opted to leave one water bottle each at lunch counter to pick up on the way down. We rested up and drank water at lunch counter and Joe started feeling better. As soon as he felt better I prodded him to go down at least another 1,000 feet. I wanted him to get down to 8,000 feet so the altitude would stop affecting him so badly. Also at this point I was really wanting to book down the mountain and be done, the beast was back. My energy level was high and I was ready to go.
After we left the rocks at Lunch Counter we had to go down the Crescent Glacier and we both chose to glissade most of the way. At the end of my last glissade run I saw a huge deep dark rocky hole and I knew it was time to stop glissading! There were a lot people glissading with us at that point and we were all having fun. The slope was not as steep and nobody was afraid of getting hurt. Here is a video of that glissade.
Getting up the Mountain was a real struggle, but once we were off the glaciers going down was a cake walk. I felt good on the way down except I kept slipping and falling down. I must have been more tired than I realized. But still, I felt good.
We made it back to base camp (Cold Springs) at around 4:30. When we got to our camp site we were a bit surprised to see that Ryan and Dan had packed up their tents and left. Ryan left my new wool socks on the back bumper of my Jeep. They were soaking wet, inside-out and had a hole in them.
At camp I did not know what to do with myself. Normally at the end of a hike I drive home and clean the house, but I was not going to drive home that night. Joe had enough sense to know what to do with himself. He laid down in his tent and rested. I was afraid that if I laid down I might not be able to get up again. Eventually, I decided to have a Dixie cup of apple wine and after that I calmed down.
Joe and I camped together that night and he drove back home to Portland in the morning. I hung around the campsite eating, resting, reading, drinking wine and trying to decide what to do with my manic but exhausted self, until about 3pm and then I drove home. I was not eager to go home to my messy house and hungry children but I also did not want to spend another cold night at Cold Springs campground. I had brought my warmest down sleeping bag with me but I was still cold the two nights I spent at Cold Springs. Also there is no water of any kind at Cold Springs campground and my water supply was getting low.
I drove home on highway 14 on the Washington side of the Columbia River. The very first time I drove a Semi-truck on the job, some 20 plus years ago, it was on this twisty road. That truck driving experience was more frightening to me than climbing Mount Adams.
I had wanted to drive home from Mount Adams via the 23 road but I missed my turn and was in no state of mind to fiddle around with route finding. At least I did not drive into Oregon on the way home.
All in all I had a good time but I wish I had not been in a better state of mind during the hike. I’m glad I got to do it and I feel proud of my accomplishment. Climbing Adams was the high point of my summer both literally and figuratively. I would like to do it again when I am feeling better.
12.8 miles round trip
6,700 feet elevation gain
162 miles on my trail runners now
The pictures are in the same order that my mind is in an the moment.
My shoes
Track Log and Elevation Profile, don't have a topo map of this area.
Summit marker
Our group on the summit
Track log on google earth
Dan rests while a dog gets ready to summit. This dog was pulling its master up the hill.
Snow and ice on Adams and Ranier
Half way between the true summit and the false summit St. Helens in the back ground
resting and my snowshoe glove
Shadow on my tent at Cold Springs
The summit Shack
Dan, Joe and random person on summit.
Resting on my way up the true summit
Poop Target
Mountain Men
Climbers look at the false summit
Pikers Peak
Rocks and Sky
View of the summit from Pikers Peak (the false summit)
Joe signs the registers
Joe and Dan in front of summit shack
A hiker leaves the picture
Group of climbers going up at about 8,000 feet.
Fog rolls in as Ryan and Dan head down.
Some dude standing on the shack
Dan panned out on the shack
If I had the time I really could have had fun taking pictures of this interesting area just below the tree line.
Here are some pictures that Joe took:
Joe's Track Log and Topo Map
Summit dog Pikers Peak (false summit) in Background
All of us with the summit dog
Me resting on the shack with Dan and Joe Ryan is sitting on the ground.
