Mt. Adams

"Forget Rainier, let's go do Adams - we can even get a ride in on the way down." That was Aaron's comment Saturday morning as we looked at the forecast for Mt. Rainier: 40 mile an hour average wind speed on the summit. That, combined with the general unpleasantness of a long slog in with a heavy pack made the decision quite easy.


Mt. Adams is the much more accessible peak to the south, coming in at 12,200'. The west face provides two excellent skiing lines: the popular SW Chutes and the less travelled Avalanche Glacier.



The "ride" was a 3-hour mountain bike ride at Little Baldy in the Naches, which we did Saturday before driving to Hood River for dinner - finally making it to the Cold Springs campground at about 11:3o pm.

We started out from camp at a leisurely 8am, and made the summit by 3pm. We were able to skin almost the entire way - starting just after we reached snow about 2 miles from camp.

This is the view of the mountain as you hit the snowline on the South Summit trail.



It was a gorgeous day for skinning; bright sun and t-shirts only required. We went left of the main trail, and were able to stay on snow and take a more direct route than we would have otherwise.






Once at the summit the wind had picked up to about 20mph, and while not bad, it was enough to keep us moving. We dropped into the gap between the summit and the northern peak, and had about 2,000' of perfect corn at a nice 35-40 degree slope.














Once off the steeper section we ended beneath the SW chutes, found the Around the Mountain trail at 6,200', and walked out by 6pm. All in all a fantastic day.

The first photo below shows the route, the second is a close-up of the main ski run.