Mt Adams – 2015

Ever since Katy got her first taste of volcanos when we climbed Mt. Hood a couple years ago, we’ve been meaning to have a proper ‘Volcano Season’.

This year, with the low snow year and an itch to get some spring/summer skiing in, we laser sights on ascents and ski-descents on some of Washington’s snowy, glaciated high points.

After a fun ski of Baker, and amidst training for some ultras we have coming up this summer/fall, Katy and I found ourselves in good shape and wanting to get some vertical feet to climb and ski.

We left Seattle in heavy Friday summer traffic, arriving at Cold Springs Trailhead around 10:30pm. A bit of gear sorting and a trailhead-nap later, we found ourselves on a similar schedule to that of when I had climbed Adams in 2013.
We left the TH at 4AM, hauling our splitboards on our packs up the South Spur route.

We hit continuous snow at the bottom of the Crescent Glacier, which, with ski crampons, wasn’t too bad despite the snow being steep and icy.

Katy above the Crescent Glacier with Hood illuminated by the sunrise behind.

Katy during the ascent.

We made it to the base of the Piker’s Peak a short while later, at about 8am. Taking a quick break to putz around with some skin-difficulties, we noticed our co-instructors from The Mountaineers Crevasse Rescue Class were cresting the horizon!

The slog to Pikers Peak is a slog, but skinning up with friends makes it that much better.

Mt. Adams

With splitboards and ski-crampons, we pushed through in just under 2 hours to the false summit. A short rest later, we continued on to the summit, where we reveled in warm sun and great views all around.

So far, the trip was excellent, except that I started to feel the altitude pretty bad. Near the summit I was getting extremely sleepy, with heavy legs, heavy eyelids, and a raging headache. Some wind at the summit didn’t help, and I got cold pretty fast.

Anxious to lose some elevation and feel better, we transitioned to downhill and enjoyed some decent proto-corn back to the false summit.

Familiar faces at the false summit!

Summit stoke

Back at the false summit. Getting ready for some more skiing.

Our original plans were to ski the south face, coming down the way we came up. However, our friends had planned to take the Southwest Chutes–a line we were also interested in, but didn’t want to tackle without someone who knew how to navigate out of the easy-to-complicate terrain at the bottom of the chutes.

Trusting our new group, we strapped in and started to go down the Southwest Chutes.

The skiing was awesome. 4000′ of 35-40 degree slopes in perfect-corn timing. We shredded our faces off. It was so fun!

Katy on the SW Chutes. Can’t wait to repeat this line.

4000′ of awesome.

Then we got to the bottom. And thats where the fun paused for Katy and I.
Exiting the chutes required some traversing over multiple ridges to get back to the main south spur route, (and our shoes and stashed gear from our earlier morning ascent).

By the time we were exiting the sun began baking us, and traversing over rocks and steep soft snow with all of our ski gear made for a tough and hot afternoon, especially after being on the move for many hours at this point. We were running low on water and fuel as well, and were trying to make it back to the right ridge before we stopped to rest and regroup properly.

In retrospect, we should have stopped and took care of ourselves for a few minutes, but traveling with a group, we were anxious to find the right route with everyone together. It seemed like about half of our group was feeling pretty tired/worn, and the other half was completely fine. In any case, we didn’t have the greatest communication about our level of tiredness during this time, though we were communicating and making decisions well together as a group as far as what direction we were going.

The easier part of making it back to the trail — traversing over snow. Some rocky ridges would make this more fun.
SW Chutes follow the snow between the rock-ridges in center of the image.

Ultimately we climbed a few more ridges and popped out right onto the South Spur route. We dropped the last few couple hundred vertical feet to our shoes, rested up, and hauled our gear back to the cars along a dusty longer-than-it-mentally-should-be trail.

Katy notched another PNW Volcano off her list. I got to ski a line I’ve been eyeing up all season.

All in all, an awesome adventure.

Many thanks to Jeff, Web, Katie, Margie, and Ann for the company and awesome ride down the SW Chutes. Extra thanks to Ann for leading us out and back to the trail!