At a stunning 12276 ft, Mt Adams is the second highest volcano in Washington and the second highest peak I have ever stood on, also one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. Wow, what an amazing experience!
Jamie and I headed out from Leavenworth Wednessday morning and arrived at the trailhead at 5pm. It was sort of a journey to get there, driving almost 300 miles in the crazy wind, then up a dirt road for 12 miles where the snow hadn't quite melted out to the trailhead. Cars were parked all over in random places, so we did too. We put our gear together and headed up the snow covered road soon to find out there was no more snow......
Jamie and I headed out from Leavenworth Wednessday morning and arrived at the trailhead at 5pm. It was sort of a journey to get there, driving almost 300 miles in the crazy wind, then up a dirt road for 12 miles where the snow hadn't quite melted out to the trailhead. Cars were parked all over in random places, so we did too. We put our gear together and headed up the snow covered road soon to find out there was no more snow......
We thought the snow would be solid, so we decided not to bring hiking shoes. Sad. Oh well, I guess this is one way to break in my ski boots. The snow was patchy for about about a 1.5 miles, then we were able to skin and get a look at the mountain.
While we climbed higher and higher through the forest, we got to look at our ski desent line. I was getting very excited to ski those chutes. We planned to hike to the tree line and make camp for the night, then wake up for an alpine ascent (4am, camp to summit, ski down, break up camp and ski to the car). We made it to about 6700ft and found and awesome place to make camp. Checking out the mountain, it looked like the perfect centrally located place to be able to ski up then back down to the tent fairly easily. We hung our skins in a tree to dry out, set up the tent, made some dinner, then watched the sunset. From camp, we could see Mt Hood and Mt St. Helens. Beautiful.
We woke up at 3:30 am to some people hiking by and decided to get up too. The sunrise was spectacular, unlike the instant oatmeal. We started out on very firm snow. Our skins didn't really want to stick, but we managed. As with any skiing in the summer we had to take our ski off then put them back on off on off on off on to make it through the rocks and dirt and snow. By 8:30 we made it to the Lunch Counter, where we had lunch (lunch at 8:30 in the morning? weird).
Awh. The top!
Then, of course it's time for the fun part! A 4500 ft ski descent on 35-40 degree slopes! The snow was great. It was a little firm at the top, but softened into perfect corn about halfway down!
All in all we had a great time in perfect conditions.
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