Summary

Route to Summit: South Climb Trailhead, to south ridge, to summit.
Ski Descent: Summit to Pikers Peak, down southwest chute.
Minimum Elevation: 5,562'
Maximum Elevation: 12,281'
Elevation Gain: 6,719'
Ski Descent: 5,581'
Distance to Summit: ~5.5 mi
Round Trip Distance: ~12 mi
Time to Summit: 6 hrs 5 min
Quality of Climb:
Quality of Ski:


As the month of June came to and end, so did my regular ski season. But before retiring into hibernation for the summer, I had one more ski opportunity to look forward to, before accepting the dark times of summer. My girlfriend, Sarah, planned a trip to visit her girlfriend in Tacoma Washington. So, needless to say, I decided to come along...with my skis.

After three seasons of ski mountaineering, my TLT5s (ski boots) were wearing pretty thin. The soles (what is left of them) looked like NASCAR tires. Even the plastic had worn entirely through, where the rubber soles had receded long ago. They were ready for retirement (probably long ago), but needed to hold out for one more adventure. Having no waterproofness, I knew they needed a quick fix, and to Lowes I headed. Being too shy to tell any of the employees I was looking for caulk, I had to search the store on my own to find a solution to my problem. I ended up purchasing some plastic bonding epoxy. This was the first time I had experimented with that stuff, and in hindsight, found that it worked really well.

My first choice for a quick ski descent was St. Helens due to the awesomeness of skiing an obliterated active volcano, but looked for a second choice after discovering the strict 100 person/day limit and not being able to find any permits on the permit swap websites. After taking a look through Dawson's 54 Classic Ski and Snowboard Descents of North America, I decided on Mount Adams. It seemed perfect. An easy climb to the summit and long, crevasse free glacier skiing. The limitless permits also meant I had the luxury of choosing my ski date at the last minute, which is a good idea considering the weather patterns of the Cascades. The weather on the peaks is not quite as predictable as the afternoon summer showers of Colorado's peaks. Unless, of course, you just always predict that the Cascade weather is going to be bad, then you will be right most of the time. In that case, it's pretty predictable.

The five days we were in the Tacoma/Olympic Peninsula area, the weather was exceptionally good. In Colorado, we would describe it as cool and partially cloudy, but the locals talked about the weather like it was tropical sunshine. Unfortunately, the volcanoes didn't have such a favorable forecast. I had originally planned a Sunday drive and Monday climb/ski, but the forecast continued to get worse and eventually predicted a foot of new snow over the two days. My plan then became to drive down on Monday and do the climb/ski on Tuesday, and then haul ass back to Seattle to catch my flight back.

It was a bit of a drive from Tacoma to Trout Lake, where I picked up my permit, but I made the drive more pleasant by tuning in to a Seattle rock radio station (every fifth song is either Nirvana, Pearl Jam, or Soundgarden ). FYI: you need a climbers permit (Volcano Pass) to climb above 7,000'. The permit can be picked up at the ranger station in the town of Trout Lake, south of Mt. Adams, and you can do it the day before you climb. The $10 fee ($15 on weekends) also covers your camping/parking fee. I should also mention, you might have to listen to the ranger try to persuade you from skiing the peak and listen to him/her go on and on about how bad of an idea it is, and that you will probably die and get in the way of SAR's efforts to find a missing hiker. However, the rangers and SAR you encounter on the mountain tend to be a whole lot less condescending.

My medium clearance, 2wd had no trouble getting up to the Cold Springs Campground/Trailhead. I even saw a couple low clearance sedans. After making a couple new friends, and having a few beers next to a roaring camp fire, I called it an early night in anticipation of an extra early start to make the summit and then my flight.

At 3:15 a.m. I hit the trail. However, I've become accustomed to expecting my epic ski tours requiring a little "early morning fuckery." I encountered the mandatory "fuckery" shortly up the trail when my headlamp went dead. I knew the batteries were good and quickly remedied the problem by adjusting the electrical connections. And on I went.

The trail to treeline was a wide open defunct forest 4wd road. By 6,500' I was coming across patches of lingering snow, and by treeline (~7,000') the trail became more difficult to follow due to remaining snowfields. However, the trees start becoming thin enough that you can easily navigate off trail.

If you view the Mt. Adams topo, you will notice that the first glacier you come to is the "crescent glacier." I skirted this small crescent glacier to its left. The ridge to the left of the glacier was snow free and had an easy trail.

At the top of the crescent glacier, you have to cross a snow field that leads to the "lunch counter", a flatish section on the south ridge. This is where I took off my trail runners and switched to ski boots. I skinned up to and across the lunch counter, but put the skis back on my pack at the end of the lunch counter. I've read that people often skin the ridge in June, but the snow was way to firm and icy, and slightly too steep for me to skin. FYI: people wishing to do this in two days often camp at tree line or on the lunch counter.

Beyond the lunch counter, you can climb the snow (if you have crampons) or climb volcanic boulders on the left side of the ridge. For the most part, I climbed off the snow. I did this partly due to ease, and partly to help look for the missing hiker. There were about a dozen SAR looking for a man who climbed during the storm on Sunday, became disoriented in the white out, and purportedly fell a thousand feet before being stuck beneath a fallen boulder. I tried to climb where the searchers were absent, to maximize the searched area. Some of the boulders were large enough to hide a man from searchers ten feet away.

A few hundred feet below Pikers Peak (the false summit on the south ridge), I found easier climbing on the snow. I didn't have crampons, but had no problems climbing in my ski boots (I wouldn't want to be cramponless in soft soled boots). Approaching the false summit, I could see the moisture in the winds condensing over the mountain on an otherwise clear day. By the time I reached Pikers Peak, the summit was nearly entirely socked in a lenticular cloud. Everywhere above tree line was bluebird except the summit.

I caught this picture of the summit during a brief clear moment.

By the time I reached the summit, visibility was very low. A lenticular cloud had completely engulfed the summit. I was pretty bummed to not get the incredible views I was anticipating. I also had a cool pun to share with you guys, but the pun completely depended on me getting a shot of Rainier. When we first arrived in Seattle, I looked at Sarah and said "Mt. Adams may be rainy, but that peak is Rainier." She laughed her ass off. Well, at least on the inside. On the outside, she rolled her eyes and pretended to not enjoy my awesome pun as much as I knew she did. Anyway, I'm sorry I wasn't able to get you a Rainier shot with that cool pun as the caption.

The "summit" was a pile of blue ice, bulging above the flat summit plateau, and marked with flags (fun fact: the flat volcanic summit results from multiple cone-forming vents). I asked the man I met on the summit if we were at the summit and was told "yes." The man said there might be a slightly higher spot somewhere on the flat summit plateau, but everyone considers this to be the summit. Any higher spot would only be a few feet higher, and he wasn't about to go searching around in the fog for it. He arrived on the summit with enough clarity to see Rainier, and apparently did not see any other point worth hiking to. Another climber arrived after me and said the same thing as the first man, regarding the summit. Since he had climbed this peak multiple times, and considered our point to be the summit, I was content not searching around in the near zero visibility for a slightly higher pile of snow, which may or may not exist.

I clicked into my skis on the summit plateau, side stepped up the summit ice bulge and made my way down...extremely slowly. I followed the crampon tracks down to Pikers Peak. If I had no visibility by Pikers Peak, I decided I would just ski my ascent route, instead of trying to locate the south west chute. This would have been a hard pill to swallow considering how suncupped and unaesthetic the south ridge was. Much to my delight, I could see that the clouds disappeared slightly below Pikers Peak. A congregation of SAR on Pikers Peak informed me I was heading the right direction to descend the southwest chute, and reminded me to be on the lookout for a red jacket.

I dropped into the southwest chute and quickly descended below the clouds. In contrast to the south ridge, the southwest chute was extremely smooth. The frozen corn skied amazingly well! Icy, but very edgable. I had about 5,000' of skiing that I could have skied in thousand foot spurts, until my legs caught fire, but I ended up stopping every 500' or so to scan my surroundings for the missing hiker. Unfortunately, I saw no evidence of him or tracks of a fall down the snow.

The slope was estimated to be around 40 degrees steep and very consistent for most of the descent. Around 8,000' elevation, it becomes very mellow. By the time I reached the super suncupped, runnelly mess at the flat part, the snow had softened enough to plow through the suncups. I skied continuously down to 6,700' elevation.

The ski line ended abruptly. Continuous snow just came to a sharp end near the start of the trees. I transitioned from ski mode to shorts and trail runners and headed down hill to gain the trail that rings the peak. Following the creek straight down would be a bit too rugged, so I made a descending traverse to the left. I followed game/human trails, and while taking the path of least resistance, came across a couple cairns. This line appears to be somewhat popular.

Thanks for reading, and enjoy the video...