Adams Trip Report 6/7/03 – 6/8/03
Leejams, Richard Fournier (the French dude), and I set off from Seattle at 5am on Saturday headed for Adams. We drove down I-5, along Hwy 12 to Randle, 25, then 90, and then 23. I hear that 23 is now accessible all the way if you have a high clearance vehicle.
We arrived at the Mt. Adams ranger station at 10.30, bought our volcano passes, filled out the climber log, and headed for the trail. We got to Morrison Creek where there were about 30 cars all over the place. We parked at the side of the road a bit past the campground just shy of where a Jeep Cherokee was abandoned in the middle of a 3 ft snow drift.
Leaving the campground at 11.15am and 4,700ft, the temperature was in the high ‘80s or even low ‘90s. The 3 miles up to Cold Springs campground was mostly snow free with occasional fallen trees and snowdrifts. I think in another few weeks or so, the road will be open all the way.
Once on the trail, there was an easily discernable boot path all the way up to the lunch counter. We arrived at the lunch counter at 9,000 ft. at around 5pm. The sun was shining and we’d been sweating our asses off all the way up. During the hike up, Richard let us know that he’d climbed some of the peaks in Ecuador (+6000m). Adams would prove to be a pushover for him.
Even though we saw loads of cars at the trailhead, there didn’t appear to be that many people camping, and we easily scored a good spot. We set up camp, boiled water, drank some of Leejams bourbon (Richard called it bobon or something like that). A friend of mine who’d been climbing with some novices had set off from the Lunch Counter at 8am and was only now returning from the summit at 5pm! He was pissed, and quickly downed a cupful of the bonbon and just as quickly fucked off back to his camp again. He was fairly pissed to say the least.
At around 7pm, the wind started to blow, and it became a bit chilly because of that. The temperature was probably still up in the 40s or even 50s, but it was a pretty strong gust. The plan was to get up at 3am, and get going at 4am. Well, I took one peek outside my bivy at 3am, looked up at the stars, felt the wind, and thought fuck that! So, we got going at 5am eventually. The wind was still blowing strong. As Leejams and I set off up the boot path, Richard veered off to the right of the slope ascending with crampons and ski poles. I had my ice-ax and crampons, and Leejams just had his ice-ax. The slope was very hard because of the wind sweeping across it, so crampons were definitely beneficial.
We(Leejams and I) got up to Pikers Peak in just under 2 hrs where I could see Richard just approaching the true summit! 45 minutes later, we summited too. So, it took Richard just 2 hrs to ascend the 3,200 ft from camp to the summit. It took Leejams and I 2hrs 45mins. From the top there was a good view of Rainier, Hood, Bachelor, and Mt. Jefferson. Leejams commented that the views were shite compared to what one can see in the North Cascades.
Setting back down, Richard and I were able to cruise down the firm slope since we had our crampons on. We even glissaded down the hard surface but that’s probably not advisable since I had to self arrest at least 3 times, ripped a pair of pants, and bruised the hell out of my thigh. Still, we made it back to camp at 9.30am. We took down camp, melted some more snow, and set off at 10.30am. We were back to the car at 1.15pm.
As I got back to the car, I could see my trusty Rover bouncing up and down. I thought that was a bit fucking weird. When I got there, there was a big fat bastard called from Bob’s Towing company jacking up my rig while another dude stood on the bed of the tow truck (that was just millimeters away from my rig) shoving it further into the side of the road. When I asked them WTF they were doing, I was told that when they came to tow the Jeep, the sheriff had told them that mine and another bunch of cars were parked illegally. That was bullshit since anyone could easily drive past mine if they needed to (except a fucking 20 ton tow truck). After much sweating, the tow truck was stuck in a drift just ahead of my rig (the same drift the Jeep had been stuck in). As he tried to accelerate through it, the back swung out and crushed the Ford Escort in front of my rig. Totally fucked up. Anyway, we got out of there and back at the Ranger station, we told him what was going on to which we gave me a surprised look and told me we were not parked illegally and didn’t know why Fat Prick Bob was towing rigs from the side of the road.
We got out of there and this time headed home via 84. We left at 2.15pm, stopped for lunch, and made it back to Seattle at 7.45pm which even accounted for a 6 mile traffic jam due to some silly bastards crashing their cars just south of Olympia.
All in all a good trip. Beware of suspicious towing activities at the trailhead!
Images:
Richard and Leejams drinking bonbon
Leejams on the summit
JGowans on the summit
Adams panorama
