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Mt. Adams (FR-80 / FR-8040 Access)


Telelust

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Hi All!

 

Looking for a detail report on FR-80 / FR-8040 leading into Cold Springs on Mt Adams. I know that the Forest Service is reporting that the road is close, but does anybody have first hand knowledge of the "truck accessibility" towards Cold Springs. Trying to plan how much hiking in we'll need to do. Thanks for any input...

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...and at least several miles to the approach. It's at least 3 miles from Morrison Creek to Cold Springs and I'm sure the road is not even close to Morrsion Creek yet. cry.gif

May it was several miles to Morrison Creek - and there were no blow downs in sight - but driving over 3 feet of slushy, uncolsidated, mostly unpacked snow isn't exactly a picnic. Unless you have a snowmobile. This year I'd guess it to be alot longer. But then, no one listens to me. So go find out and report back.

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We skied in from Snow King snowpark last Friday and camped up near the Round the Mountain Trail below South Butte. Snow King is at about 3200 ft and the ground was 50% covered with a foot of snow.

 

The roads that were packed by snowmobiles or groomers were completely covered from the snowpark. The snowmobile trail from Pineside snowpark still has snow cover from below 3000 feet up to the Aiken Lava flow. Just a short bare spot before you get to the snowpark.

 

So plan on snow from 3000 feet up. At 6000 feet I used a probe in the lava flow and seemed to get around 4' of snow.

It is tricky in the flow because of the variability of rock, but that is pretty close I think.

 

Anyway, we weren't in there to climb this time, just did some camping and skiing in the bowls below South Butte.

 

I could do a TR if anyone is interested, but it really doesn't have much to do with climbing. It would have some interesting route information for anyone's future plans to go up the lava flow.

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yelrotflmao.gif That's one of the interesting things about this trip. We took a sled. cry.gif 4 days is kind of our cutoff for a sled and we really debated about taking one up the lava flow. I really hate them too, but from 4 days on, you can live in more comfort.

 

Anyway, I'll post a TR tonight.

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  • 3 weeks later...

skied on adams april 3rd and 4th with two friends.

 

road to cold srpings campground is closed by snow slightly more than 8 miles out. there was a fallen tree blocking it as well, maybe 7 miles out, which will continue to block access even if all of the snow has melted off.

 

we skied in/up on the road, which is patchy in spots, likely to be getting dirtier. bring your rock skis, it will make for a hassle-free slide down. good snow conditions on the mountain; we went up to about 9,500 feet and called it a day. it was very hot and we were low on water. beautiful views of hood & st.helens. corn up higher, getting mushy around 6,000ft. enjoy, if you don't mind the long road approach. we picked it over bushwacking past the lava flow.

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  • 4 weeks later...
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Thanks Loren. I did get through to the ranger on a different number, and I also looked through that ski site that was referenced. Sounds like you can get very close to the Killen TH now via the back route.

 

With this weather forecast dimming, I'm thinking that Adams might be a good bet. Or try to get above the weather on Rainier, or perhaps something easy like the Sherpa route on Stuart. N. Cascades looks to be soggy on Sunday. Doesn't it always figure.

 

Hope you are well,

 

John

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