[TR] Mt. Adams ski trip- Aiken Lava Bed 3/19/2004

[btowle]

Climb: Mt. Adams ski trip-Aiken Lava Bed

 

Date of Climb: 3/19/2004

 

Trip Report:

Warning: This is not a climb, so don't read further if you don't like TR's that don't involve fear, danger or general suffering. Wait...we had plenty of suffering.

 

We have seen the lava bed from the summit and from the Round the Mountain Trail. We have also wondered if a ski ascent up the flow would possible.

 

This trip wasn't planned to be a climb, just a winter ski trip. The plan was to leave Friday morning and skin into South Butte on Mt. Adams from the southern snowparks, stay two days skiing and ski out on Monday.

 

The USFS website showed that the Smith Butte snowpark was closed, so we had planned to leave from Snowking. We started seeing snow below 3000 feet on the drive in. Pineside snowpark was mostly bare, but maybe a third of the forest floor was snowcovered. The 8225 road (snowmobile route) from the snowpark was snowcovered however.

 

We got to Snowking at 8:30am and could see that the road had been plowed up toward Smith Butte. Part way up however, a turnaround had been plowed out and a big pile of snow was blocking the road. The road was plowed farther, and we debated whether to park at the turnaround, and ski cross country, or go back to Snowking and ski up the roads.

 

We decided on the latter and were ready to leave at 9:00 when a frontend loader went by to finish the plowing job. Smith Butte snowpark is open now. Snowking (3200 feet) has about a foot of snow covering half to 3/4 of the forest floor, but the route we traveled was all snow covered. We skinned up right from the snowpark, but there is a lot of debris on the roads.

 

The trip from Snowking to the nose of the flow is all on road. Most of the road is on groomed x-country route and some is on packed snowmobile route. About a mile of the 3.5 miles or so is unpacked road.

 

We had decided to bring a sled. We usually only use one on trips of 4 days or more and really debated whether to take one up the flow.

 

The Snipes Mountain trail takes off of the road right at the nose of the flow and starts up the east edge. A snowmobile had gone up the trail, so we decided to follow it until we could find a way onto the flow.

 

Warning: Don't be in a hurry to get out of the forest. We really wanted to because of the debris layer on the snow, but the travel was really pretty good. Looking at the flow it seems like it should be better up there. I had hoped that there would be an area between the flow and the edge of the forest that we could easily ski. It doesn't exist. You are on the flow or in the forest.

 

Anyway the snowmobile eventually turned around and we found a steep gully we could get up. Well, we could skin up it with our packs, but not the sled. Made another trip up with the sled postholing in hip deep snow.

 

Warning: Stay in the forest until between 4500 and 5000 feet. Below that the flow is large gullies, large trees and large rocks. One step which is 150 to 200 feet in elevation is particularly difficult. Again the sled required a return trip.

 

We had hoped to climb to South Butte. After crossing the lower mile of the flow, which took us over 2 hours, we realized that probably wasn't going to happen.

 

After 5000 feet the travel gets a lot better. The higher you get the easier it is. We set up our camp just below the Round the Mountain trail on an outcropping in the flow so that we would still have a nice view of the mountain unobstructed by South Butte and the Lunch Counter.

 

The next couple of days, we skinned up under South Butte and then skied the bowls. The flow is really too flat to ski. We generally skied between 5500 and 8000 feet. A lot of windblown rocks were exposed above that around South Butte on the ridges and the gullies.

 

Partner was wearing Scarpa T3's with Riva bindings that require that the heel cable be in place to keep the boots in the bindings. I knew that he was traveling slower than I was which is usually a bad sign. On the second night, he pulled off his socks in the tent to display a horrible mess of red, raw flesh.

 

I guess that this all happened on the way in. I think that the bindings pull just enough that after 8 miles, most of the skin was gone. No complaints from him though. He just started wearing two pairs of socks and kept skiing.

 

After our suffering on the way in, we were determined to be off of the flow by 4500 feet. Didn't happen.

 

We got to a long steep hill that we could have skied without the sled. With the sled, we tried to find a better route. We should have just taken the skis off and booted it down the hill, but instead skied west to get down. Now we found that we had several steep (corniced) gullies between us and the east edge of the flow.

 

We followed snowmobile tracks for a while and to our dismay found ourselves in the same steep narrow canyons that we suffered through on the way in.

 

Now the snow had melted on the lower end of the flow so much that it was impossible to manuver through them on skis and with a sled. So I put the skis on the sled and we tried to get off of the flow. Every 20-30 feet I would collapse through the level looking snow up to my chest. The only thing holding me up being my pack and sled poles.

 

Partner was leading (on skis) and came back without his pack. He said that he left it at the bottom of the east edge of the flow and had come back to help me with the sled. When we got to the edge I saw that he had just flung it over the edge in a desperate attempt to get off this thing.

 

We had a 50 foot drop with mini-crevases caused by snow being held up by buried rock cliff. Another 20 minute epic of misery got us to the bottom and forest floor right at the south end of the flow.

 

The warm weather had melted a couple of patches of bare road by this time. This route should be done from Smith Butte now. There is still a couple of feet of snow there.

 

Made it home for dinner on Monday. Partner just put shoes on for the first time today (two days later). We never thought that it would be easy though, and even with raw feet had a great time!!

 

Gear Notes:

Don't take a sled on the south 1.5 miles of the flow. The higher part is fine.

 

Approach Notes:

Smith Butte snowpark is open. Still a long approach to Adams.

 

Snowking approach to the flow is not bad, being all on road.

 

Smith Butte would be less elevation gain and closer but some cross country.

 

Snow is quite debris covered.

 

I wouldn't have a problem with this route after fresh snow and without a sled.