[TR] Mt. Adams - South Col 6/14/2009

[The Cascade Kid]

Trip: Mt. Adams - South Col

 

Date: 6/14/2009

 

Trip Report:

Set out from the road at about 12pm after sleeping a few hours in my car. The road is closed about 3.5 miles from the trailhead, ut most of the walking was on dirt, and I was only able to put on skins about 2 miles past the trailhead. The south climb trail is in goodish shape, but becomes pretty vague up above snowline, but it wasn't much bother.

 

The snow was quite solid and made for skinning up through the lunch counter, where the overnighters still hadn't woken. I took the far climber's right of the snowfield to watch the sun come up over the glacier to the east. Here the snow was a little too solid and I had to make more switchbacks than I would have liked to keep the skins set. Weather was quite temperate and I climbed in a fleece vest and the good longjohn + shorts combo that makes you look like your grandpa, especially with ski boots.

 

 

I reached Pikers peak about half hour after sunrise (? phone gave out, forgot the watch) and saw only a group of 3-4 coming up from below. Crossing the icecap was the easiest going of the day, but the steps up to th summit are in miserable condition. Think of someone glissading over someone else's postholes, and then that freezing solid, with a breakable crust. To that end, I set some better steps to the left of the main drag, perhaps they've yet to be ruined. I doubt it.

 

Obligatory out of focus disposable camera summit photo, with Rainier sneaking into the background.

 

The summit was clear with a good view of Rainier and St. Helens, but as I suited up to begin skiing there showed signs of weather coming out of the east and a fog/cloud deal started to blow around up top.

 

 

I skied down the pretty icy surface to pikers, and waited impatiently for the snow to soften. Too impatient to actually wait it out, I skied all the way back down in a single push, encountering a strange spectrum from icy to slurpee, with about 1000' of good corn in the middle.

 

I got a little off route below tree line and had to traverse east (skier's right) over several gullies to reach the trail. Stay left while skiing, you'll thank yourself. Descending the trail was very fast, descending the road was excruciatingly slow, as my boots decided to torture me finally with a feeling that I can only describe as the screamin barfies in my toes, and the only cure for which was to walk sideways.

 

An eternity later, I reached the car a little bit before 10am, about 10 hours car-to-car. Not bad I think. I don't know enough about Adams snow to know if the snow is going to get better this year, but as it if you wait for it to get soft up nearer to the top, you'll be waterskiing by the time you get past the Lunch Counter.

 

Also, the butt-slide is now fully set from pikers almost to the trail. Absurd. Probably fun.

Gear Notes:

Put your M&Ms in a plastic bag. Paper tears. Thankfully the coloring washes out of your clothes.

 

Needed only skis, crampons were useful but not strictly necessary. 2 Litres of water wasn't really enough, 3 would have been perfect.

 

Approach Notes:

The road all the way up, or certainly much farther than it is now, should be open very soon. Slednecks in big trucks are making the trip already.

Edited June 16, 2009 by The Cascade Kid

[Rodney_Sofich]

Way to git-r-done!

[NWbrandon]

Nice Job! Question, my party and I are planning to climb this Thursday (18th) evening/summit Friday morning and your comment about the Slednecks have me wondering..........would my "big rig" make it up to the far camp parking lot? Were there any blowdowns over the road? Maybe some chains and a fair amount of luck would get me there. What say you?

Edited June 17, 2009 by NWbrandon

[LostCamKenny]

Nice pics, dude. Good on ya... I'm curious, how did the Mazama Glacier look from up above?

[The Cascade Kid]

You'd probably be fine with your rig, there was one small tree down, but my guess is that someone has done something about it by now. if nothing else, you can make it that far. I dont think you need chains, it's mostly an issue of clearance now that they've plowed a path.

[The Cascade Kid]

looked decent, though it's starting to yawn pretty big at the top. I wasn't really looking at it with a mind to climbing it, so thats all i've got for you, can't remember much else.

[bvellek]

I'm thinking about heading up this weekend with a couple buddies. would you recommend snowshoes or crampons or neither?

 

 

[2cent]

w/out ski's, strictly hiking, is two days feasible assuming access to the TH is direct without the added walk in time? Is there a lot of route finding required? Thx.

[bvellek]

we did it in one day last weekend without skis. road is open to TH. There is a pretty good boot path made all the way up and there were probably over 100 people there last weekend so i dont think you will have any route finding problems

Edited July 2, 2009 by bvellek

[woodchips]

How much hiking from the trailhead till you hit snow and can start skinning? worth bringing running shoes for that section?

[bvellek]

maybe a mile? we snowboarded down and the snow was real poor just to let you know

[woodchips]

Poor snow? What kind of poor snow? Sound like it's going to be pretty warm this weekend.

[rob]

I skied this route about this time last year and the snow was heavily suncupped up high, and it was a really, really warm day.

Edited July 3, 2009 by rob

[bvellek]

the snow was very suncupped and difficult to ride. some rocks are starting to pop up too

[bvellek]

people were glissading just as fast as those skiing/boarding