Mt Adams

Mt Adams (12,276ft)

April 25, 2021, 2am – 5:30pm

Eric, Andrew, Branden, Cody

I’ve climbed Mt Adams a few times before, but had never yet skied it. There’s potential for a 7,000ft+ ski descent, which is one of the longer descents possible in Washington. The best time to get the full ski descent is in the winter or spring when snow levels are still low.

In late March I planned to ski Mt Adams solo, but ended up bailing. I towed my snowmobile up to Pineside sno park, but then discovered the connecting road from there to the main 8040 road was a groomed ski trail closed to snowmobiles. I unhitched the trailer and drove to scout out the road up 8040. But I couldn’t find a place big enough to turn the trailer around solo. Snow started about 10 miles from the trailhead then, and I didn’t have enough time to add an extra 20 miles to the trip if I couldn’t snowmobile to the trailhead. So I ended up bailing and skiing St Helens instead.

In late April an opportunity arose to return to try to ski Adams. There was a potential weather window in the southern cascades, and Andrew, Branden, and Cody were interested in joining. It was getting pretty late in the season for snowmobiling, but I figured I try to see if it could still save us some time on the snowed over approach road. Recent satellite images showed patchy snow starting around 3700ft, just above the Wicky Creek shelter and six miles from the south climb trailhead. This was a long enough distance that using the snowmobile made sense, potentially shaving off 12 miles round trip from the day.

The snow line location would work out well, since I figured I could turn the trailer around at the shelter and ride a short gravel section before getting to snow. I’d never transported four people at once, especially over gravel, so decided I’d make two shuttle runs. I hoped to make it all the way to the trailhead, but was concerned about a steep sidehill section on the map just above Morrison Camp. Still, if I could get even halfway to the trailhead that would save time.

We all met up at the Wicky Creek shelter saturday night in a cold rain. By 2am we were up and moving. That was the time the precipitation was forecast to stop, which indeed was the case. Andrew and I started up on the first shuttle, while Branden and Cody drove their truck as far as possible up the snow and started skinning from there. I optimistically said I’d come back an hour later to pick them up from wherever they’d made it.

Andrew and I made it up the gravel to the snow, passing a few trucks parked on the side. We rounded two switchbacks, but then the snow ended at 3800ft. Shortly after that the engine overheated. Unfortunately it needs snow to cool it down, and more than a quarter mile of gravel going up hill with a passenger is enough to overheat it. We found a snow patch and packed snow on the tunnel for 10 minutes and it eventually cooled down. Patchy snow started again at 4000ft, and a 4runner had made it a bit farther and was parked there.

We overheated one more time before the snow finally became continuous at 4,200ft. Then it was smooth sailing. Blowing snow started and it was kind of hard to find the road at times in the dark, but I followed a set of snowshoe tracks that worked out well. Eventually we reached Morrison Camp at 4,700ft and the road turned off to a steep sidehill. I got out to scout it and eventually decided I was too

nervous to proceed. I probably could have done it, but I knew there was a worse sidehill 0.5 miles farther anyways. (In hindsight, I think the best method is to cut through the woods earlier following a direct ridge and avoid all the sidehilling all the way to the trailhead, but I was nervous to leave the road with only one snowmobile in the group in case I got stuck).

Andrew got out and I rode back down to Branden and Cody. Branden got on the back and I rigged a rope to tow Cody, and we soon made it back up to Morrison Camp. By 4am we were finally all skinning up the road. We followed the snowshoe tracks for a few miles until we reached the South Climb trailhead. There we diverged from the normal hiking trail and headed straight up through the open woods.

Sunrise started soon after leaving the road, and we were treated to an undercast view to the south. It appeared the forecast was holding as expected. We followed some old snowmobile tracks up past a wilderness boundary sign up to about 7,500ft below South Butte, where they turned around. Then we dropped down a short icy slope and continued skinning up Suksdorf Ridge. The snow was very icy, and we hoped it would soften up later. The peak was supposed to get up to 5 inches of snow saturday, but unfortunately it looked like it all just blew off instead of giving us fresh powder.

As we climbed higher we caught glimpses of Pikers Peak under clear blue skies, with undercast to the southeast and clouds to the west. We wove around rock outcrops up to Lunch Counter, and then skinned up to 10,500ft. There it got too icy for skinning, so we switched to crampons and started booting up. We were well above the clouds then with blue skies above us and an amazing undercast below.

As we crested Pikers Peak a whiteout set in and I was navigating by GPS from there. I’d previously climbed Adams in a whiteout in December, and was very familiar with the route. The rime got icier and it seemed kind of silly to continue carrying the skis up terrain that I knew I wouldn’t be skiing down. But there was a risk of not being able to find the skis if I ditched them somewhere, so I continued carrying them.

By 12:45pm we reached the summit, still in a whiteout. We hung around for 20 minutes, then headed back down carrying skis. But within 5 minutes the skies cleared and we had another amazing undercast view. The view lasted down to Pikers Peak, when it started snowing. Surprisingly, we met two other climbers going up from there. They had started on foot that morning from the same place we did. (Interestingly, this was the first time since November that I had run into another climber on a mountain other than heli skiers).

We cramponed down from Pikers Peak to about 11,000ft, where there seemed to be enough shallow pockets of powder that it made sense to ski. Unfortunately there were a lot of mechanical issues with our skis. The spring on my brakes broke, which meant it took me about 10 minutes to find a way to wriggle my boot into my binding without it popping out. Branden’s binding heel piece broke off completely, which meant he had to ski down in uphill mode.

We eventually got all our skis set up and started making turns as the snow stopped and the weather cleared out again. It was challenging trying to link the small powder patches in between rime, but it got more powdery as we got lower. We then scooted across Lunch Counter, and followed our ascent tracks.

Lower on the ridge we met two snowshoers heading up to Lunch Counter to camp out. Hopefully they got better weather on Monday when they planned to summit. Below 8500ft the snow softened considerably and we were able to finally get some easy turns in. The skiing was great all the way down to the trailhead. We then roughly followed our tracks farther down, reaching the snowmobile around 4pm.

For the way out I figured I’d see if I could transport all four of us simultaneously, at least to the gravel section. I’ve done a few trips where I brought two passengers, one on the sled and one towed like a water skier. I figured boats can tow multiple water skiers, so why can’t a snowmobile? I had two ropes, so rigged them up to have staggered hand loops for Branden and Cody, far enough apart to hopefully not interfere with each other.

I had some trouble starting the snowmobile but it eventually worked. I started going slowly, frequently looking back to make sure I hadn’t lost anyone. Everything went well and we made efficient progress all the way to the gravel section around 4,000ft. There we decided Andrew and I would continue on the sled and Cody and Branden would ski the snow patches and walk the gravel. This made most sense because it was steep enough to glide down most of the snow. Also, I figured if I made a second shuttle run back up I’d probably overheat and it would end up not saving time anyways.

Andrew and I made it back down all the way to the car without overheating. I think it helped the snow patches were slushy enough for the track to throw snow up to the tunnel to cool it off, and the snowmobile was working much less hard going downhill. By 6pm we were loaded up and heading back to Seattle.

Video of the trip:

 

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