November 18, 2008, Mt. Adams, South Spur

Headed down to Mt. Adams from Seattle with tokennewbie, tokengirl, ruski and Rya (the wonder dog). Thank you Kirby family for letting us stay at the Hood River Cabin. An early start got us to Mt. Adams Rd 8040 (thanks for clearing out that tree) at just before 6 am and we hit a rock just about a 1/2 mile from the trailhead. The oil leaked out of the crushed oil pan and we pulled over and hoofed the last bit to the trail leaving the car behind not letting this dampen our spirits. We ascended via the cold springs trail and before we hit the western ridge to do a good chunk of climbing we ran into some mountain friends (goat 1 and goat 2). We took the ridge line up to the saddle back found a  completely linked route where we could skin and snowshoed up. The snow was soft between 6000-7500 ft making it difficult to skin. We ended up bootpacking, but the snowboarders rocked it with the snowshoes. The final stretch we ascended was more ideal for skinning and we pushed up to just below the pitch for Piker's Peak. A low cloud ceiling was moving in from the SW all morning, but as the sun rose it burned off most of the cloud cover leaving us with gorgeous views of Hood, St. Helen and the Adams' summit. We chilled behind some rock cover (the wind was significant 20 mph or so) just below 9000 and planned our descent down the primarily icy, but soon softening snow. The top portion here was mostly wind blown, but each bit of descent got softer and soon we skied some sweet slush all the way to the timberline. Congrats to Garin (tokennewbie) for riding big mountain at the beginning of your second season.  Way to go Laura (tokengirl) for being such a ripper. Spoonde (ruski) here is to la vie comme lion. And Rya (the wonder dog) I think you climbed that mountain twice. You are the best ski dog ever. Most of all, thanks to Randy the tow truck driver. He made it all the way up to the trail head with a flatbed and towed my sorry ass out of there. Great day of skiing. Let's pray for snow!