Home > Trip Reports > 26, June 2009, - Mt Adams SW CHUTES euphoria

26, June 2009, - Mt Adams SW CHUTES euphoria

6/15/09
WA Cascades West Slopes South (Mt Rainier)
3312
7
Posted by meg on 6/28/09 7:28am
5am start at Cold Crk. Bro, Sis, and Pa Cary blurry eyed from early morning air and enthusiasm for the day. Ambient temp not that cold (low 40s?), but snow much harder than anticipated. Did not need crampons, but probably would have used if had brought them. A later start would have sufficed, tho' compensated with leisurely breaks and a nap on the false summit before the final slog to the top and the dreamy descent down the chutes.

Climbed up S. Climb route. Snow started by ~6300ft, intersection of Round the Mtn Trail & S Climb, but not consistent enough to ski until Crescent Glacier. D/t inertia or hard snow, booted up most of Crescent Glacier, then skinned rest of the way to top ('cept Matt who had skin "issues" beginning with the shoelaces he had attached them to his new skis with). Snow started to warm by 11-12, made for easy skinning, includ. up to the summit. < Dozen folk on Fri, enough foot prints to get an idea of how many love this mtn, but no solid bootpack path. However ~200 cars in parking lot by Friday night, with more coming on Sat (27th) morn, so likely more established footholds up to the false summit and a more polished buttchute down the front side by now.

Reached summit by 15:00. Reports of strong wind in morning, but was down to dull roar by afternoon. Blue skies all around.

Skied down SE flank of summit - snow rippled and hard at top, nipping at our tails. Softened enough to carve by a few turns above the plateau. Descended down the southernmost Chute ~16:30. Snow was luscious snow cone slush for the entirety of the chute, though the final pitch before being spit out of the chute was pretty dusty & rocky. Seemed that snow was just softening, probably never corned exactly, tho' was close enough for euphoria.

As soon as exited the chute proper, snow turned into consolidated stormy seas with a fair bit of black dust further melting previous ski grooves. Challenging skiing, but battled our way through with sails lowered. Able to cont. traversing down and around to ~6300ft until snow ended. Took our skis off to tromp down the final slope to meet up with the Round the Mtn Trail @ ~6120ft. Some patches of snow still on the trail, but relatively easy to stay on route. Made it back to our tent & barely chilled bottles of beer still pumped enough to wonder if we could repeat tomorrow.

Photos can be found at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/megyrac/VolcanoAdventures2009#

...until I learn how to shrink them to size.
1. Matt and John climbing up to false summit:
2. Meg in chutes:
3. Snow cover in Chutes:
-mc
Wow, thanks a lot for the update on Adams, many TAYers are happy to hear it is still in good condition.  Hope this is the start of your active posting career, after lurking for so long.  You are an inspiration perhaps for lurkers to come out of the shadows.

Great first post,

we were there 24hrs before you and found the simmilar conditions.  The lowere dusty runouts we were calling the "bump buffet/Rodeo' trying to hang in the standing dusty waves/bumps for 8-seconds ;)

P.S.

For what it is worth....

Highway to the danger-zone is not only awful Music, its Totally unacceptable to blast at 3:00am...That is the antitheses of an alpine start (thanks for ruining that for me, who ever you may be)...

Otherwise conditions are true as stated above...the SW chutes will not be ski-able to the round the mountain trail more than a handful of days say...Monday at the latest..it be warm up there folks.....

Peace.....

Nice report, Meg.

Wow the web seems to make mt Adams popular, 8 years ago it was just me and my dog skiing, Saturday it was like being at a rock concert

I skied it for the first time in the summer of '95, and it was like being at a rock concert back then too...
(not to say that the web hasn't had an impact on usage of well-reported-on routes, but from all I've heard Adams has been well-swarmed for some time now...)

author=Jim Oker link=topic=13722.msg57383#msg57383 date=1246315808]
I skied it for the first time in the summer of '95, and it was like being at a rock concert back then too...
(not to say that the web hasn't had an impact on usage of well-reported-on routes, but from all I've heard Adams has been well-swarmed for some time now...)


Maybe I have just hit it on low traffic before? 

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26-june-2009-mt-adams-sw-chutes-euphoria
meg
2009-06-28 14:28:42