July 3, Adams - SW chute

As we drove down 23 on Thursday evening, we could see that the middle chute still went, and the traverse out from the bottom appeared to pretty much go to and a bit below what I think of as "the lip" (the point at which there seem to be many opinions about the best way back). How far below was a somewhat interesting question, but not really consequential as I knew that once on top, we would likely not let a little extra hillside thrash stop us.

We avoided the famed all-night-carnival at Cold Springs by camping in a wonderful little spot partway up the road. I managed more sleep than any of my prior 4 trips on Adams - something like 7 hours! The next day, we talked to parties that had driven in and started hiking at 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6. I'm sure some of those other people had started at 5. We got ourselves walking with a brutal alpine start of 7:30AM. My buddy Paul noted the long days and likely well-consolidated snowpack as reasons to feel good about our sloth. It worked for me.

The south climb was looking pretty bumpy for skiing pretty much the whole way. It is always hard to tell from a distance, but the middle SW chute was looking more smooth, and the tracks seemed to suggest linkable turns versus the turn-traverse-turn-repeat pattern on the Pikers Peak headwall.

One of these years I have to go earlier and get the chutes when you can ski more or less to/from Morrison Creek. I'm thinking that the extra climb can't be any more work than returning along the round-the-mountain trail, and what a long run!

We took several nice leisurely breaks on the way to the summit. I don't recall having previously seen the engraved rock at Pikers Peak - I should have written down what it said, but in any case it was supposedly carved in something like 1929. Makes me curious to see if I can find the story behind it at some point. There were only two people at the summit when we arrived somewhere after 2:30. It was great to have the top to ourselves once they left - that led us to indulge our altitude lassitude a bit and enjoy the views for longer than we'd originally intended. We finally pushed off at about 3:30, and we were both glad to be on the late shift, The run back down to the chutes was way bumpier than it looked from a distance, and so it was nice to have well-softened snow as well as a great highway formed by the more disciplined early-rising skiers. Ten minutes later, we started down the chute, which was pretty smooth, ripe corn. I'd say the most consistent easy skiing I've had in the chutes in 4 trips - I've had even smoother snow, but on those trips it got punchy and then mushy part way down. There were a few horizontal cracks (or linear undermining) forming on the right side of the chute, so we kept alert, but were still pretty much able to let 'er rip! The bottom of the chute was a lot narrower than I'd seen, but went fine. Given all the prior skiers, it was a bit moguled, but there were nice corn moguls and it was pretty fun! At the bottom where the chutes all recombine, it became extremely bumpy, and we were once again glad to be the late shift, as we used the prior tracks along with benevolently-shaped bumps to mostly continue smoothly linking turns, but at a pace dictated by the snow. Our legs were starting to feel it! Despite hearing one rock fall, we decided to follow most of the other tracks out across the rockfall basin (with an eye above as we traversed), and found more linkable turns through delightfully skiable soft corn (keeping an eye out for the major pits from rock-melted-snow here and there) down to where we started the leftward traverse. What a run! Granted, a few spots that were not-awesome turns, but even in the worst spot it beat hiking downhill in my book.

Much better than I'd expected, given all the reports of major cupping and bumpiness from around the state...

We took a nice break down along the traverse at a spot where a cool breeze rushed downhill. We followed the consensus track along the high left traverse to "the lip," and from there followed the rightmost tracks down the convex hump that leads into the creek draw to the south. There were a few ski carries along the traverse and down toward the creek, but aside from that, we were able to ski down a snow finger along the creek (which is undermined by water of course - and there are spots that won't go much longer...) to something like 6,500 (didn't check an altimeter). A short hike down the left side of the creek led us to the round-the-mountain trail where we pulled out our secret weapons - light-but-cushiony running shoes!! I've managed to ski (with two short carries) back to the south climb once, and have hiked out the round-the-mountain trail two other times, both in my ski boots. The running shoes changed it from tedium through which I could notice I was in a beautiful place that I couldn't quite fully enjoy into tired-but-joyful-and-easygoing hiking on a lovely warm evening. We only met one "mountaineer" going in who sniffed in superiority about how we must have had to endure intolerably mushy snow due to our lazy start, who appeared unwilling to believe us that we actually hit the corn about perfectly. It is funny how invested some folks are in the notion of the alpine start. I'll grant, though, that the early risers are getting a great moonset right now. But we had the summit and our entire descent and traverse to the south climb circus to ourselves. We reached the car just after 7, after many short breaks along the bottom of the south climb where we heard about trip plans and shared beta (including telling some skiers not to bother with that 3Am start from high camp unless they just wanted to spend hours up top exploring while waiting for things to melt).

We decided to push for home, and other than hitting a 15 minute delay due to the end of the fireworks celebration in Eatonville, we had nearly empty roads and fast driving. Even with dropping Paul at his car at the Federal Way Park and Ride, I was home 5 hours after leaving Cold Springs.

It seemed like it had been 3 days since we'd started our drive south. I love that feeling.