Home > Trip Reports > July 3, 2010, Mt Adams SW(eet) C(orn)hutes!

July 3, 2010, Mt Adams SW(eet) C(orn)hutes!

7/3/10
WA Cascades West Slopes South (Mt Rainier)
9840
15
Posted by lonetree on 7/4/10 5:01am
WOW! EPIC! AMAZING!, just to mention a few words from the group to describe the snow in the SW chutes on Sat.

Starting at Cold Springs 2 TAY members began our ascent in clear, calm, and cold conditions. Snow right from the start, but hard as a rock. As the day progressed slowly, the group grew in numbers, until we had a group of 9. A most fantastic and interesting group of people as I could ever hope to climb and ski with. They were patient, compassionate, lots of fun. Many of us TAY members. We gathered at the summit for the descent, except for 2 brothers who summited earlier and patiently waited at the false summit to drop in together.

As the group grows of course time on the mountain increases exponentially which explains a 15 hr day! Blimey you say! But consider this: A really cold day, following a cold trend makes for hard snow and thanks to the long day we were beginning our descent at 3:30 PM which allowed for the chutes to soften up to their almost textbook condition. It was so great I couldn't not make good turns! Yes, young one, this "is" the sweet corn you hear tell about! And you can go ahead and just retire your skis because it doesn't get any better than this!

This was my 4th time on Adams but my first SW chutes. I can't imagine going any other way now! WOW, did I say that already?

A word of caution: there is recent evidence of slides in the chutes, proof that things are still consolidating from the long, late winter we had. Rangers also appropriately warning of this.

We topped off the day with burgers at the Trout Lake Inn. Excellent food, good service, friendly people, and still open and serving food at 9:00 PM! It was indeed the perfect ending to a perfect day.

Road is now clear to within 1/2 mile of Cold Springs CG. Road is narrow and difficult to turn around in especially big rigs. Rangers are requesting people not park closer than 1 mile and also asking that you turn around before parking.
Great report and great pictures!  Happy that you all had such a great time.  This is inspiring, for sure!  Did you manager to ski all the way back to the cars?

Several skied within 100' of Cold Springs. Still 1/2 mile walk down to the cars

Great TR Tony,
I like your adaptation of the title to match the route and the conditions.
Sounds like a replay of our trip last Saturday.  :)
The south west chutes are a great ski. We also saw evidence of wet slides and slab releases.
How were the snow conditions after exiting the chutes?
Were you able to ski all the way back around to the climbing route?
Glad to hear the snow bank that stopped us just past Morrison Creek Campground has melted out, less hiking, more skiing!   ;D
Were you able to skin to the summit or did you have to boot pack some of the route?
Did you employ your "bike" for any of the route, quite the innovation!

Gary

I read that TR Gary, and was inspired by it. Thanks!
I did manage to skin all the way up except for the last 100 ft of the false summit. It was firm snow most of the way up. I couldn't have done it without my ski crampons. Skied all the way back from the chutes but wound up ascending a few hundred ft. We nailed it pretty good. Snow on lower mountain beginning to form sun cups and runnels but still skiable.

Did we do an avalanche training together in Port Angeles? You seem familiar.

Nice TR.
Gotta love the chutes with corn.

author=lonetree link=topic=17083.msg71914#msg71914 date=1278273686]
Road is now clear to within 1/2 mile of Cold Springs CG. Road is narrow and difficult to turn around in especially big rigs. Rangers are requesting people not park closer than 1 mile and also asking that you turn around before parking.


It's interesting that you have to hike on the trail, but vehicles are stopped by snow a 1/2 mile from  Cold Springs. What are the size of these old snow banks? I have seen some pretty amazing antics by vehicles (like a Volvo) forging over 5 foot snow banks on that road. I wondered how the heck did they get over those? Do you think that the next wave of heat will take em out?

Next heat wave would do the trick. If we ever get a heat wave! I was freezing last night in Portland watching the fireworks.

When I went up there Friday to scope out the road there was trail crew with a chain saw cutting perpendicular slits in the snow to speed up the process.

A few Quotes from the day :)

-- "Is this Corn?"  Jesse
-- "This IS Corn!" - Tony

-- "I can't not make good turns" - Tony

-- "WOW!!"  - Everybody

Epic day out...  ~7,000 ft of perfect consistent Hero snow.  Amazing group dynamic on the route finding way out.  Not to mention getting dinner in the most happening place in Trout Lake. :)

Best tour of the year!

Attached is a pic of our Route.

Chris

author=lonetree link=topic=17083.msg71929#msg71929 date=1278344539]
When I went up there Friday to scope out the road there was trail crew with a chain saw cutting perpendicular slits in the snow to speed up the process.


Geeze...
I think a run with a front loader would pretty much solve the problem...must not be in the budget?
Maybe they can make some snow sculptures in the snow with the chainsaws!  :D

Tony -

It was great meeting you!!! You forgot one thing in your TR:  "sticks."  ;D ;D


- nice winter-like looking slide in the one pic.  and it looks as though 'sweet' didnt need an 'a' in it, as everbody was bundled up. down here in the Sierra's I woulda been wonderin' if summer will ever show !    Good Rpt

It's definitely been a cool spring and beginning of summer here in the NW. Although today busted above 80, so maybe summers here.

Summit was windy and cool but as soon as we dropped into the chutes it got hot and layers came off.

Forgot to mention one party member decided to go natural and used fir branches for ski poles. Her grin in the chutes was perhaps slightly bigger than most.

Chris, nice work on the annotated photo of our descent. What a ride.

SW CHUTES FOR PAM
great meeting you Pam - Shawn & Chris

the chutes were as good as the other reports suggest. buttery @ the top then corn.  i pulled out @ the traverse and headed back to my camp - in the moring met joe - carol - mark and dave.. sure there will be a fine report from Joe.
cheers
robert

author=rnbfish link=topic=17083.msg71986#msg71986 date=1278536914]
SW CHUTES FOR PAM
great meeting you Pam - Shawn & Chris

the chutes were as good as the other reports suggest. buttery @ the top then corn.  i pulled out @ the traverse and headed back to my camp - in the moring met joe - carol - mark and dave.. sure there will be a fine report from Joe.
cheers
robert

My son and I were with Joe's group and met the ladies you are greeting above at Pikers's . Stewart and I dropped ahead of Joe's group. Unfortunately I think the ladies started following us on the trail out and Stewart and I became lost and ended up with a heinous bushwhack back to camp taking an hour longer than Joe's group and involving multiple drainage crossings etc. We endured the classic " Lost trail on Adams epic". We lost track of the ladies about half way through and hopefully they turned around and didn't follow us. If they did, please accept my apologises for some truly terrible routefinding.

Can anyone point me to a "how to get back to the parking lot from the bottom of the SW chutes" discussion previously?  I don't do GPS....a marked up topo would be nice!  Thanks

I was thinking we missed it too but it sounds like we had a much better time of it. Basically we stayed high, well above timber line. We dropped into the big almost flat basin at the bottom and slightly skiers left of the chutes. At the end of that basin was an obvious square shaped notch. We began traversing just above and left of that notch which was above 7000'. We descended as much as possible while traversing SE but had to ascend a few hundred ft total to get over certain terrain which looked like it would have been difficult if we kept going down. There were several gullies and ridges to negotiate. We picked up the climbers trail just above the junction with the round the mountain trail.

It helped having people who had done it but we still stopped a couple times to ck the map. It also helped to have a visual of where Cold Springs are from above. Turn around while ascending and "remember the terrain". Even though your coming down a different route it as you get closer you can begin to recognize the area. Of course a GPS is wonderful in a white out. Hope that helps. Sorry I don't have time right now to put a map together.

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july-3-2010-mt-adams-sw-eet-c-orn-hutes
lonetree
2010-07-04 12:01:26