July 7-10, 2010, North Side of Adams

I went into the north side of Adams for a few days looking to finally ski a route or two. Snow on the road stopped my subaru just past Takhlakh lake so I started hoofing it. Luckily I got a ride from a nice family who had driven in from the other side for a look around (a route I didn't realize was snow free) so I got to the Killen Creek trail pretty easily. The shade in the trees helped me beat the heat, then hitting snow about half way up got the skis off my back.

The upper mt. has great coverage, but the headwalls were getting dirty and looked much too dangerous in the heat. Thurs. I just couldn't get psyched - with big plans to traverse around to photograph the east and west sides of the mountain I barely made it to the north ridge for a run back down to my camp in the last trees to find some shade. When I put my little thermometer out on a nearby tree in the sun it read over 100 - no wonder I was lethargic! The mosquitoes were out in force, so I had to wear my wind jacket and hood to escape them.

I got up early the next day to climb the north ridge and ski Lava ridge. A nice breeze kept me cool on the climb, but increased to unpleasant on the upper mountain, not allowing the snow to soften (I had to crampon the last 1,500 ft.). After a brief stay on top I skidded down the icy upper slopes about 11:15, then had to stop just above the ridge to wait 45 min. for the snow to soften enough that I wasn't terrified traversing above the lava glacier headwall (a slip here on hard snow wouldn't be good). Once around to the east the wind died and the slopes were much softer for great skiing the next 1,000 ft.. The last big open shot was baked - I had to ski cut the top 6 inch layer of slurpie slush to groom a run for myself.

My map showed another trail (112 - Divide Camp) I stupidly hadn't noticed on the way up that would get me much more directly to the car. I thought I had it scoped out well, but was quite relieved to see climbers coming up from that direction the next morning just before I started down. This was a godsend which allowed me to follow their tracks right down to the trail. With a few carries and a bit of meadow mashing I managed to ski to within a mile of the trail head. Walking down the road back to my car I couldn't believe how much snow had melted in the last few days - it would now be easy to drive to the trail head.

When I get time I'll process some pics and post a TR over at NWHikers and return here for a link. The N face of the NW ridge looked great.