July 24, 2011, Another Mt. Adams TR

Stoked to see Kyle and hear about his adventures in the Andes, I set off with him for Mt. Adams a little over a day after he landed in SEATAC.

We left Seattle behind late in the day on Saturday, and since I'd had the flu for several days and was jonesing for some fresh air, Kyle graciously offered to drive.

On our way down to the Hood River area, we chatted about conditions in the PNW and beyond, and generally caught up on the life-happenings of one another.

Knowing that we'd be able to camp at Cold Springs, we rolled into Trout Lake after a leisurely gourmet dinner of many a McDonalds snack (Kyle) and a ginormous bag of baby carrots (me.)

By the time I climbed into my sleeping bag and got out my headlamp and book, it was past 11:00 p.m. I passed out hard and woke up unnecessarily early to the sound of my work-schedule phone alarm. We mutually decided on silencing the offender with the snooze button. After packing up, we set out just after 7 a.m.

I hadn't skied the Avalanche Glacier Headwall before, and Kyle professed that either it or the White Salmon would be excellent alternatives to the Southwest Chutes (both of which I was interested in skiing), so we set out with the plan to ski either of those dependent on any conditions we could ascertain on the way up.

We opted for a walk up the South "climb" route as the approach (with the standard variation of approaching via the Crescent glacier for part of the climb, which was enjoyable skinning,) both because of a consistent lenticular and me having been sick. Both of us, too, I think were in the mood for a really straight-forward approach.

Nearly at the lunch counter, I hurled into a blue bag. Then, we had an enjoyable, late-breakfast stop at the lunch counter proper, where both of us decided to throw on our headphones and hike at our own speeds, rejoining one another at Piker's Peak.

At Piker's Peak, we had another little break and a nice passerby snapped a couple of photos of us together. Music and cardio had woken me up so I was finally stoked to be climbing. We proceeded to the summit as the lenticular lowered. While visibility was essentially nil near the summit itself, the popularity of the route had left an incredibly obvious bootpack and deep glissade track-- neither of which required especial sleuthing to follow.

We clicked into our sliding tools while the warm wind swept us, and dropped back towards the col between Piker's and the summit proper. Conditions were firmish but not challengingly so, just a bit of windboard and the occasional choppiness underfoot created by hundreds of since-frozen steps.

Just as we reached the col, we found ourselves below the lenticular cloud and on smooth, creamy corn snow. Scha-weeet!

We cranked the tuneage and dropped onto the headwall. It was phat, and the run much too short-lived. I whooped and hollered, milking the smooth hero-snow. Between the excellent slope inclination and perfect conditions, it was a super-fun line.

After all too quick a descent, we traversed out near 7k, stopping in the shade to take advantage of a flowing trickle of snowmelt, chill and eat our food (we way overpacked in the sustenance department), and enliven ourselves for the walk out with a large helping of iced starbucks via.

In conclusion: yum, yum. excellent snow; nice way to mix it up from the standard SW chutes ski.

Mistakes I won't make in the future: not paying attention in the a.m. & putting my boot liners in the wrong boots (not like it really matters, they're so big anyway, but blisters ensued).

Kyle's write up is available on the FA site: http://blog.firstascent.com/2011/08/04/kyle-miller-transitions-from-winter-powder-to-summer-corn-on-mt-adams-in-24-hours/