Home > Trip Reports > June 22-23,2006, South Route, Mt.Adams

June 22-23,2006, South Route, Mt.Adams

6/22/06
WA Cascades West Slopes South (Mt Rainier)
3594
6
Posted by Telemon on 6/26/06 2:31pm
I have just returned from a 4 day-3 volcano ski trip, so some of this information is a little dated. Nick-BC, Peter (Nick's friend from Ontario), and myself left Fort Langley at 7:00 Thursday morning. We had planned on a 7 hour journey to Adams, following Highway 5 to Oregon and then coming up to Trout Lake from the south. Unbeknown to us the last snow dam on FSR23 had jut been cleared, meaning we could have taken the shorter and more scenic route from Randle.

  Unfortunately too, the snow bur ms just before Morrison Creek Campground still presented an obstacle for my Explorer and we were forced to park there. Several trucks had managed to make it up to 4,700' where a number of large snow walls still existed. The road was essentially fee of snow until Cold Springs, so we walked in our ski boots to there. We still could not find continuous snow to ski on until 5,700'. We decided to camp in the Timberline Campground area (6,260') just to the east of the main track heading up Adams. There appeared to b less than a dozen people on the mountain as we settled in for a pleaant evening.

  We left camp at 6:30, following tracks that led to the western edge of South Butte, where we had to remove our skis to clear an exposed rock ridge. The only other spot that we could not ski through was the eastern side of the Lunch Counter (9,060'). We had brought crampons for the last few hundred feet below Pikers Peak,but  we were able to continue to the top on our skis. However, once on top of the false summit we were faced with a dilemma. Our original intention was to tele down the South-west Chutes, but it was already 1:00, none of us had ever summitted Adams with skis, we had just heard reports that the RTM trail was an unpleasant experience and just a little apprehension regarding abilities was slipping into the equation.

  Maybe skiing the South Route is routine and unexciting for Adams veterans, but we had a great 6,000' run down. The highlight was probably the fabulous corn on skier's left dropping off of Pikers Peak, but we really did not have bad snow anywhere, just heavier in the lower elevation. We returned by way of the Crescent Glacier, found our tent, packed up and managed to ski to just above Cold Springs by staying off of the trail. What a difference a day had made, as there was now nearly 2 dozen vehicles at 4,700'. I would venture to guess that the road will be free of snow to Cold Springs this coming weekend. It will be a zoo, but you will not have to walk the extra 6 miles that we had to endure.    On to Mount Hood.
Nice TR, telemon! You were probably following some of our tracks from last week down the chutes! A great run... much better than that shot we did off Herman's saddle earlier this year!

was there on the same dates.  opted for the south face as well.  i have been riding the SW Chutes several times each season for a number of years.  the south face tends to get sun cupped- looked like vanilla ice cream.... sweet corn cream
hope you did not get chased by the dogs that the couple had and had no control over.... worst example of dogs outside i have ever seen.

We met the unruly dogs on our way in, around 5,900'. Dogs generally don't scare me and when I called to them, they seemed confused, but continued to bark at us. All the while, their owners were yelling them to stop. Not a positive experience if you have problems with dogs in the backcountry.

same dogs
they actually both turned around and chased me - had to stop concerned they would get in my turns

  I have narrowed my photos from this trip down to a relative few. They can be found at http://gallery.telemen.ca/main.php?g2_itemId=1893

Enjoy,

Bob

Yes it was a great trip with excellent snow and convivial company.  We'll have to make it an annual event

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june-22-23-2006-south-route-mt-adams
Telemon
2006-06-26 21:31:38