July 2 - 4, 2006, :: Mount Adams South Route

So, I unexpectedly had a long weekend at work yay!  Josh and I contemplated where to go and what to do.  I've been wanting to check Adams out so we decided to make a leisurely trip out of it.  We left Seattle around noon on Sunday and drove down to Cold Springs campground where spent a pleasant night by the fire drinking some beers. 

As we were preparing to hit the trail on Monday we noticed that we had left one set of ski poles at home.  So, off we went in search of some poles.  I thought on the way in I saw a mountaineering store in Trout Lake, come to find it is new and doesn't open until August 1st.  The lovely lady at the general store directed us into Hood River where we found some poles.  Yay!  So, back to the trailhead and hiking  by noon-30.  We were able to begin skinning just past the round the mountain trail until we found camp around 8500'.  Where we had a lovely relaxing afternoon and an awesome sunset.  Until we noticed the totally spectacular lightening off to our south & east. It was very active and we even saw it strike a fire at least once.    My totally lacking weather skills said, most weather fronts move west to east so we have nothing to worry about.  Boy, was I wrong.  We were woken up by thunder a bit past midnight and found ourselves in the middle of the storm clouds.  Where we wondered where is the safest place to be? Outside?  In the tent?  Where?  Fortunately, no bone sizzling lightening was personally encountered.  Although it was very worrysome.  Eventually the storm blew over and we were back to sleep. 

The morning dawned sunny and clear; up around 7am and off by 8:30.  Later than we had planned, but with the interrupted sleep what could we do?  The mountain was rather quite today.  Maybe a dozen other people or so on the route & summit.  We skinned all the way till the steepest part under the false summit where we shouldered our gear and walked the final pitch.  Since it was our plan to just slide down the south route we abandoned our gear at the false summit for the final plod to the top. As luck would have it as we neared the top the clouds rolled in and we were in white out.  So much for the views.  By the time we arrived back at the false summit the weather had cleared and we had an excellent although a bit heavy and grabby ride back to our campsite.  Where we packed it up and continued our snowboard out.  All in all an excellent way to spend the 4th!