Feel the Burn 8/15/08

Rarin' To Go!

After climbing St. Helens last year, my dad wanted to target a new objective, something that would give him incentive to train and get in shape for. He chose the south side of Mount Adams, which Liz and I had done several times before. While not a technical climb, it involves an extraordinary amount of physical stamina to lug all your overnight gear up there, camp, and still have the energy to climb the next day.

After several months of training hikes it was a great disappointment when our originally scheduled date was canceled due to the Cold Springs fire. They were predicting that the fire may burn into the fall, so we weren’t really expecting to have another opportunity this season. With the fire still burning but contained, the Forest Service opened the route for climbing on Aug. 1.

August is pretty late in the summer to be doing this trip, but after our disappointment over having our earlier date canceled we decided to take a shot at it. Being so late in the season meant we had to endure hiking on mostly bare rock for the majority of the approach. This part of the trip is much easier when snow covered in spring and early summer.

The plan was for the three of us to hike in on Friday and camp at a spot called the Lunch Counter at ~9,000’ on Mount Adams. We would get up early Saturday and attempt to reach the 12,277’ summit before returning to camp to recuperate before hiking out Sunday morning.

The drive in provided some early excitement. We spotted a group of wild turkeys and a coyote on the road to the trailhead. We also passed through a section of the forest coated with red fire retardant.

This ended up being the hottest weekend of the summer. With record 3-digit temperatures in the valley, it was also sweltering in the mountains. I think this is the first time I’ve slept at 9,000’ and wished I’d left my sleeping bag at home!

The combination of heat and bare rock to deal with made the hike in extra taxing. We were all pretty beat by the time we got to camp and were looking forward to a good night’s sleep to give us the energy needed for summit day. After enjoying a gorgeous sunset, we set our alarms for 5 a.m. and went to bed.

Our View From Camp

After waking up in the morning it was time to assess our energy levels and the route conditions. The route to the summit was largely melted out, which meant steep loose rock instead of nice firm snow. Normally the descent would involve ~2,700’ of glissading, but the glissade chutes were almost totally melted out. This meant our anticipated free ride down would be replaced with an exhausting hike on steep loose terrain. My dad was experiencing some symptoms of altitude sickness, including nausea and loss of appetite, no doubt exacerbated by our exertion in the heat on Friday.

After assessing the poor route conditions and our energy levels we decided the most prudent and enjoyable thing to do would be to relax in the cool morning air and hang out in camp for a while before hiking out.

Camp (Piker's Peak in background)

We had a fun time watching other climbers work their way up the route and trying to guess which way they’d go. We saw several parties searching for alternate routes, which confirmed our suspicion of poor conditions higher up. After a brief nap and some fun with target practice, we headed back down the mountain.

Bombs Away

The hike out was HOT, and we were all very glad to be out of the heat once we reached the car. All in all it was a really fun trip. It would have been nice to summit, but we were all happy with the decision to hike out instead.

-Brad :)