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Home > Travel > Seattle > Mt Adams Key stats:
Iva and I bought a guided hike of Mt Adams at the 2006 Earthcorps auction. Guides aren't needed to climb Mt Adams, but it meant we had to do less planning and gave us a way to contribute to Earthcorps.
The group of friends that had committed to climbing Mt Adams was as high as seven, but ultimately only Van and I made it for the climb. Mike brought along a few friends and several other people from the Earthcorps auction joined our group. Mike's Bernese Mountain Dog, Kofi, came along for her first climb of Mt Adams. When to Climb If you go too early, the road up to Cold Springs is closed or snow-covered - you may have to hike an extra 3 miles and 1000 ft to get to the trailhead. If you go too late, some of the snowfields have melted and glissading on the descent becomes impossible. Mike, our guide and former Earthcorps board member, has climbed Adams every year for at least a decade or two. He always climbs the weekend after July 4th. Tons of people climb Adams the weekend of the 4th, and if the road still has snow there is typically a drivable path to the trailhead. We climbed July 14th. The road to the trailhead was clear and there was plenty of snow on the mountain (although the snowline was a lot higher than in the past). Cold Springs to Lunch Counter (3 hrs) We camped at Cold Springs (no water) the night before the climb and left camp at 6:30AM. The trail wandered through alpine forest and climbed gradually for a few miles. In the early morning, much of this bit was in the shade. The trail went through and up a boulder field and it became hard to follow. There were plenty of giant cairns that showed the general direction of the trail through the boulder field. This area can be snow covered, which would make the traversal far easier.
There were plenty great views of Mt Hood and Mt St Helens along the way up. Lunch Counter is a popular camping area for people making Adams a two day hike. It's also a convenient place to eat an early lunch and rest for the steep climb up to the false summit. Lunch Counter to the Summit (3 hrs)
This was the most memorable section of the climb, but there really isn't much to describe about it. A rest-step at a time, we climbed the steep snow field. The snow was soft and there was no need for crampons. We passed lots of climbers that hadn't quite figured out how to rest-step efficiently. We would occasionally pause to watch other climbers glissading down. At the false summit, we took a long break. Although it was very windy, there were a few exposed rocks that provided reasonable shelter from the wind. I added a water proof outer layer and stashed my pack amongst the rocks and only carried my ice axe, camera and water with me to the summit. The climb from the false summit up to the summit was harder than it looked. We traveled through a slight valley before heading up a steep slope to the summit. Only 600 feet, I found this climb significantly more difficult than the prior slope.
Glissading Down The views from atop Mt Adams were certainly pretty, however it is the glissade down that will bring me back to the mountain. There were a few shorter glissades that sped the descent from the summit to the false summit. These proved to be a nice confidence builder for the giant descent from the false summit to Lunch Counter. We glissaded down 2700 vertical ft to Lunch Counter. Without stopping. It took us 10 to 15 minutes to descend the slope that took us an hour and a half to climb. Over the entire course of our descent, we probably glissaded down 3500'. Despite our waterproof layers, everyone finished the glissading soaked through in a few places. For perspective, Crystal Mountain has a vertical of 3100'. The highest drop in Tahoe is 3500' at Heavenly and the highest in North America is Whistler at 5100'. I can't even begin to describe how much fun this was. On our way up, I didn't see many climbers descend the entire stretch at once. I don't know why, but they definitely missed out on the best part of the climb. The remainder of the descent was hard, as are the last miles of most hikes. We reached the parking lot at 5:30, packed up and headed back to Seattle .
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