On the first weekend of this month, Melvin, Anne, and I took a trip out to Mt. Adams for a day hike to the summit. For the most part, Mt. Adams is done either as a 2-day summit or a day hike. We arrived at the trailhead campground Friday evening and tried to get as much shuteye as possible. An early alarm of 3:30 AM got us up and moving. The hike itself was pretty fun. We reached lunch counter at a pretty good clip(took about 2 hours). Lunch counter is a camp area for those pursuing a 2-day summit. Seeing all the tents was pretty sweet. We had enough daylight at this point to take off the headlamps we were wearing.
From lunch counter, we hit the real ascent through the snowfields. We had ice axes with us, but no crampons. This was my first time using an ice axe and Melvin gave me some short lessons in how I should use it. Very well appreciated, but its very tempting to do something ridiculous and stupid with something as cool looking as an ice axe. Very tempting, indeed....
It was another brutal 4 hours of climbing until we finally reached the summit. Upon reaching the Mt. Adams summit, we also reached another summit of emotional disappointment. The recent heat wave that blasted the Pacific NW has encapsulated all the emissions and smog from the surrounding areas. The views were less than spectacular with the brown smog clouding up Mt. Rainier and Mt. St. Helens. The smog and haze completely obscured Mt. Hood and the range moving south(Jefferson and Sisters). But regardless, we made it to the top and were thankful for that.
We rushed down by glissading through most of the snow field. Unlike the nice plush soft glissading chutes at Mt. Rainier's Muir Snowfield, there were plenty of times when the chutes turned into hard rock and ice. It was painful at times and added to the let down of the summit. Glissading is one of the best rewards for doing an arduous climb up a snow field. This reward was snatched away and left us crying. Our frozen tears did nothing to comfort us.
I had borrowed my roommate's rollup sled to try down the chutes. Bad idea. I had zero control. The sled just goes way too fast and rockets out from under you. The sled goes one way, I go the other way, and unfortunately my ice axe finds itself somewhere else. I end up at Melvin's feet and look up at his disapproving face shaking left and right. Shame sets in. It still didn't stop me from having some fun with the ice axe though. The worst possible way to self-arrest is to do it like in "Cliffhanger". A power driven lunge and slamming the ice axe into the snow/ice like a hammer was too much fun.
Eventually we made it all the way down and now we can check Mt. Adams off of the list.
