Mt. Adams Climb 2009

Valerie and the kids were kind enough to let me go on yet another adventure this summer that I have been training for for some time. Having climbed Mt. St. Helens a couple of months back and sitting on the summit there with Joe Urvina and Gordon Wilde, we looked to the east and saw, 50 or so miles away, the much larger Mt. Adams looming above the cloud cover. It was then that I decided that I wanted to climb that one too before the summer was over.

While St. Helens sits at 8,365 ft., Mt. Adams is almost 4,000 ft. higher at nearly 12,300. Which meant that there would be some different challenges to deal with in regards to elevation (lack of oxygen in the air) as well as the possibility for fluctuating weather conditions, etc.

Anyhow, I left out Tacoma home at around 2:00pm on Friday and drove south east through Morton and Randle and at the advice of my car GPS took Forest Service Rd. #23 following signs south toward Trout Lake, WA.

The road was beautiful as it wound through the woods. I was really enjoying putting my little Audi TT through the paces as I was the only soul out there for miles. Eventually, the two paved lanes became one paved lane, odd but I pressed on. Then, I got to a sign that said “End of Paved Road”. Hmm… that wasn’t so good. I was winding though the mountains four-wheel-drive style over the washboard road in my little car. I’m not sure my car will ever forgive me. I had GPSs falling off the windshield, the glove box flying open, etc, etc as I drove. Occasionally, I would come by someone camping off the road with their big truck or Jeep and they would just stare at me as I drove past.

Along the road though, Mt. Adams finally came in to view off to my left.

Eventually, the road became pavement again and I was very happy. I made my way to the Ranger Station in Trout Lake and secured my climbing permit and signed in to the register there. I then headed up to meet Gordon, my climbing partner for this adventure, at Cold Springs Camp. Sorry little car, eight more miles to unpaved rough road to camp.

Gordon had already pitched a tent and had a fire going so we were able to enjoy a pretty relaxing evening until we headed to bed at about 8:30pm. The reason we went to bed so early is that we had to be up at 3:30 am to pack up, eat something and start hiking. We hit the trail at 4:05am lighting our way by headlamp.


We made great time in the early morning and the stars in the sky were incredibly beautiful being so far away from city lights.

As we made our way higher up the mountain, we eventually could see the lights of Hood River, OR and The Dalles, OR far to our south which was also very cool. We became somewhat disoriented a couple of times in the dark as the trail became rougher and harder to follow by headlamp at places but we generally did very well and kept a brisk pace going with very few rests all the way up to a flat section on the mountain called Lunch Counter which I believe is at right around 9,400 ft.


We were at Lunch Counter just after 7:00am and took our first real break to get something to eat and to adjust the clothing layers we were wearing. A lot of people choose to camp at Lunch Counter in order to acclimate to the elevation change so there were scattered tents in the area there although not much was stirring yet that morning.

There is about a 2,000ft. vertical climb heading between Lunch Counter and a false mountain summit called Piker’s Peak which was our next target. By this time of year, a lot of snow had melted out on this portion on the mountain and we were left scrambling up endless boulder fields of loose rock and scree. It was hard to make progress since with each step up, your feet slid a half a step back down. It was killer. We also had to watch footing to make sure not to twist and ankle or knee way up on that mountain. Having to pay so much attention to each step was mentally as well as physically exhausting.

What snow fields did remain on the mountain were now sheets of solid ice with scattered boulders. These fields were definitely not safe for ascent without crampons.

Although we were closely following a waypoint for Piker’s Peak on the GPS, we wandered a bit too far to the right (east) on our way up until we dead-ended at N 46° 11.458 W 121° 29.153 at a rather large crevasse with large cliffs and an ice-wall to our right.

That was a brief detour though as we had to backtrack only slightly and to the west to find the correct route to Piker’s Peak. Once there, we caught our first glimpse of the true summit.

The trail thankfully leveled out and even descended about 200ft. before the final push to the summit which I believe was just shy of 1,000ft. more of climbing ahead of us.We took a rest here to get ready for the final climb.

We did well on this section again. I was surprised how little effect the altitude here was having on me considering that only the day before I was enjoying the thick air of sea-level at home.

Gordon and I had the whole summit to ourselves during our time there. We arrived at 10:35am, exactly 6.5 hours after we had left camp.


While there we refueled and yet again changed layers of clothes to match the conditions. The views were not great from the summit as clouds had been chasing up the mountain behind us all morning as we climbed and we were now surrounded by fog and a swirling cloud layer. We stayed long enough to snap a couple of pictures up there, find the two geocaches in the area to be logged and started our descent.

Heading down was by far the worst part of the trip for me. I had hoped to glissade having read of great 10 minute descents from Piker’s Peak all the way to Lunch Counter but it was impossible with the lack of snow. We again were on the boulder fields stumbling (several butt-falls) and picking our way back to Lunch Counter. Again we had to be on constant alert lest we bust and ankle or badly twist a knee. It took at least a couple of hours to get back down to lunch counter from Piker’s Peak.

Along with the rough terrain, the weather had caught up with us on the way down. We were in some hail and a pretty steady snowfall for quite a while which made the descent even more interesting. Still though, it was never perilously bad weather.

In order to keep our course though, at a couple of places we did have to traverse some steep ice-fields that kept things rather interesting. We stepped very cautiously as we crossed.

We took a final rest at Lunch Counter and made the last push back to camp. We were blessed with sunshine for most of the rest of the way. We arrived back at camp safe and sound 11hrs and 20min after we had departed.

All in all, per my GPS, it was a 14 mile round trip which actually seemed much worse considering the terrain we were working with. We had climbed somewhere over 6,000ft. vertically. It made for an exhausting day but it was a great adventure that I will have to remember for a long long time. I’m already starting to look around at some of the other peaks that might be available to us for next year.

Thanks to my family for letting me go to do cool things like this and thanks to Gordon’s family too for letting me borrow him.