Date: July 21-22, 2010

Team: Me, Charles Muzio

Overview: Yesterday Charles and I climbed Adams via the Adams Glacier. Lots of wind (gusts up to 35 mph at 11,000 ft), but otherwise the conditions were stellar. Great route, great time.

Car-to-car: 32 hours 50 minutes.

TR: We started out from the trailhead at 11am after leaving Seattle at 5:30 am from Queen Anne and then running a bunch of errands including a long stop at Randle post-office to send my mom and girlfriend their B-day presents (thanks again for your patience Charles).

We arrived at the Ranger station at 8am right when they opened to pick up our Cascade Volcano Passes which were to be put on the dash ($10 each for a weekday climb). There was no latenight/early morning pay station that we saw.

The trail was beautifully kept and filled with people on horse-back. Very soon we had glimpses of Adams with our intended route in clear view.

Eventually we hit the junction of the Killen Crest Trail and the PCT. From here we started on continuous snow up and left. We realized on the way down that would could’ve hiked almost directly upward from here through what appeared to be woods and eventually hit camp. However, the leftward traversing route we took was much more obvious as it eventually brought us to a ridge with a trail and cairns.

The snow on the traverse was a little soft, even in the morning, and Charles broke through a couple times. It was kind of a nuisance, but hardly worth noting. Soon it reached the mellow ridge with the trail that traversed around left and up to camp.

I can’t describe how nice camp (6900 ft) was. We arrived at 2pm. Our tent site was carpenter-quality level and smooth, we had running water within a few steps, beautiful views of the route and Helen’s, and there wasn’t a soul in sight our entire stay.

The route we would take the next morning crossed the snow to the moraine then traverse right onto the glacier before hiking further up and right to the right side of the steep part of the route.

We started hiking in the dark at 2:30am. The moraine was loose and sandy, but we were up and onto the glacier before long. We roped up at this point, still in the dark.

By the time we reached the steepening part of the rock (4:30am) the light had started to fill the sky. Charles led us up and past several crevasses as the began to bath Rainier and Helens behind us.

Like many climbs, I think this one really changes per season and through the season. We must have been on it during one of it’s better times, but there were no more than a rope’s length of truly steep (40 degree) snow. That said, where the snow was steep it was firm enough that Charles placed the screws rather than pickets. Some hard snow/ice can be seen in the photo below.

Our entire ascent, clouds were streaming up the north ridge and eventually socked us in.

After the truly steep section, we reached a point where the slope mellowed out enough that we could both stand securely and rest our calves. This was followed by a quite large, gaping crevasse that hard a snow bridge I though twice about before crossing. I first considered climbing the much steeper wall, but it was corniced on top and otherwise pretty vertical so my better judgement prevailed.

The fall line directly below the ice wall.

Before heading to the true summit we climbed up to the the Pinnacle.

It was pretty darn close to the height of Adams proper and it wasn’t until Charles whipped out the GPS that we realized we were only on a local high-point and not the true Summit…oops. Sorry again Charles, I take full responsibility for that little detour.

The half mile mellow slog up and left brought us to the incredibly windy, true summit where we met some climbers who had approached from the south side.

We left the summit at about 11:30am and made a bee line for Rainier (the direction of the north ridge descent route). Before long we ran into what would be one of many many bivy sites.

The descent started on snow, obviously.

Then hit scree, with patches of snow in between. The scree had a wet, sand base so it was really loose.

We kept to the ridge the entire way down dropping right (east) only when we saw nice snow slopes. There were nice views of the route.

Some of the descent involved more solid rock. I wouldn’t call it “technical” per se, but there were parts where I used my hands.

Some of the bivies we encountered were downright homey. I wanted to live there and never have to continue down on the chossy pumice pile. Charles kept us going though because he would get to stiff if we stopped for too long.

The descent follows the true north ridge until hitting a much mellower grade slope (8100 ft) that turns left (west) toward camp. We saw some goats here. We took this down just right of the large tarn then traversed right around the snow slope before continuing around it to the left and down to camp.

We returned to camp at 4pm. We knew we had a long way back to Seattle so we were packed and headed down by 4:35pm. We decided to go directly north from camp, which saved us a little time, but involved finding our way through some thin patches of trees. Once back at the PCT-Killen Creek junction we somehow went right and only after about a half hour and 300 feet of descent did we realize we were on the wrong trail. It was pretty rough on morale but we were back up to the junction before too long. So word to the wise, don’t go right/straight when you see the PCT sign…stay left as clearly marked.

Gear Notes: Two pickets and two ice screws each. We didn’t use the pickets at all; where the snow was soft-enough that we could’ve we didn’t feel the need to.

More Photos: Picasa

All TRs: Climbing