After climbing Mt. Rainier last September, I wanted to climb more, but I wanted to start on something that I could handle without a guide. Probably where I should have started to begin with. When I climbed Rainier, my brother Matt mentioned a couple of times that he would have been interested in climbing Rainier with me, that he had friends who could have showed us the way, etc. So this time around, I invited Matt to climb Mt. Adams and Mt. Hood with me. As the date drew very near, Matt let me know that he wasn't going to be able to take off more than two or three days of work for the trip. I sent Matt a couple of videos of the routes up Mt. Hood, which are pretty intimidating, and he decided that he only wanted to climb Mt. Adams at that point. That's the backstory.
On June 5, I flew to Portland at about 9pm, rented a car, drove to a really nice neighborhood on a hill west of downtown (Kings Heights?), parked the car pointing downhill, pulled down the backseats, and slept in the backseat/trunk of the car. I think it was a Malibu. It was spacious enough, but the backseats wouldn't lay flat. In the morning, I had a nice view of the city and Mt. Hood in the distance.
 |
| Portland. |
I ate breakfast at Denny's, did some grocery shopping, then waited for REI to open. I had ordered a JetBoil stove to the Portland REI so I could pick it up there. REI opened, and I picked up the stove and topographical maps of Mt. Adams and Mt. Hood. I wanted to rent boots, crampons, and ice axe at REI, but they only had plastic boots to rent, which would have been overkill and not comfortable for our plans. I went to Mountain Shop instead and got some great gear rented from a guy who seemed overly intent on not telling me what to like or not to like. Please, just give me your much more experienced opinion on what would be best for what I'm about to do. Made the breathtaking drive from Portland to Mt. Adams via the Columbia River Gorge and Hood River, Oregon, met Matt there at probably 1pm, and after getting our things straightened out an in Matt's truck, we were on our way around 2pm. We drove up Mt. Adams to probably 1.5 miles of the trailhead before we were stopped by snow on the mountain road. Then we geared up and started walking. We walked through snow essentially the entire way, for about 5 hours. We saw only a handful of other people. Pretty views, nice weather--I don't think it was ever below freezing. We postholed quite a bit toward the end, which was miserable.
 |
| Matt on the way up. Mt. Hood in the distance. |
 |
| Snack break. Maybe halfway to camp. |
We arrived at the Lunch Counter area at about 9pm, set up camp, cooked dinner, melted snow for water, and went to bed around 11pm, as I recall.
 |
| The JetBoil was a literal lifesaver. I boiled probably 6-7 quarts of water for dinner and drinking before the other stove boiled one. |
I woke up at about 5am and melted breakfast water and more drinking water for the day. Matt woke up around 6am, we ate, and we were off around 6:30am. Two thousand feet up, up, up.
 |
| Sunrise. Mt. St. Helens in distance. |
 |
| Our camp in the morning. Matt is getting a head start up the mountain to the right. |
 |
| Starting the long slog to the top of Pikers Peak. |
 |
| Matt somewhere in the middle of the slog. |
 |
| Matt topping out Pikers Peak near the glissade chute. |
Pikers Peak is a false summit. It probably took us four hours of continuous uphill kicking to get to the top. Sometimes the view was a little dizzying, but the steps kicked in with the crampons always felt secure. When we got to the top there was a broad, dipping saddle, and another 1000 vertical feet of mountain. At this point, Matt said he didn't care anymore about summiting. He dropped into the saddle out of the wind and waited for me. I passed through the saddle and methodically kicked my way up to the true summit.
 |
| In the saddle, looking at the true summit. |
 |
| The true summit of Mt. Adams. I'm a speck somewhere in the middle approaching the top. |
 |
| The summit of Mt. Adams. I think there might be an observation hut buried under this mound of snow. |
It took probably an hour from the top of Pikers Peak to get to the summit, and probably thirty minutes to get back down. From the top of Pikers Peak, I glissaded (slid on my rear) 2000 vertical feet back to the foot of the Peak. It was fast, and amazing. And I got totally soaked, because I didn't put on my rain pants. Matt, not a fan of the steep slope and exposure, plunge-stepped his way all the way down. I arrived back at camp probably 45 minutes before him, melted more water, and broke down camp. We hiked out, got lost for a little while, and got back to Matt's truck around 5pm, feeling pretty tired.
 |
| Looking back down on Pikers Peak from the summit. Matt is a speck below the top of Pikers Peak about in the middle. His backpack is a smaller speck probably 20' away from him. |
 |
| The drive back down. |
After Mt. Adams, I drove through Trout Lake, WA. I pulled over by the White Salmon river running through "town," took a short bath in the freezing glacier water, drove to Bingen, WA, ate an entire pizza at a pizza joint, found an RV campground with tent camping right next to railroad tracks, set up my tent, and fell asleep around 8pm. I didn't wake up when the trains went by.
