6/17, 6am. 6 women (age from 24 to 65) + 2 dogs gathered at Gateway. Drove to Mt Adams ranger station (shown on Google Map as Mt Adams Ranger District), after a coffee and bathroom break. Arrived ~7:50. Problem with a big group: always multiple slow stops. Put $15 cash (or check) in a self registered envelope (in fact the envelope slot was empty). Just as we were chatting and looking all over the front door for envelops, a ranger opened the door and handed us 6 envelopes. The office opened at 8am sharp, where you can change money, and get your "blue bag" if desired.
The logging road FR8040 up to the
South Climbing trailhead (elevation 5555') is in a bad shape, narrow and rutted. High clearance is desired. This is burned forest (
2012 Cascade Creek Fire, lots of charred logs, and one stretch has many timber-for-sale signs. At 9am, this place was filled already. Cars were spilling out down the road. A few tents here. We unloaded our gear close to the TH, and parked the 2 cars way down. Had fun watching Jeeps and Range Rovers trying to go over some slushy snow: all had to turn back. It was slow getting started.
Our goal today is setting up camp at
Lunch Counter (~9300'). Will hike up the last 3000' tomorrow morning to
summit. We started out in considerable cloudiness, but it cleared up in less than 2 hours. We could see Mt Adams and Lunch Counter ahead, Hood behind us, and St Helen to the left (west).
Here's a view looking down to the reddish butte, and the two trajectories. Most people took the left (shorter) one, and I did on the way up, which requires walking over rocks. Since I didn't want to remove crampons, I chose the right route down. It was actually faster. Around here, I marked two tent sites with some trees for protection. Saw a group camping here on our way down. Seems to be a better choice than Lunch Counter today.
As we were approaching Lunch Counter, the weather turned foul. Wind picked up in earnest. It was not easy to find a site on this crowded Saturday (with the promise of a sunny weekend). The 6 of us each brought our own tent, but we ended up setting up only 4. I was lucky. I randomly asked two guys heading down where they camped. They just packed up their tent about 50 yard up. I found it. Didn't need to shovel the ground. More rocks on the side. The left tent in the photo is mine. This was taken Sunday morning just past 6am, before I took it down. To the right is Jessica's tent. In the middle is a tent of 2 guys we don't know. They were there before us. While I was taking time to pitch my tent, saw a helicopter flying over us and out. After I pitched my tent in the wind, we went down to look for the last 2 ladies of our group with their dogs. By then, it was white out, visibility less than 10m. The wind was strong enough that it was difficult to stand straight, and the ice kicked up by the wind hit my face like little rocks. My left leg was cramping up when I pulled on my boots. I also punched a hole in my tent with my crampon, and broke my hiking pole. All within 5 minutes of each other. A bad sign. Duct taped the hole. Got out of the tent twice to fasten the stakes and the fly with rocks and ice axes. Stayed put in the tent for the rest of the night: from 6:30pm till 6am. Around 6pm, Tomoko walked to my tent and informed me that people on both sides of her tent decided to uproot and go down, and asked if I were okay to stay the evening. I said yes.
The wind got worse in the night. The zipper of my rainfly's opening was constantly un-zipped by the wind. That side of the tent was too close to rocks, that I couldn't stake it down (the other side was secured by a big rock, which was scratched and ripped with a couple of holes by the rock). Drizzled at night. The water and ice knocked out of the rock wall fell on my tent, smaller snow/ice blown in through the mesh. Everything in the tent is quite wet. I took my boots inside, after I found my fly door completely open. My socks that were hung in the tent were completely wet. I wrung water off my socks and took into my sleeping bag. Fortunately the night wasn't too cold, maybe around 40°F. My sleeping bag was dry down, so I was dry inside the bag. My 3-season tent held out. A few lessons here:
I should pile snow on the rock to seal the holes between the rocks.
I should make ice walls on other sides that had no rocks.
I should bring snow stakes instead of regular tent stakes.
Snow-bag may work better than rocks in securing tent stakes (one of mine got pulled out by the wind under a rock).
I should bring guy lines to tighten up the rain fly.
I should probably bring another pad to block the mesh of my tent on the windward side.
All through the night, I was worried that my tent would break. I was planning on moving into Tomoko's 4-season 2p tent if mine collapsed. Unbeknownst to me, her tent behaved worse: a puddle formed in the middle of her tent as early as 6pm.
6/18, Sunday. Wind was a bit less strong. At 6am, I heard women's voice. Still plenty wind that I couldn't hear what they were saying. Later, Becky came by my tent, and informed me that Tomoko had to go down, as she was drenched, may even suffer from hypothermia, because of her tent. So, Jess, Becky (in the same tent) and I packed up, and were ready to go down. None of us had heart to wait out for the promised sunny weather. The two guys who camped between our tents wanted to walk out with us because they'd never seen whiteout before. So we waited for them to pack up. The visibility wasn't as bad, maybe 20m now. We went down to find Susan and Yutki. They were packed up. So our group hiked down together in the mist. There were still some tents left, most were gone.
On the way down, I, again, randomly asked two women who were also going down, if they camped lower, and whether it was less windy, because they were carrying day packs. They said they camped at the trailhead, and started hiking at 3am. They turned back at Lunch Counter, because of the wind. Around 9am, we were out of whiteout. Around 9:30am, we could see blue sky ahead of us, but Lunch Counter was still hiding in the clouds. We were off track, according to Susan's GPS map. Saw quite few dropping piles like this (as a comparison, that's my foot). Any idea what kind of animal? I glissaded a couple of short sections without taking off my crampons (a big No-No).
Around 10am, it was almost clear. By then, I got separated from my group, following a ski track. When I saw these lava piles, I realized that I was lost. I didn't download the GPS map. Luckily, I have offline Google map for WA , and it has this Mt Adams climbing trail. I was about 1 mile from the road, and 1/4 mile from the trail at the 90° angle. So I decided to walk straight to the road. The good thing about a burnt forest is few undergrowth, easy to hike cross country. I walked on the road to the TH, and waited there, setting my boots and socks out on the logs to dry. Saw Tomoko first when she was heading up the trail to look for us. she was relieved to see me. 15 minutes later, the other 4 hiked out.
All is well that ends well. Got home early, did laundry and promptly went to sleep.
Here is a trip report of someone who were on the slope the same Saturday. They gave up setting up their tents at Lunch Counter and skied out the same day.
Went to check out Fraser Pacific Rose Society's Centennial Rose Garden. Happened onto a local tournament of lawn bowling. The rose garden is very small, even though it's in full bloom now, still it doesn't take many minutes to walk around the small plot. Ended up standing in the shading and watching the senior citizen's in their games, and in their patriotic white and red outfit. A lady came to me and asked if I had any questions about the game. She then showed me the difference of the balls, the basic rules. After one of the lanes were done by the game participants, she let us roll the balls a few times. Mine goes out wobbling.
