What's great about Adams is its pretty straightforward - no technical climbing, no crevasses to dodge, no knife-edge ridges where one misstep could take you 3000 feet off a cliff face, no roping up. Basically, if you're in good enough shape and feel comfortable on crampons and with an ice axe in your hands, then you're good to go.
We piled in the car after work on Thursday, hitting the road by 8pm after a few errands. We arrived at the 5,000 ft-elevation trailhead at 2:00am, donned our headlamps, and hit the dusty trail 30 mins later. 7,000 feet of climbing over 6 miles put us on top at about 10:30am. After soaking up the views, we basically ran back down the mountain and were in the car headed home at 5pm on the dot.
It felt good to do this. The entire way, I was unsure if I would make it. Relentlessly steep terrain, thin air, a bit of altitude-induced nausea and headache, and just straight-up difficulty made me uncertain if I would reach the top. But I allowed myself as much time as I needed, and told myself that if I just keep putting one foot in front of the other, I would finally get there.
And I did! And my compatriots? They did too!
Very first light, about 4am. By that time, we were already getting up on the mountain's flanks.
We followed the dusty trail, then a rock-ridge until finally we had to get on the snow fields. Here we are getting on the upper reaches of the Crescent Glacier.
Yours truly in the morning light with what's left of the near-full moon. Mt Hood is becoming visible in the distance.
Tristan and me coming up the snowfield. That grey line in the sky is Mt Adams' shadow being cast as the sun comes up on the other side - CRAZY!
Summit offerings on top of the little lookout.
The team of four mountaineers.
All the victorious mountaineers at the summit.
From the top, you could see nine Cascade volcanoes - a distance of about 400 miles total!
Mt Adams!
