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Mount AdamsSeptember 12, 2010 - East Ridge
G, Bob, and I tried to reach the summit of Mt. Adams in April 2010 but the spring snow conditions presented us with an avi slope but a hundred yards or so from the summit. I knew that when Ed and I returned in September, there would be no similar issue. The route would be familiar and obviously more clear as we would be hiking on the summer trial and not trying to follow the trail cut in deep spring snow on snowshoes.
We took a break at Horn Lake and filled the water bottles for the climb up the broad flank of the mountain to reach the ridge above. This would surely be the worst part of the climb and it proved to be exactly that. Back and forth, first through willows and short headwalls and then on up through the less vegetated higher slopes that offered a talus field here and there as the best means to avoid the scree. We topped the ridge and then made our way west toward the summit. Where the course this past spring had been class 3 and 4 as a result of snow and ice forcing us onto the ridge top proper, now we could traverse the flank of the The summit block proved to be a class 2 climb up a series of grassy ledges that eventually funneled us to a weakness the proved to the class 2+ summit pitch. Once atop, we looked out on the rest of the Sangre de Christo range, knowing that although we were alone on Adams, there folks, probably It took two tries, but I'd scored the summit of Mt. Adams and in the course of doing so had the opportunity to climb the peak in opposite seasons, each of which painted a very different picture of climbing on this high 13'er.
A wintery early April climb of the same route . . .
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