We got the band back together from Ecuador for a trip to Washington. Our initial plan was to spend three days climbing Glacier Peak, but as the weather often does in the Pacific Northwest we were forced to go with our backup.
We would spend the next two Saturdays on two of Washington's famous stratovolcanoes; Mount Adams and Mount Baker. Both are part of the Cascade Range, a 1,200-mile range of volcanoes from British Columbia to northern California.
It was looking very likely that we would hike out, set up camp in the rain, and then have to turn around without summiting Glacier Peak. While the forecast still looked wet and cold Mount Adams looked achievable in a single day so we opted for that instead.
Adams is a 12,281ft stratovolcano in the Cascade Range in southern Washington. We took off from North Bend and made our way down to Adams Saturday afternoon. It is quite the haul and we made it to the trailhead around 9:30pm after stopping at Trout Lake Hall for dinner and beers (awesome spot).
The four of us slept a few hours in the Land Cruiser before our 1am wake up call. We made some pour over coffees in the parking lot and hit the trail around 2:25am. It was feeling pretty cold and windy standing around the lot boiling water but we warmed up as we made our way up the trail towards the snowline.
The first few miles on the southern route were a breeze but slowly the trail started to steepen. We strapped on our crampons and made our way up the snowpack as the sun began to rise ahead of us. There was virtually no crevasses risk on Mount Adams so we left the ropes and harnesses at home.
ABOVE: Our climb up Mount Adams, the first view of the summit, and a view from the summit of Mount Rainier poking through the clouds
We made our way up the snow with the help of a nice bootpack and after several hours we had stairclimbed our way up to the false summit.
It was pretty windy and a bit chilly but the weather had held off for us so far. We were alone for the entire ascent. While moving I felt perfectly warm with my glove liners, base layers, and fleece.
Just across the traverse was the true summit. Roughly 45 min later we had the summit to ourselves and enjoyed a beautiful view of Mount Rainier to the north. Popping in and out of the clouds you could just make out Mount Hood and Mount Saint Helens to the south and west. The wind really picked up at the summit and I had to bury my hands in my warmer gloves after taking them out for some photos. We got lucky and had blue skies up top despite the horrible blizzard-looking weather forecast. We guessed the actual temperature was high teens/low twenties with 20/25mph winds.
We trudged back down, enjoyed our day old burritos, and glissaded some sections towards the bottom of the mountain. Overall navigation up and down was pretty straightforward. In total we climbed a little over 7,000 feet across 11.5 miles. We returned to the car at 2:25pm, 12 hours after our departure. 7 hours up to the summit and 5 hours back down.
The following weekend we set our sights on Mount Baker, another stratovolcano in the Cascades that reaches 10,876ft. The previous May I had spent 6 nights on Baker for a mountaineering course. We were relentlessly rained and snowed on and were unable to summit due to the weather and poor visibility, so I was excited to get another shot.
We took off Friday evening and arrived to a busy trailhead parking lot around 8:30pm. My last visit to Mount Baker we had to park about 3 miles back from the trailhead due to the snow cover, so we were already off to a much better start. We ate our Jersey Mike's subs, had a beer, got packed, and fell asleep in the van.
We slept a little later than initially intended but it’s pretty difficult to get out of the comfort of the sprinter van. Even standing around the trailhead in the middle of the night the weather was very warm and I opted to start in a sun shirt and skip the base layers. Pack weight with all the climbing gear, camera, and 2.5L of water was probably about 30/35lbs. We hit the trail just after 3am and made quick work out of the first 3 miles or so.
We dropped our approach shoes in a bush and switched over to the alpine boots just before we started up the ridgeline. The profile and topography of the hike (up to the glaciated sections) really reminded me of Mount Saint Helens. It took me a minute to recognize landmarks and the trail since my previous experience on the mountain was completely covered in snow and low cloud cover. It’s remarkable how much snow melts off the mountain between early May and late June.
ABOVE: Three images from my climb on Mount Baker the previous May.
We roped up for the last couple hours of the climb as we made our way through the large chunks of ice.
There was really only a single, hardly opened crevasse we needed to hop over. There were loads of guided groups and skiers on the mountain, a very different experience from our isolation on Adams the previous weekend. Navigation was very straightforward and the only real steep part was the section before the summit traverse.
The weather started rolling in as we approached the summit and we were in a white out for about 20 minutes. Around 10:45am we made it to the top, took in a bit of what we could see through the clouds, and started making our way back down.
The clouds parted as we made it to the base of the glacier and we hiked down in the full heat of the sun. The soft snow was a relief on the knees. Even though on paper this is a slightly harder climb than Adams, it felt much much easier. I think the terrain, soft snow, and weather all contributed.
Austin skied so he beat Kaitlyn down by several hours. A note to ski these mountains next time around. In total we climbed 7.500ft over 14.5 miles and took us 14 hours.
