Skiing from the summit of 3 Northwest Volcanoes is on my 30 Before 30 list. Skiing 12-consecutive months is also on my list. Having already skied from the summit of Helens (in May) and skied from Muir on Rainier (In June), I departed Seattle on July 6 with the goal of skiing from Summit of Mt. Adams! We had some scheduling issues with the trip so only 2 of the group of 4 that were planning to go could make it. But Ryan and I made it work – when the mountain calls, you just gotta GO!

To get to Adams, you drive to Portland, head east through Hood River, then back north into Washington state, where Mt. Adams lives. It’s kind of round about, but hey, it works. We left Seattle at the crack of 9am on Friday, hit up the REI in Portland to procure some supplies sans sales tax, and made it to the parking lot by 3:30pm. The mountain looked stunning on our drive up.

Mount Adams

The weather was quite nice so we stripped down, making sure to apply plenty of bug spray. Stupid mosquitoes.

Ski Boots and Short Shorts. Oh and a 40lb pack.

We left Cold Springs parking lot at 5,500′ around 4pm and followed the boot pack/skin track up the standard route to Lunch Counter at 9,000′. You can see our route outlined on the summit certificate here.

Bugs already attacking me

Ryan and Zee Mooountain

We got a pretty late start, but weren’t too concerned. Conditions were stable and we had plenty of light. With a few breaks, we were able to make it to Lunch Counter in about 4 hours.

Me blazing a trail

Snowscapes

There’s some rocks in that snow!

At one point we had to take off our skis and scramble down a scree field, losing about 100′ of elevation. ‘Doh! Navigational fail. Overall though, the route was pretty straight forward, and we were awarded with a stunning sunset when we finally gained Lunch Counter!

Helens in the distance

Dusky Adams

My Fave of the bunch!

We took the obligatory “camp” photo, dumped our packs and began the search for running water. After some wandering, water was discovered and we siphoned off about 7 litres and headed back to camp. 

The aforementioned “camp” photo

In keeping with traditional gender roles, Ryan cooked and I set up camp. We happily gorged on our curry chicken before tucking Grandpa Max in and hitting the hay ourselves. The alarm was set for 4:30am and needed our beauty sleep!

Mmmm.foood

One last little video – Ryan bought a GoPro in Portland, so we tested it out at camp. Here is video of Lunch Counter (with a cameo by Gpa Maximus).