Mount Adams, known by some Native American tribes as Pahto or Klickitat, is the second tallest peak in Washington, standing at 12,281ft.
I started the expedition to the summit on Friday May 19 at 7PM and finished on Saturday May 20 at 4PM. The trip took about 21 hours total. At this time, the access road was still snow-packed, so I had to park several miles from the South Climb trailhead at around 4,500 ft. With that said, the sun seemed to be actively melting the snow during the day.
I left the parking lot at 7PM and walked about 10 miles up to 7,900 ft. At around 2 AM, I noticed a significant lighting storm + some potential UFO activity higher up on the mountain and decided to rest on some lava rocks until 4 AM. I resumed my journey and arrived at the "lunch counter" area around 6 AM, as the sun was rising. The "lunch counter" is a lava rock field at approximately 9,500 ft, which is a good spot to rest and have a snack.
From there, I continued up the mountain to Pikers Peak around 11,600 ft. This was another good spot to take a break before ascending to the true summit at 12,381 ft. I spent roughly 15 minutes at the summit before descending down the mountain. The weather made for some good glissading conditions. There were nice opportunities to glissade from the true summit and from Pikers Peak.
Although I ended up glissading a bit too far down the western face of the mountain, this made for an awesome and exhausting experience. I had to hike through some wilderness and do some rogue climbing to get back on to the path around the South Climb trailhead and access road.
On Saturday, I clocked about 22 miles of hiking, and according to my Apple Health data, the total distance of the hike was roughly 32 miles over the course of two days.
Even with the challenging weather conditions and the long distance of the hike, climbing Mount Adams was an amazing experience!