I always enjoy reading what Bob has put to paper after doing a climb. Below is his journal including his pre-trip and Mt. Hood accounts since it works in with Adams well and it's fun to read.
In July of 2001 I had myself a little vacation. The year before my Uncle Gary had invited me to go on a mountaineering trip with him. I accepted, and we managed to bag a couple mountains. It was good, I had fun, and I swore that I would never do it ever again! The blister scars on the back of my heels, where my boots rubbed a quarter inch of flesh from my foot, are a testament to how painful climbing a mountain can be.
A hair over a year later though, I found myself at the foot of the mountain that tore me up so royally, ready to go again. What can I say, I am a sucker for punishment. It all started July 5th. The odyssey I was about to embark on did not start in the snowy hills, but in a muggy hot Wisconsin weekend. You see, in my typical fashion to complicate just about anything, I managed to get roped into being the best man at my best friend's wedding on the very same month of the proposed adventure. So everything started on a lonely drive up to cheese land. Not to make a long story longer, I hung out, performed some damn fine best manly duties, danced with a bridesmaid, and in general had a fine, fine time.
The reason I go into all this detail (other then the fact that it amuses me) is that the kicker of this fine situation is my flight time. The day after the wedding is the day the climbing crew meets up in Seattle, WA. Now for my geographically incapacitated friends, Wisconsin to Washington is a bit of trip... we are talking middle of the country to the coast baby. So it is not exactly small potatoes getting a good flight. Well, my flight left my hometown of Champaign, IL at 9:30 in the morning. It is a four hour drive from Milwaukee to Champaign. Reception ends at Midnight. A whole day spent preparing for a wedding, the wedding, a groovy reception...these all add up to a groggy Bobby. Tack on a 4 hour drive and I was DEAD.
Cut to about 2 in the afternoon on Sunday. I was in Seattle and the real fun was about to begin. Once I arrived in Seattle I was picked up by my cousin, aunt, and uncle. My cousin moved to Seattle from Chicago a few days earlier. His mom was there to, helping to drive his stuff out to Seattle. And so our little climbing party was finally assembled.
Uncle Gary was by far the most experienced climber of the group. He had been climbing for years, and he was the driving force in getting us all together. My cousin Chris, Gary’s son, was the second person in the group. Chris is a little older then me, but not by much. I've got to admit, Chris intimidates me a bit when it comes to this sort of thing. my cousin was probably in the best shape of all of us, and in last year’s climbs, he was always leaving the rest of us far behind.
And of course there was also little old me on the trip. In college I did quite a bit of backpacking, and a fair amount of rock climbing. But college was a year ago, and you can slip quite far in a year. Believe me. So bad! The goal for this trip was Mt. Rainier. Last year we had driven by the mountain, and ogled it and said..."See that thar mountain? We’re gonna climb it." Or at least something to that effect.
First things first though, and before we could even think about Rainier, we had to do some warmups. Without getting to a high elevation and acclimatizing to the lower air pressure, we would have no chance on Rainier. And for the warmup, our sites were aimed at Mt. Hood in Oregon. Now, I climbed Mt. Hood last year as the main climb after a long trip. This year it was only the warm up. Considering Mt. Hood kicked my butt last year, leaving me gimping around for weeks afterward, I was beginning to wonder why I signed on. And strangely enough.... we jammed up it. Hood no problem! I felt really good most of the time up the mountain. Perhaps it was being more mentally prepared from last year, but it turned out to be a pretty fun climb.
The climb itself was interesting though. In the North West part of the country it had been unusually warm and there had been little snowfall. So all the peaks in the area were more bare then usual. The hike up Mt. hood was actually hot! Every now and then this uncomfortable warm breeze would go through the canyon and up the mountain. Because of the warmth, that meant the snow was not going to firm up very well which is bad news. The reason mountaineers wear the spiked crampons on the bottom of their boots is to easily walk on the ice that forms on top of the snow on the mountain. But with this warm weather the snow was not getting that hard, so the WHOLE way up our boots were sinking into the snow making the climb that much more difficult. Also because of this we had to start the climb incredibly early. Or late, depending how you look at it. Last year we left at midnight. This year we left at 9 in the FREAKIN' EVENING! That was kind of ridiculous. But we had to get to the top of the mountain where all the crevasses, or cracks in the ice were when the snow was at its hardest. This way the snow bridges that go over these cracks would be less likely to collapse and plunge us into them while we crossed. And because of this fact, the climb on Mt. Hood was the most technical assent I have done. There was actually a real danger of falling into crevasses, and some real thought was required.
So it was a long and difficult day of climbing, but we all made it to the top and down in one piece. And we actually avoided 2nd degree sunburn, starvation, and dehydration! Already ahead of the game compared to last year. Because of timing issues we decided it would be best to tackle Mt. Adams second. Mt. Adams is taller then Mt. Hood and requires hiking up the first day with full packs and making a high camp. Actually it doesn't require it, we found many climbers that just slogged the whole thing in one brutal day. I personally enjoyed taking our time and hiking up the first day though, because the area was beautiful and it was a nice change of pace in my opinion. Still, we WERE hiking up a few thousand feet with full packs. With food and water they were all easily over 40 pounds. I am not sure about the exact weights, but my Uncle probably won the prize for heaviest pack on the second ascent.
It took quite a while, but we all made it to the high camp which was a hair over 9000 feet. This was interesting camping because all around were these little rock walls. Apparently each rock wall is a campsite. You pitch the tents inside the boundary of the wall, and the wall prevents the winds at altitude (which can whip quite hard) from collapsing your tent. Not bad! So we selected a dandy of a wall and made camp.
After a night of melting snow and checking gear the next day we began the ascent. Thank god we were able to leave at sunrise as opposed to 9 at night. So after an hour of eating breakfast and checking gear we were off. ascending Mt. Adams was not too bad. We had already done most of the work the day before so we did not have as far to go up this day as we had for Mt. Hood. Also the slope managed to stay a pretty constant grade which was not too bad. In fact many of the people going up this mountain were not even using crampons, just slowly trudging up in the steps kicked out by the people before them. And after a long walk up, one false summit, and yet another long walk up we summited Adams.
Now before I continue to the next peak, I would be remiss in leaving out one final fact... You see, usually descending is just a long miserable trudge where your legs hurt and you cannot wait to hop in the car and get to that shower waiting for you at home. But this decent was special. It contained... the GLISSADE. If you aren't up your mountaineering terms, glissading is basically sliding down the mountain. Be it standing and sliding on the soles of your boots, or simply zipping down on your butt, it is glissading. And this glissade was a beaut. In order to glissade safely there has to be a few conditions met. It cannot be too steep or else you zoom out of control. There cannot be crevasses or rocks in the way or else you could seriously hurt yourself. And that is really about it. You would be surprised how hard it can be to find a big slab of mountain that will meet the criteria. But Mt. Adams met the criteria in spades. It had to have been at least a 1500 foot stretch. And yes... I admit it... it was a little intimidating. Once I got going however, there was no stopping me. It was the most fun I have had in a LONG time! I would like to climb this mountain again just for that wonderfully huge glissade.
--Bob
