Mt Adams, Saturday 2/20

[blaze]

Better late than never... a few shots from our hike of Adams last Saturday. We started on Air Line, but a couple inches of fresh snow on top of ice made for slick going, even with spikes. So we cut over to Valley Way, which had had more traffic, and we had much better luck there. We took the Star Lake Trail from the hut to the summit.

"Dynamic" conditions - windy with lots of blowing snow, including numerous "dust devils" of powder. The clouds lowered as we hiked up the back side of Adams, so no views at all from the top. And we got rained on before we got back down to Appalachia. But it was worth it! =)

Star Lake

On the Star Lake Trail, looking back toward Madison. Unbroken snow

The clouds lower

On the summit. There is a smile under that face mask. =)

We'll pass on the Air Line for descent... so back to Valley Way it is.

A few more shots at Zenfolio - gallery, slide show

 

[richard]

I checked out some of your gallery. The photos are great. I`m enjoying them.

 

[blaze]

Most kind, thank you! =)

 

[mirabela]

Nice! Your pics are pretty great; they really capture the drama of the conditions. It's rarely easy up there in winter. We climbed Adams on Tuesday via Randolph Path > Lowe's Path, descending Gulfside > Valley Way. By the looks of it we had gentler weather than you, but the ice was no joke. We were about at the limits of what a person wants to be on without full crampons.

 

[blaze]

Beautiful shots! Yes the ice is bad. It's been a disappointing winter.

 

[NorthShore]

I can't imagine hiking without full crampons right now. It may have been better in other parts of the Presis, but this was the condition of the Ammo and the Crawford Path on Washington last Friday 2/19:

(full set at https://plus.google.com/photos/109142731850640716661/album/6254981703368985105 )

This week's rain won't have improved things.

 

[mirabela]

Yikes! We didn't get onto anything quite as crummy as that. There were a few stretches on Gulfside up above the Air Line junction that were pretty sketchy, but it was generally possible to stay on rocks and/or snow that was reasonably well bonded to what was under it. The worst of the ice we got into was around 3800, where a few inches of fresh snow hadn't bonded very well to the flows beneath it.

I'll be real curious to see how things are tomorrow. It turned cold at the end of the rain, and the last bit came in as sleet and then snow; it is my fervent hope that this made a nice foamy/nubbly bonded, spikeable layer on top of the underlying hard ice. I guess we'll find out.