Backpacking on Mount Adams was the goal for the weekend. Mount Adams is located roughly in the middle of nowhere and there are two main routes to get there. Head straight for the mountain on largely secondary, two lane roads or go longer route down I5 and then cut over east on 12. What do to. I picked the straight shot. It never entered my mind that we’d have to take BOTH routes to get to the mountain.
Getting out of work Friday early just didn’t pan out so we were set on a Saturday morning departure. We started a little later than we should have and ran into some traffic south of Puyallup. That gradually thinned out and we went through Eatonville, and swung south on highway 7. We had seen plenty of Mount Rainier, but hadn’t spied Mount Adams yet. We were getting a little tired of being in the car for so long when the traffic came to an unexpected dead stop. People getting out of their cars stopped. We couldn’t see the cause, but there was no traffic coming the other way and emergency vehicles were racing towards something, using the open wrong way lane.
After about 40 minutes we got the word that there was an accident involving the state patrol and the road would be closed for an additional 2 hours. Nuts. Backtrack, head west away from the mountain, hook into I5 and take the route I should have taken in the first place. It was a 70 mile detour.
Approaching Mount Adams by car isn’t like approaching Rainier. You never really see the mountain. The two lane road becomes a single lane paved road and that gives way to a single lane gravel road. For something like 30 miles. Finally, at about 3:30, we get to the trail head after an 8 hour drive. This better be worth it was my unspoken thought.
We really hadn’t seen much of the mountain and we headed out through the forest on a weirdly sandy trail. Then we broke out into a meadow with wild flowers. It was getting pretty. Then, around a bend, the mountain came into view as a backdrop to the meadow with wild flowers. Breathtaking and stunning.
After hiking about 3 miles the trail intersects the Pacific Crest Trail, then pushes on another mile to our goal. High Camp at 7000 feet. We gained something like 1000 feet in that last mile. With full packs, it’s a bit of a workout to get there, climbing through sand and shale on a very steep slope.
High camp is another wildflower strewn meadow with a small stream. There are clumps of stunted trees, none very tall, that conceal a few campsites scattered throughout the meadow. I saw a small out of place mini trail that disappeared into one clump of trees so we hopped over the stream to investigate and found an ideal, picture perfect spot to pitch the tent. The wind was howling at this point and there was some protection from the wind and a wide open view of the mountain and much of the state of Washington. Perfect.
We had a terrific meal and then the sunset show began. We had the best seat in the house for a stunning sunset.
The wind howled most of the night, but it wasn’t too bad in the tent. Morning dawned cool and while the low lands were getting 90 degree temperatures, it was a cool 53 outside the tent.
We walked around high camp in the morning, seeing a Marmot and a few Mountain Goats.
Mount Rainier was out for the trip down.
Jodi takes one more look at Mount Adams. We’ll be back….
