Mount Adams Southwest Chutes
Some weird conditions today, suncuppy at the bottom with little low elevation snowpack but the upper mountain wasn’t quite prime. Still a great day spending time here.
Mostly mountain moments
Some weird conditions today, suncuppy at the bottom with little low elevation snowpack but the upper mountain wasn’t quite prime. Still a great day spending time here.
I missed the party last year on this line, so I was super thankful to make it out this year.
When we skied the Fuhrer Finger/Thumb, I noticed that the Wilson Headwall looked to be in pretty good condition so I had to go back for another line.
Having already skied the Fuhrer Finger but still wanting to ski Rainier, I thought the Fuhrer Thumb would be a safe compromise while still getting out with the peeps.
After gastronomically crashing out in NYC/DC for two weeks, I rallied for one last ski day this season. Some much overdue redemption for an earlier attempt in 2022 although it was one of the worst ski descents in my life quality wise lol. At least it was continuous!
NFNWR is short for the north face of the northwest ridge on Mount Adams - what a mouthful to say.
During the time I’ve been skiing in Washington, there’s been some opinions that this line might be less and less skiable as climate change impacts the mountain.
With a fat high elevation snowpack and after seeing that some friends skied this line, I knew it was time to pounce.
As straightforward of an up and down on Mount Baker as you can get. Great to revisit this route, but man is it kind of a boring slog in the sense that the views don’t change that much. The conditions this weekend were a little uncertain to go for anything bigger and I certainly needed the confidence booster after last week’s debacle.
I’ve always wondered what kind of outing I’d be capable of off the couch, and on this day I really paid for it trying to attempt two classic steep ski lines on Mount Baker.
Can’t remember why I came up here since Camp Muir is a relatively uninteresting objective, but still good to check out the area.
This traverse covers the ridge of peaks directly south of Rainier from Stevens to Eagle Peak. I don’t think I’d recommend this one lol, mainly because it was a lot of work for views that didn’t change all that much (although it was cool to see the angle of Rainier change a little bit going west to east).
To add to the confusion, there is also a White Salmon Glacier on a prominent Washington mountain (Shuksan being the other). I thought this terrain feature looked sooo cool on CalTopo but was unfortunately a bit more disappointing than expected.
Feeling strong enough this season to try for a double lap on Mount Adams.
A solo repeat of the exact same outing from last year, except I actually got the pictures I wanted!
My third summit of hood and my second time skiing off the true summit. I think I’m done with this route for good haha.
A double volcano day hanging around Bend, OR.
Back on Shasta, but the funky weather continues.
Dealing with a bit of funky weather on the long drive back home to WA.
A glorified backpacking trip to round out skiing the Washington volcanos. The ski descent was pretty mediocre, but it was otherwise cool to check out the changing season on Washington’s most remote volcano.
Just soaking in the views of the crevasses up close on this one. I hung back with one of a friend who was having a problem with the altitude and encouraged the other two to summit without else since I had already been up earlier this year. A bit disappointing, but this outing confirmed my ability to make turn around in practice, and was otherwise happy to explore this side of the mountain regardless of the outcome.
Little Tahoma is a satellite peak of Rainier, the pointy thing next to the main summit. I think it looks like a castle made of mahogany. Little T is actually the remnants of what used to be an even bigger volcano; it’s hard to imagine another a couple thousand feet on top of what Rainier is currently.