Mt Adams SW Chutes, 06/27/09
Mofro and Christopher, age 10
~7000ft of climbing, ~6K ski off the Summit.
Possible youngest descent of SW chutes?
A few years ago when he was 7, I took my son to climb and ski Mt. Adams but we turned around at 10K still a few thousand feet from the top. [ame=http://www.tetongravity.com/FORUMS/showthread.php?t=56889]2006 TR[/ame]
The plan was to return the next summer and get it again, but my nasty habit of needing ACL repair in May 2007 and AGAIN in May 2008 kept us away. I finally kicked the rehab habit this year again and we were set to go down and get it again on Fathers Day a week ago but the weather wouldn’t cooperate. Finally on Saturday along with a throng of skiers and hikers, Little C. bagged his first volcano ski descent.
Adams coming into view on Friday
We pulled into the lot at the Cold Springs campground a little after 4pm and it was already nearly packed with cars.The plan was to hike up to the snow line and camp to give us a better shot at making the top the next day.
Christopher loaded down for the climb
We climbed up from the lot at 5600ft to around 6500ft and a spot with a nice view of the SW chutes
After teaching the little guy to play Texas Hold Em(he cleaned me out of MM's by catching a straight on the river to beat my 3 aces), we caught a beautiful sunset and racked out for the night
Neither one of us slept very well, probably nervous about the next day and I was just entering the good deep sleep when the alarm went off at 5:15. We started off skinning just before 6am.
The snow was firm and soon we switched to booting
The mixed skin/switch to booting had us going a little slower than I’d hoped, but just passed 8000ft the snow softened and the pitch moderated and we made up some time skinning up to the Lunch counter.
After a good break we skinned about a quarter of the way up to the False Summit before switching back to booting along with the masses. Booting was much faster and we rallied up to the False Summit at 1000K/hr, arriving just before noon.
Little C. coming up on the crux of the False Summit, ~11,600ft
False Summit with Mt Hood in the distance
Looking up to the true summit and the final ~1000ft of climbing
We started out skinning again toward the summit but after a short ways the altitude and the toll of 5K climbing got to the little guy, so we stopped just before the last steep and C. had a 20min nap
50 steps, rest. 40 steps, rest. Finally, just before 1:30PM we hit the top
Christopher taking in the summit euphoria at 12,276ft
Ranier to the north
Celebratory summit beers, Mirror Pond for me, MUG for C.
Con’t
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