Trip Report

An early start from Eugene at 6 am on Saturday July 27th got us to Trout Lake Ranger Station a little after 10 in the morning with beautiful sunny weather. Our group of eight hit the south approach trailhead at 11:30 am and found our way to our camp sites at around 3 pm. These tent sites, with rock walls to shelter us from the notorious winds on Mt. Adams, were just below the "lunch counter" area where it is traditionally a lot windier. We hit the south face snowfield at 4 am Sunday morning under clear skies with crampons & ice axes. Sunrise gave us an opportunity to catch a picture of the shadow of Mt. Adams to the west. As we reached the false summit at 11,200 feet, to our great surprise, we were unexpectedly met with a steady 40 knot headwind and a gigantic lenticular cloud engulfing the summit. At that point it did not look favorable to continue. Then two climbers came out of the cloud at the false summit. After consulting with them and knowing they had summited, we decided to proceed as long as conditions were safe. We were fortunate to get a bit of reprieve from the wind in a lee approaching the summit from the southeast. Although it was brief, six climbers summited in the lee of the sulphur mine shaft on top. We glissaded 2500 feet down the south face from the false summit under near perfect conditions to our tent sites where we packed up & departed. Climbers were John Hegg, Lynn Yu, & summiting were Ron & Ken Unger, Greg Zupansic, Kim Sawyer, Paul Snyder, and Dick Snyder, leader.