Made the trip north up to Mt. Adams with Jason for the fourth of July. He's got a fine group of friends that have a hootinanny up at Trout Lake every year. Some folks climb, some folks float the White Salmon river, everyone has a good time. We drove out Friday night and parked up in the very crowded lot at the south climber's trailhead. I could hear gear being thrown together and climbers tromping by from about 4:30am on, getting after it and getting the alpine start I suppose. We had a nice leisurely 7:30am start after coffee as we were hoping to let the snow soften sufficiently to make for some good turns. The day was marvelous, a perfect beauty of a day, blue skies, warm temps, and views from Mt. Jefferson to Mt. Baker. The climb took a while. We weren't in a hurry, and we wanted some good legs for the ride down, so it was pretty much a long slog, one foot in front of the other, repeat, repeat, etc. We ended up topping out around 1pm, which was excellent timing. The snow off the summit was crusty as expected, but at the top of the southwest chutes it was soft and smooth. The descent was quite memorable in that it was perhaps the longest sustained pitch I've ridden to date. 4000' vertical of solid 35º slope. Not much to speak of as far as terrain features or difficulty, just turns for days. I found myself stopping more than once after a particularly long set of turns and startling at the perception that I had barely changed positions on the face. The bottom just didn't seem to get much closer. We took our time, enjoying the descent thoroughly, and then gathered at the bottom for the long, hot traverse back to the trail and then the trailhead. We were able to ride within 1/4 mile of the truck. I think we were back in Trout Lake with cold beers in hand by 4:30 or so, resting up for an evening of stories and redneck spelunking.

01. and so it begins...

02. above treeline

03. the crew

04. trail of ants

05. obligatory summit pose

06. the fun begins

07. takin' a break

08. the route