Mt Adams

I had to make a delivery for work near Mt. Adams the other day, so I figured while I was up there, I'd climb the bloody thing!  I skipped taking a weekend several days before, so I figured I had earned it.  I made a late delivery, then got to the trailhead around 1:00 am.  Since I was already sleep deprived going into the adventure, I opted to at least sleep for an hour before heading up the trail.  Finally got started by 3am.  The first few miles were easy enough, but as the trail went above treeline and into the rocks and pumice, the trail became very difficult to discern.  I probably lost 20 minutes getting off trail and having to find it again, but I could faintly see the snowfields of the south ridge so I just kept going up and eventually would locate the trail.  The morning glow started when I hit Lunch Counter (~9,000 ft) and from there it was straight up snowfields to the summit.  I managed to hit the false summit of Piker's Peak in about an hour and then had a nice walk across the plateau and up the final hill to top out. 

For a summit meal, I had some smoked salmon from a coworker, and a good ole PBR.  I managed to have the summit all to my self too which was a first.  It was really nice to be able to travel at my own pace the whole time too.  It took just over 6 hrs to get to the top, and on the way out, about 3 hours, for a total car-to-car time of 8:50.  Not bad if I do say so my self!  And there's something to be said for alpine starts too; I topped out in crystal clear weather, and by the time the other parties coming up the mountain hit the top, it clouded up and was probably fairly miserable.  Incedentally, someone actually died the next morning up there after getting lost in a whiteout and sliding into some steep, rocky terrain.  That makes 2 deaths within 24 hrs on 2 consecutive mountains I have climbed in the last 6 months.  Freaky. 

Sam and I got 10 gal of "kick-in-the-pants" 90 minute Imperial IPA going yesterday too.  We made it with A LOT of my homegrown hops.  One is a dark red IPA, and the other is a more traditional IPA.  I'll certainly let you know what it ends up tasting like...  Here's the hop harvest from this year: