Klickitat - North Face of the Northwest Ridge

Whew, what a mouthful of a ski descent.

Only in the Cascades can you have the best day of the ski season on June 22. The NFNWR is a classic line first skied by the legendary Glen Plake, and is perhaps ‘the line’ on the young volcano known as Klickitat or Pahto or Mt. Adams.

I drove to the trailhead from the north, from Index, with plans on meeting a friend who came from the south. The trailhead is on a remote side of the mountain, accessed via 35+ miles of dirt road. My friend, Erik, had smooth sailing on his journey, arriving right at the time we planned to meet.

While he was setting up camp, relaxing with an early dinner, and enjoying the sunset on the mountain, and perhaps vaguely wondering where I might be, I was frantically trying to shovel my high-centered car out from a slurry of mud and snow, still five miles away from the trailhead. I multitasked by swatting mosquitos with a great enough density to kill 6 per slap, truly the icing on a pretty f'ed up cake.

Eventually, I realized I wasn’t going to get my little AWD hatchback un-stuck, so I laced up the running shoes and used the best mode of transportation I had available to go find Erik. Our simple exchange upon me jogging (not driving) up to the trailhead conveyed a bigger story than was spoken - “hey! …oh, shit?” “yeah, shit” “oh, shit!!”

One quick recovery mission, a rushed dinner, and 3 hours of sleep later, our skis were on our packs, headlamps were on, and we were motoring up the trail. I’ll let the photos take it from here.

Morning light on Tahoma, the Mother of Waters.

On the approach. Just up and left of Erik is our descent, the NFNWR. We climbed the north ridge, the rocky line on the left.

Two climbers visible on the Adams Glacier (center-right).

Photo by Erik of me beginning the climb of the north ridge. I was surprised to discover later that most seem to find this route tedious. I thought it aesthetic, efficient, and atypical for a volcano climb. Perhaps the choss of the San Juan Mountains has given me a new perspective.

Erik cresting the summit plateau. I think this was the smelliest (sulfur) volcanic summit I’ve been on.

Erik dropping in on the NFNWR. The first few hundred feet off the summit were a perfect low angle warmup.

Check out Erik’s GoPro video of the descent here.

Erik exiting the face. We wove through the cliff bands in the upper right.

Lenticulars above the Adams icefall. The mountain was enveloped by clouds around 5 minutes later.

Thank you, Klickitat.

I camped again that night and made it back to my parent’s home in Wenatchee the next day. That night while digging through boxes in my childhood bedroom, I found an old journal. In it, 13-year-old me had written his goals down for 2010. Climb Dragontail, climb a v2, do a 360 on skis, among many other things that I’ve long since achieved. The last goal on the list, never crossed off, was to climb Mt. Adams. It took me 14 years, but I was finally able to check that one off the list. 13 year old me was proud.