Monday, July 26, 2010

Mt. Adams Team Overnight Snow Training - Hayden Glacier, Middle Sister July 24th - 25th, 2010



This was our "rehearsal climb" hike that gave us a chance to test out our gears such as our mountaineering boots, to spend a night at a camp site, and to do some more technical training.  For whatever reason, Hayden Glacier on Middle Sister was chosen as this year's site.  But this turned out to be a great choice as this trip was simply gorgeous. 

Hayden Glacier carpeted the northeast slope just below the col between Middle Sister (the left peak in the above image) and North Sister.

The plan was that Geoff and I would camp the night before at the trail head and meet the group in the morning there.  In the party were all nine Mt. Adams team members: Matt K, Matt C, Wendy F, Wendy B, Larissa, Laura, Karlene, Geoff, and myself.  Joe Owens from Timberline Mountain Guides led the trip assisted by Jennifer and Heather. 

I would like thank Wendy F. and Laura in advance for letting me use their photos in this post.

Here's the itinerary Jennifer sent us.

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RTS MT ADAMS PREP COURSE


Itinerary:

Meet at the Pole Creek Trail head. Please see directions below.

Time: 9:00 AM Date: July 24, 2010

Special Notes: Please be aware that you will need a trail head parking pass to park here. You can purchase a trail head parking pass from any Forest Service Ranger Station.

DIRECTIONS TO POLE CREEK TRAIL HEAD:

From the town of Sisters, take HWY 242 West. Take a left on FS Road 15, which is Pole Creek Road. Follow the road to its end, always following the signs for Pole Creek. At the end of the road is the trail head. Allow approximately 30 minutes from HWY 242 to the trail head as it is dirt. A trail head parking pass is required.

Day 1: Please bring all of the gear on the equipment list to the meeting point. After a gear check, orientation and dispersal of group gear, we will then hike in to and set up base camp. The approach to camp takes approximately 4 to 5 hours. Depending on the site we choose, the elevation of camp is between 6000’ and 7000’. After setting up our tents and eating lunch, we’ll conduct some basic mountaineering skills instruction.

Day 2: We may cover basic snow camping and advanced climbing techniques, glacier travel and roping techniques. After completing the instruction we will break camp and descend back to the trail head.

What’s Included:

We supply the tents, cooking gear, and stoves. You will pick up your boots, crampons, ice axe and helmet at The Mountain Shoppe. The Lung Association will cover the cost on the rental equipment.

What You Must Bring:

Please bring all the gear that is on the equipment list. Please read the list carefully and call if you have any questions. Be sure to bring lunch and snacks for each day of your program and water for the first day. Once we arrive at camp we will be melting snow for water. Please bring a dehydrated meal for dinner and oatmeal for breakfast.

Rental Equipment:

We are making arrangements to have you pick up your rental equipment at the Mountain Shoppe on NE Broadway. Please let me know if there is a piece of equipment that you do not need.
 
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July 23rd 

As luck would have it, I had to work until 9:15pm.  So by the time I met up with Geoff in the parking lot of REI in Tualatin, it was pushing almost 10pm.  But first thing first - I had not eaten all day and I needed to swing by a fast food Chinese joint on my way there.  Geoff was already waiting for me in the parking lot and we quickly transferred all his gear in my Jeep. 

I realized that he didn't have an ice axe or boots with him.  It turned out the people at the Reach The Summit designated climbing shop told him that he didn't need to take the equipment with him when he went over there.  Huh??  But we completely lucked out this time.  It just so happened REI was having a used gear sale the next day and the employees were still working in the store getting ready for it even though it closed at 9pm.  Geoff somehow managed to talk one of the managers into letting him rent the necessary equipment from them.  Phew!!

Once all that was taken care of, we hit the road and started driving southbound on I-5 towards Salem, OR.  From there, we would take Hwy 22 and 20 to Sisters, OR.  The Forest Service Road 15 meandered through the woods just southwest of Sisters for a little over ten miles to the trail head.  I was actually surprised to see how wide this road was and how well it was maintained.  Then we realized we forgot to bring a NW Forest Pass that was needed to park there.  But there was nothing we could do about that at this point so we just decided to hope for the best.

The campground at the trail head was well equipped, complete with picnic tables and a very clean outhouse.  We saw a dozen or so cars already parked there.  We quickly set up a tent and crashed for the night.  We didn't even bother to tie down the tent.  In fact, we probably didn't even need to put the fly on either We planed to get up at 7am the next morning.  It was already 2am.

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July 24th

I woke up just before 7am and started getting ready.  We were supposed to meet with the group at 9am.  I started boiling water on my Coleman stove set up on a tree stump while I sorted my gear in the trunk of my Jeep.  I had no time to deal with packing the night before and had all my gear just thrown together in my backpack and my gear bag.  What a mess! 

We were starting to get worried if we were even at the right trail head when 9am came and went.  We let another fifteen minutes go by before we called Jennifer's cell phone and left a message.  Just then, we saw a big black Beamer rolling in with Jennifer (the RTS head honcho), Heather, and Joe (Timberline Mountain Guides) in it.  They apparently got stuck behind a slow moving vehicle.  And all the other members of the Mt. Adams team started to arrive.

We gathered at the picnic table next to the outhouse and started dividing up the communal items such as tent parts, cooking pots, etc.  Joe also talked a little bit to give us some tips on the subject of packing as well.  I volunteered to carry the main body of the big tent Josh (one of the Reach The Summit training hike assistant) kindly loaned us for this occasion.  Around 10:30am, we were finally ready to start hiking towards our camp site.  This trail head was at around 5,300'.

The trail meandered through an utterly beautiful evergreen forest.  This must be the kind of places where they take those perfect pictures they put in hiking guide books.  Thankfully, unlike the South Sister climb the week before, we were not bothered by the mosquitoes as much either.  As we hiked the gentle climb, we came across a couple of picturesque streams, Pole Creek and Soap Creek where we trotted across the log bridges.  (I almost fell over on one of them...) 

There were a lot of mountain flowers (I didn't know the names) all along the trail and near those streams.  Rather than trying to put into words that wouldn't do justice, I'd just let some pictures do my talking.






And, every now and then, Middle Sister showed itself between tree tops go give us what was to come ahead of us.  And so did Broke Top, North Sister and South Sister.

 

Thanks to the gorgeous sights that kept appearing around every other bend in the trail, it seemed like we were at our destination campground in no time although my watch was showing 3:30pm by then.  The campground was a well established place right by a narrow snow field just below Hayden Glacier.  It was roomy enough to set up all our tents and more.   Next to the campground was a beautiful small stream created by the snow melt where we we had all our water bottles filled up and brought them up to the "kitchen" where Joe had cranked up all our stoves to boil the water.


In the mean time, we gathered our tent parts and started figuring out how to pitch those things.  It was almost straight forward to pitch the one we borrowed from Josh but we ended up with several mystery parts.  After looking at the instruction, scratching our heads, and looking at the instruction some more, Matt C. figured it out and saved the evening.  There would be four guys crammed into this shake-n-bake contraption. 

Jennifer and Heather had their big bomb shelter tent next to ours and were already in there giggling about something.  There were two other smaller dome tents shared by the ladies as well.  Joe had his personal "single room" next to the kitchen.

Once all our sleeping quarters were erected, it was time to walk over to the snow field for some snow climbing lessons.  We took all our climbing gears and marched over to the moraine next to it. 

Joe went over everything we had done during the Climber's Clinic in the spring. And it was a good thing - it had been few months since then and we all could use a chance to review and practice the basic snow climbing techniques, such as kick stepping, duck feet steps, traversing, plunge stepping, ice axe usage, crampon techniques, etc., etc. These probably would be the most relevant skills on our ultimate climb on Mt. Adams. We spent the rest of the afternoon on the snow field until the sun started to get lower on the horizon.


 

Back at the camp, Joe boiled more water for our dinner.  I had a packet of dehydrated kung pao chicken with rice.  Actually, I think I put too much hot water in it though - it came out all soupy.  Note to myself: use a little less hot water to reconstitute those dehydrated gourmet dishes from now on. 

As the sun set over the horizon, the moon started to take its place.  The moonlight gave a strong sense of 3D to everything we were seeing around us, making the mountains pop out in our views like we were in an IMAX theatre.
 

 


For the rest of the evening, we hang out and enjoyed each other's company around the until we started to retire one by one.  I stayed up until it got completely dark outside - I almost felt like I was somehow missing out on something by going to sleep. 

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July 25th

I awoke with the sun rise.  Besides, it was way too ripe inside the tent with four guys sleeping in it and doing things that went along with sleeping.  I zipped open the tent, stepped outside and took a deep breath of much needed fresh air.  Phew!  Then I went down to the stream to brush my teeth and to wash my face with the icy cold water.  In the mean time, others came crawling out of their tents one by one.

My breakfast consisted of a brie and salami sandwich in a couple of pieces of curry flavored nan at a Trader Joe's.  I washed it down with two cups of hot coffee.  I was kind of skeptical about the overpriced VIA from Starbucks but it was surprisingly palatable.  (No, I didn't pay for the VIA.  Those were trial packets...)

This morning, the plan was to pack everything up and watch Joe demonstrated roped travel with Jennifer and Heather's assistance.  Because ropes are one of the most useful tools guides carried to maintain high degree of control, I guess Joe wanted to have everyone see it at least once or twice although he said ropes most likely wouldn't be necessary on Mt. Adams.

It was about 9am when we strapped our backpacks on and moved out our camp.  Having gotten almost eaten alive by mosquitoes when Geoff and I were coming down from South Sisters in the evening on the weekend before, I was grateful that we would be back at the trail head well before that time of the day. 


The stroll back was as fun and pleasant as it was getting there since we were well rested and there was not much of strenuous activities involved on this trip.  It's funny that the sceneries could look completely different when we were going in the reverse direction. 

Though some of us were having some boot issues and I felt bad for them, it was actually good that they were at least finding out about them now rather than on our ultimate climb the following week.  Joe tried to help them with a limited degree of success.

Jennifer made sure we kept moving by yanking on the invisible "short rope" she got on Joe whenever he stopped and started telling us some stories in the middle of the trail. 

When we were taking a real break at one point, something quite magical happened.  There was an orange butterfly that landed on Wendy F's hand and apparently became quite fond of her.  Since she had an orange shirt on and carrying an orange Nalgene bottle, may be that was his thing.  Even after she gently let the butterfly off her hand, he insisted on landing on her anywhere it could.


We were back at the trail head by 12:30pm when I saw somebody standing by the trail head sign with a clip board in his hand.  There was what looked like a ranger badge stitched on his backpack too.  All of sudden I remembered that I didn't have my NW Forest Pass in my car and cursed under my breath.  When Geoff returned from fetching my Jeep and told me that there was no ticket, we both had a big sigh of relief.  It would have been an expensive one.  We lucked out - Phew!!!

I threw all my gear back in the Jeep.  Ahhhhhh!  I love this part - taking off my boots and socks.  There is no relief quite like it.  (It always reminds me of a scene from "Plane, Train, and Automobile" where John Candy takes off his nylon socks in a crowded airplane :D)  I changed into a fresh T-shirt and a pair of shorts as well.  Simple things like these could really make one feel reborn.  Once everyone was back down safely, we congratulated each other and departed our ways.  Geoff and I were going to get something to eat with Jennifer, Heather, Joe, Wendy F. and Larissa at a small burger joint called Snow Cap in Sisters but there was a long long line of crowd when we got there.  We gave up on that idea and said our good byes. 

Next weekend, nine of us will be doing our ultimate climb at Mt. Adams!!!  This is what we've been training hard for the past several months.  STAY TUNED!!!!!!!!

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