On July 26, 2026, Jenny and I, in the company of our friend Sam, summited Mount Adams for the third time. The conditions were more challenging than on our previous summits: 30 mph sustained winds, 22 F wind chill.
We started in shorts on Saturday, but shortly after we hit snow at 8300 ft, it got windy and the clouds rolled in. Sometimes, we had almost no visibility. It took us 4.5 hours to get to our campsite at 9400 ft.
We lucked out to be right next to the only source of flowing water (9400 ft, far climber’s right), since it was pretty cold, but even that was just a trickle. We set up our tents in 45 mph winds, with clouds sweeping through our campsite, with a lenticular cloud above the summit, hoping it would clear during the evening. Throughout the night, we could hear the fabric of our tents flapping, and during particularly strong gusts, the entire tent would jolt.
The sky did clear up, with the clouds descending to be below us, but it remained pretty windy, with 30 mph winds. We geared up at 1:30 and ascended the 2100 ft to the Piker’s Peak false summit. I have to admit, the last 500 feet above 11000 ft elevation were hard, with the cold wind blasting me every time my switchbacks made me face west (climber’s left). I did see two shooting stars, though.
We sought some brief shelter at the top of the snow climb for a boot adjust and some bites, then continued to the true summit. We met two climbers who had just summited and then continued the remaining 800 ft to the true summit at 12280 ft elevation.
It had only taken us 3 hours, 45 minutes from camp to summit, probably because it was so cold and windy that we didn’t want to hang around anywhere. Same with the descent, which only took us about 2 hours.
Back at camp at just past 8 AM, we discovered that our trickle of snowmelt had frozen over, and we decided to keep our 4 liters of water reserve for drinking, rather than cooking a victory meal of freeze-dried food. So we packed up (messily stuffing the tents into our packs, since folding or rolling anything in the wind was impossible) and hiked out. We were back at our car around 1 PM, after 3.5 hours of hiking.
It is hard to convey the steepness of the snow slope from the Lunch Counter to Piker’s Peak unless you’re standing right there.
Hike from trailhead to camp: 4.5 hours, 4000 ft in elevation gain, 5.3 miles, on snow from 8300 feet up
Camp: at 9400 ft elevation, with running water at far climber’s right of the Lunch Counter area
Hike to summit: 3 hours 45 minutes, 3300 ft in elevation gain, 2.2 miles, mostly on snow, with two brief rock crossings at Piker’s Peak and below the final summit slope
Hike back to camp: 2 hours, too hard to glissade
Hike from camp to trailhead: 3.5 hours
All combined: 14 hours 7 minutes, 7522 ft elevation gain, 14.5 miles
