The next day I spent exploring the Ice Caves, the Natural Bridges, and Trout Lake. There were hardly any clouds in the sky all day. I visited an Alpaca farm and met the owner, Barbra, who told me about the fire in 2012 and how she had climbed Mount Adams 15 years earlier. In the afternoon, I finally made my way up to Cold Springs Campground (the trailhead to climbing Mount Adams via the South Spur). The road up to Cold Springs Campground must have been my car’s toughest off-roading experience so far. The road was steep, narrow, bumpy, and washed out. It was quite fun winding along it for miles, trying to avoid the largest potholes and squeezing past other cars while trying to not fall of the edge of the mountain. The parking lot was packed with cars but I found a spot in the shade at the upper lot which perfectly overlooked Mount Adams when I sat in my trunk. It was still early in the evening so I laid out my comforter and continued reading “Learning in Thin Air” by Scott Cress while eating freshly picked strawberries and periodically glancing over at Mount Adams through the open woods. A few people were walking in from the mountain. A couple was packing away their things in the car next to me and I asked them about the hike. They had camped at Lunch Counter the previous evening and then made it to around 10,500 feet, but not to the summit. I told them that I planned to push to the summit in one day and the man recommended that I start hiking at midnight. I set my alarm for 4 a.m. After a while of reading and watching the pink sunset in the mountains, I dozed off at around 10 p.m. I was brutally awakened by the blaring of my alarm at 4 a.m. It was still dark out but the stars were no longer visible. I cuddled into my comforter, not wanting to leave and wondering why I now need to climb a mountain in the cold darkness. In the end, I told myself that it would be worth it, it always is. I sipped a Starbucks Mocha Frappuccino as a stretched and got together my bearings. I started hiking at 4:30 a.m. I was just above the timberline when the sun started to rise, it was magnificent. There was not a cloud in the sky and Mount Hood glowed pink in the distance. The summit was a grueling 6 miles and close to 7,000 feet in vertical elevation gain. I put my crampons on and took my ice axe out for stabilization at Lunch Counter, right before the steep snowy haul to the false summit. The hike to the false summit, about an hour and 1,000 vertical feet below the official summit, was rather uneventful and I decided to rest there and eat part of my turkey and cucumber sandwich. As I was getting up and putting my pack on, a young woman approached me. She introduced herself as Kate and said very straightforwardly, “Hey my dad isn’t feeling well, he turned back; I feel uncomfortable continuing to the summit alone, can I join you?” I was taken aback by this frank question but shrugged my shoulders and said “sure.” I questioned it a little just from the fact that I was out here climbing the whole mountain alone, and even though that was okay with me, I tried to understand another person’s need to be with a group, both for safety and motivation. The two of us talked to a bunch of people at this lunch spot. There was one pair, a father and son team who were already descending from the mountain. One of the difficulties about climbing this mountain is the number of people and barren snowy landscape. This makes it very difficult for privacy, if need be. This was also one of Kate’s concerns. Having completed a lot of summits with lots of people and no “hiding spots,” I was quite used to this idea. She, however, was not. I ended up finding her a good place that was not in sight of any people for a good distance, but it did require a more technical descent as the area was icy. I broke in a trail there for her to show her that it was safe. On my way to break the trail in, I also spotted a hat a little bit off in the distance. It was beyond an icy ledge and frozen to the ground on a steep snowfield. I figured that whoever lost it did not want to go that way to retrieve it. I had my crampons on so I slowly picked my way down and kicked my feet into the ice to get it. I’m glad this little detour lend me to have a nice tropical hat souvenir from the mountain. It is kind of funny actually; it seems to be a trend for my dad and I to acquire items that people have left behind in “treacherous” areas. I once picked up a hiking pole while descending down a scary scree field in Poland, where I saw a full glove sticking out of the rocks that looked like a hand, and another time my dad found an ice-axe on the bottom of a frozen waterfall, the climbing team before him had decided to leave it behind, that was also quite dangerous to access. After this small ordeal and some discussion and persuasion as to continue to push to the summit, we continued. I was finally in the company of another person. As we walked up to the summit we asked each other questions about ourselves and talked about life. I realized then that there are two sides to having company while up in the mountains. I loved just having someone with me to share the experience and joy of being in the mountains and summiting, but I also felt like my pace and physical rhythm were a bit off and pressured by the fact that someone was walking two yards behind me, and periodically having to speak instead of having the same breathing pattern. But either way, I enjoyed it. We took some pictures at the summit and Kate even met her past Teacher’s Assistant from her university. Mount Adams is famous for its glissading. With one glissade path that is about 2,000 vertical feet, from the false summit to Lunch Counter, it is really quite amazing. It is a fast and thrilling way to get back down the mountain; I am all about it. Kate had never glissaded before, so near the summit we did a little training session on how to glissade and how to self-arrest, which is flipping around on your stomach with both hands on your ice axe, and digging it into the snow/ice in order to abruptly halt yourself. We took off our crampons and proceeded. The first part of the glissade to the false summit was rather mellow and slow. We stopped at the false summit for another extended break, conversed with some ski-mountaineers, and then continued to the steep section of the glissade, which I believe Kate was rather nervous for. I wasn’t worried but promised Kate that I would go in front of her, keep my going rather slow, and stop every fifty meters or so in order for her to catch up. I started sliding down, using my ice-axe a little in order to control my speed. Kate starting sliding down behind me. I looked behind me and she seemed to be doing fine, I couldn’t really see her facial expression but I was having an awesome time sliding down so wasn’t concerned. I looked behind me again and saw her getting closer, I figured that she had gotten the hang of it and was picking up speed. I laughed and loosened up my ice axe from the snow, gaining speed as I now figured that we were going to race down the mountain. I kept on looking over my shoulder and saw Kate getting closer and closer, then I heard her yell, “I can’t stop!” as she came crashing into me. We were now a tangled mess of arms, legs, and ice axes, gaining speed down the steep mountain face. Because of the steepness of the mountain, the speed, and our crash, my arms were somehow in between her legs, and that is where I had to jab my ice axe in order to stop us. We came to an abrupt halt and laid there for a while, staring at each other, exasperated. I laughed, “Well this is funny.” I got up and again, showed her some techniques on how to build up snow in between your legs which helps with controlling speed, caressing the snow on the sides of the glissade tunnel with your heels, and another ice-axe maneuver. The slope at this point was less steep than the initial run but still steep enough as to catch an amazing amount of speed. Kate finally got the hang of it, and on the next section, when I looked over my shoulder she had given me the thumbs up. At this point, I just had my ice-axe in the air and was bouncing and curving along the glissade tunnel, feeling like I was in a rollercoaster/waterslide. A thousand feet of thrills, splashing snow, some videography, and lots of laughs later, we got back to Lunch Counter, where her dad had been chillaxing on a rock and watching in amusement as people experienced the thrill of glissading. I introduced myself to her dad. Kate and I exchanged phone numbers, she said she owed me dinner, and I went on my way alone again. The last section was long, with still a large snowfield and then just a long winding dusty road through burnt forests back to the trail head. On the decent, I passed the father and son pair again. The father said to me, “hey! It’s the tennis girl!” I was happy that they had remembered me. They asked if I made it to the summit, I said yes, and we both congratulated each other. It was nice to see the same people on the mountain. Even though I was climbing solo, I felt like there was a community and a lot of opportunity to meet cool people who all share the same passion. On one part of the snowfield, I had just passed a large group of people as I had been skipping down the mountain. A man was stopped on a narrow part of the snowfield, warning people that the snow underneath had melted and there were holes that one could fall into. He guided me to a safe passage and told me to tell my friends (behind me) about the passage. I laughed and told him I was alone. “What no way! Did you make it to the summit?” “yep” “in one day?” he asked, glancing at my small pack. “yeah I started at 4:30 a.m.” “Damn, that’s awesome!” he said and congratulated me. Later when I passed the rest of his group he shouted out to them that I had climbed the mountain alone in one day. It’s comments like these that really make me satisfied about soloing mountains. I normally don’t think about it at all, but there are people, who I am thankful for, that remind me of what I am doing and it makes me want to continue weekend after weekend. It felt nice to be recognized even if it was by a couple of people that I would never see again. I continued to descend, putting earbuds in and jamming out to some music as I jogged and powerwalked down the mountain, eager to make it back to my car and eat the avocado that I had been waiting to ripen.
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WashingtonWiktoria Plawska Archives
June 2015
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