Mt. Adams in Washington State, 2nd day
We woke up to blue bird skies. Kerstin enjoying the sun rise. You can see the shadow of Mt. Adams, Mt. St. Helens is in the back.
More skinning.
View back to the camp spot. Also watch the smoke, the fire got a bit bigger but still not too concerning.
The snow conditions were pretty good. We didn't have too much trouble to get up, not too hard and not too soft. The only problem was that the snowfield was a bit narrow so we had to do quite a few switchbacks.
Having a rest, Kerstin and Ed and somebody else. It was quite busy up there. I guess in total there were about 150 people on the mountain that day.
Approaching the last climb, Ed and Kerstin.
It was pretty warm so water was running down on top of the snow.
The last 100 meters ...
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On the summit. Unfortunately Kerstin didn't feel too well due to the altitude so she waited for us a little bit lower, 3742m.
Mt. Rainier to the north.
Glacier Peak and Mt. Baker in the far north.
The wind picked up and so the bush fire started. When we camped the night before we thought that it is only a small camp fire somebody started but now it didn't look anymore like a small camp fire.
Ed skiing down.
Seppel skiing down.
It was actually quite hard to ski in this snow. There were 1 to 2 feet deep holes and the snow was pretty hard.
Nice shot, well, put your bloody pole down Seppel.
Well, we stayed off those things :-)
After the ski run we had to hike a bit. The fire picked up and we got worried about our car which was parking somewhere down there. We didn't know exactly where.
The flames got pretty big.
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We packed our stuff and skied down, we were a little bit in a hurry.
Again, some hiking was involved at the end.
Is this our car?
Luckily our car didn't burn but it was damn close. When we skied down a ranger of the park came to us and said they just reopened road and the evacuation is going on now. The fire spread across the road so people couldn't leave the car park. The car park was fine, the fire just spread across the road further down, pretty close so.
We drove through Hood River, nice village. People were kite surfing on the Columbia River and you could see Mount Hood with snow on in the back ground. After having a burger we headed home.
Mt. Adams from the highway.
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It took us only 7 hours or so, pretty crazy of just a weekend to drive 700 km one way. Well, it was worth it since I haven't skied in July before, at least not in a summer July. I think I skied once in NZ in July.
Thanks Ed for coming along.
Kerstin and Seppel