Mount Adams
Bird Creek Meadows
As my preparations for Nepal in October continue, this week I ventured somewhere new. At the invitation of my neighbour Tom, we headed to Mount Adams in Washington, about two and half hours away. Standing at 12,276 ft, Adams is the second highest peak in our Cascade Range, beaten to the top step of the altitude podium only by its neighbour Mount Rainier (14,410’). It might not be the tallest, but several aspects certainly make it interesting: it’s the largest mountain by volume, which I think is code for fattest, and it features twelve named glaciers–not too shabby for our little corner of the world. Our destination was Bird Creek Meadows, a location that’s only open for six weeks a year by invitation of the Yakama Nation, whose lands occupy about 2,000 square miles of land on the eastern side of the Cascades in southeast Washington, including half the mountain.
An arresting view greeted us immediately upon arrival. Mount Adams sits back behind Bird Lake, with intermediate folds of grassy slopes and rocky ridges sandwiched tightly in between, each higher than the next. A light breeze rippled across the surface of the lake, leaving distorted reflections of the sheer blue sky above and ponderosa pine encircling this naturally formed oasis. The immediate area and for several miles around was ravaged by wildfires not once, but twice–the last in 2015. During those eleven intervening years, the vegetation has regenerated, grasses and low bushes crowd the terrain and new trees have erupted forth in nature's own beautiful, haphazard way. But the headline of this story still screams destruction as we transit through thousands of burnt pines, which are available in only two colours: twisted, charcoal black or denuded, bleached white. Many are bent over until their tips almost touch the ground in bizarre lumbar scoliosis. This evidence of firestorm damage now stands in stark contrast to the beauty of the small streams we criss-cross, crystal clear glacial waters gurgling through them, their banks and surrounding meadows woven into a tapestry of magenta paintbrush, yellow arrowleaf ragwort, blue penstemons and lupines, lilac monkeyflowers and rose mountain heathers.
An hour or so up the trail the sound of crashing water led us to Crooked Creek Falls, where a torrent of mountain run-off hurls itself fifty feet down a rock face and crashes to the rocks below in a glamorous display of aquatic summer fervour. From the falls, we traced our way up to the wonderfully named Hellroaring Viewpoint, and set up to eat lunch. Perched on a precipice with a mouthful of coconut chicken curry, the view didn’t fall short of expectation. From here we could see up to Pikers Peak and the Mazama Glacier, its broad, probing, terrestrial fingers reaching down in shades of icy blue and drab moraine grey-brown. Immediately below us and sweeping off to the south was Hellroaring Meadows, a steep-sided valley that thousands of years ago would have been filled with the ice and snow of the Mazama Glacier, which now only crowns the upper reaches of Mount Adams and Pikers Peak.
Our path so far had been an easy, sandy trail, with trees, flowers and streams for scenic company. Moving on though, we transitioned to a mixed environment of trail and flat rock and were soon beyond the treeline. Here steeper sections required a slower, steady pace, and eventually our path gave way to rubble and larger boulders, requiring the use of hands as well as feet to reach the ridgeline of a lateral moraine at 7,000’. From that spot we negotiated our way carefully along the moraine, tricky work since loose rocks litter its scant two feet of width, the sides dropping away sharply below. It wasn’t exactly a knife edge–more like blunt shears, but definitely enough to sharpen the concentration. Luckily, the demand for increased focus was needed for only a hundred yards, at which point we were able to traverse down and across the side of the moraine at a shallow and safe angle, descending into the headway of Hellroaring Canyon.
Now four hours into our day, Tom assured me our goal was literally “just up there”, and sure enough after crossing a small snow field and kicking back up again, we crested the lip of the boulder field to see Iceberg Lake laid out before us. There’s something quite surreal to be on a mountain in the Pacific Northwest and suddenly find yourself looking at things you’d typically associate with an Alaskan cruise. Like a badly made dirty martini, the winter snowpack melts and leaves a silty lake the size of a couple of football fields with the most voluminous chunks of broken ice floating around, a lingering reminder of the brutality of winter even here at 7,600’. Suitably impressed, we settled down for a Hobbit-style second lunch, coffee, and in my case a little Irish medicine from the first aid kit. The silence was broken only by our conversation and the intermittent clatter of tumbling rocks, the sun's warmth breaking them free of their icy bonds and unable to resist the inevitable call of gravity.
Our post-lunch descent was everything any hiker wants it to be, easy and uneventful save for the occasional unexpected and welcome surprise (we really don’t like the other kind!). Electing to take the Round The Mountain Trail, we came upon the most delightful scene that could easily have been mistaken for a fairy grotto. Coming out through a tree break we found ourselves in a grassy dell. I never thought I’d get to use the word dell, but there you go. The reason for all this lush, deep green grass was a waterfall about 15’ high that flowed gently over rocks resplendent with Lewis’ monkeyflowers. Pooling briefly at the bottom, the water meandered away in a small, babbling stream crowded with wildflowers. It was the perfect place for a nap, but anxious not to fall under some wicked enchantment we ate our snacks and continued on our way.
By 5:30pm we’d touched down back at the parking lot, a solid day's effort applied only to the appreciation of nature, and courtesy of the Yakama people whose ancestral land we were able to enjoy—even if just for one day. Kw’aianuu shamash.