First Adams Ride in Two Winters

A pre-Christmas ride on Mt.Adams is always a treat. On the 19th, Kelso and I got another break-in ride on the new machines before I headed home to Maine for the holidays. On our drive in We were surprised to see the snowpack extending down past Trout Lake, which allowed for parking in the lower lot. There were so many riders at the trailhead, revving engines excited for some boondocking on their fancy rides. We finally fit in at Adams this year with our upgraded sleds. Nevertheless, the kits you see in the Adams parking lot never cease to amaze me.

As we rode the smooth trail out of the lower lot, we did something very uncharacteristic. Looking to add some extra trail miles to the sleds, we followed the beaten path on a different trail out to the high country, thinking we’d hit the laval flow. The tracks kept heading west. We ended up way out at the South Climb where I had never been before. It was a far enough ride out that heading back to trail we knew was not an option. So we kept following tracks, off the trail, up into the forrest that was caked with fresh snow.

Adams didn’t get the rain that hit Hood on the 18th. The weather event stayed snow in Washington and meant that Adams was stacked. If you steeped off the machine, it was waist deep in the woods. We battled the snow depth and the thick forrest, approaching one tight climb after another to get up high were the tress thin out. Pretty soon we caught up with the group who’s tracks we were following. There were two groups stacked on top of each other, trying to make it out of a gully. The tight space made for some tension in the air.

The day took an interesting turn from there. Kelso got a little unnerved by a steep tight climb that had been trenched by the other groups. After getting stuck twice on the climb, he lost confidence in his ridding. It took quite a bit of digger to get Kelso out of his mental hole and back into the throttle. I’m not going to post numbers but we dug a lot. Eventually we made it to the open terrain near Hell Roaring. By that time we had missed our window of daylight for snowboarding. The snow up high was low density yet better packed from wind exposure, giving us some much needed time to learn the new sleds in friendlier terrain. Kelso finished out the day on a high notes in a big play area before we returned down on the Hell Roaring trail.