[Elliep]

Round the Mountain Trail #9 Clockwise Circumambulation of Mount Adams August 4th-August 6th 2017 Ellie Price, Dylan Price, Kesley Price, Kyle Pyke Three Days, Two Nights: ~39 miles and 7300k of gain Navigation: Topo maps + App with downloaded GPS track and printed topo maps Day One (~14 miles): Left from South Climb Trailhead at 11:30 AM on August 6th. Last three miles of the dirt road was much better than in the past and only featured moderate pot holes. Hiked to the Round the Mountain Trail junction and turned west. Hiked through incredible wildflowers and burned/dead trees on a very nicely maintained trail. We had wonderful views of Mount Adams, but everywhere else had smoke/haze hiding the land. Crossed many, many small creeks with clean water and ending up filtering at Sheep Lake. Continued on a few miles from Sheep Lake and found a drainage to hike up to try and get out of the mosquitoes. Camped a few hundred feet higher than the trail at around 7pm with beautiful views of Mt. Rainier, the sunset, and alpenglow on Mt. Adams- Mt. St. Helens was in the haze. We did not escape the mosquitoes and dealt with them until the sun set completely and they left.

Start of the Round the Mountain Trail heading east. Day Two (~14 miles): We got an alpine start around 9:30 AM and quickly refound the trail. We speed hiked through the next five or so miles of forest and mosquitoes. Passed the trail for the High Camp, left the PCT North behind, and got on the Highline Trail. The lava rock fields were a needed break from mosquitoes and the change in scenery was startling. More river crossings and views of the NE side of Adams. We hiked about the same distance as the first day, and camped around 6pm on a rocky ridge with no sign of mosquitoes. Once the sun set though we had mosquitoes all night until the sun rose the next morning. We drank whiskey and made a birthday cake of donuts for our friend’s 31st birthday and celebrated another lovely day circumambulating Mount Adams.

Nearing the end of day two as we pass Devils Garden and into the reservation. Day Three (~11 miles): We got up even later on our last day and did not start hiking until 10:30 AM. Filtered water in a stream (our last time to use the filter, after this we just refilled from snow melt streams, I doubt I would bring a filter next time, plenty of pristine streams and rivers to fill from). We hiked a couple miles and found the trail-less section of the hike. Here we used our downloaded track and the topos to contour around a couple ridges to a bowl and up the side. This included an intense river crossing with wading and the tallest member of our group helping everyone across. There may have been a better crossing lower (we traversed a little higher than the track we were following) but we didn’t want to waste time looking. At the top of the Ridge of Wonder we traversed left toward Little Mount Adams and then down to the Hellroaring Meadows. Here we deviated from our gps track and stayed left of the meadow, in the trees and toward Heart lake, instead of right of the meadow. We aimed for the saddle and had no navigation issues getting to it. There were incredible clouds of mosquitoes in the meadow and we mostly ran to get through them. There was also ponds and bogs everywhere and half of our group just left our shoes and socks on through it all. We then found a real trail (!) by Heart Lake and followed it to the hillside where we bushwhacked straight up to the junction of Bird Meadow Trail and the road. Following Bird Meadow Trail brought us to the Round the Mountain Trail, which we took back to the original junction and the trailhead! The trail-less, ~5 miles, section took us about six hours and we did not get back to the car until 9 PM.

Hiking up to the top of the Ridge of Wonders on day three. Our casual weekend hike turned into quite the adventure when mosquitoes, big rivers, and bushwhacking were added in- all the more fun! Doing the hike clockwise meant that we got to do the steep climb out of the Ridge of Wonders going up, instead of down. The hillside down to the Hellroaring meadows, from the Ridge of Wonders, is much mellower and nice to go down. Though doing it clockwise meant that we saved the trail-less part for the end, either direction seems comparable and easy to find with the GPS.

Avoiding the bugs before making dinner on our first night.

Wading through the river in the trail-less section of the trip- it’s good to have tall friends!

The map of the GPS track we followed is in blue- thanks to Michael Chastain- and our deviation is in red. I have also marked our approximate campsites with a red triangle.

[drm]

So your report says a number of times that when you got to the RTM trail from the South climb, you turned east, but sounds like you went west / left. Going down to Hellroaring Meadows makes this section a lot harder. Most people stay high, and cross the Klickitat Glacier (spikes are generally adequate) and go by Sunrise Camp and the glacial lake beyond, avoiding those bogs and bugs and the climb back up to Hellroaring Ridge (It's also illegal to cross that way). I was up on the south side of the mountain for a single overnighter just last week and almost no bugs. I know that they can be later elsewhere but surprised you found them so bad.

[lookout bob]

Lovely report! I worked on trails there with WTA (near Bird Lake) and find the area exceptionally beautiful. Hell roaring area particularly. Sounds like you had a fine trip mosquitos notwithstanding.

[Elliep]

Yes, thank you! You are completely right, we hiked the trail west- I have edited the report. Crossing high on the glacier would have been nice and we discussed leaving the gps track and going over the glacier, but one of our group members is not comfortable on snow and we chose to stay with the lowest angles we could find for her We had no bug problems on the south side- excepting the meadow- they didn't start until about twelve miles into our hike west and were just when we were in the forest, which happened to be most of day two and at both of our camps!

[puzzlr]

Wow, quite the trip. This route is new to me, so thanks for the report.

[Brushbuffalo]

Fine trip! Congratulations for surviving the crossing of the Big Muddy.....and outlasting the skeeters