Mt Adams SW Chutes: camp or don't camp?

Hey, already starting to think about spring corn season and hoping to climb Adams in a couple months. As I'm starting to make sure I have the right gear, I'm trying to figure out if I should do it as an overnight, or car-to-car. Would love to hear any thoughts on this.For an overnight, it seems a bit easier physically. You get to split up the climbing, and a bit of extra time to acclimate to the altitude. It also sounds kind of fun to camp out on the mountain (although I'm sure it could also be pretty miserable in the wrong conditions).On the other hand, carrying overnight gear all the way to the summit, as well as on the ski down, sounds less desirable. So that presents a fairly compelling argument to try to do it in a day. However, I've never done a day that big before, so would take some training to work up to.I read a trip report somewhere that you might be able to ski the SW Chutes, and traverse back to the east at the earliest chance you get, before climbing 1k vert or so back to lunch counter to reclaim your camp gear. Even though that lengthens the day, might be easier and more pleasant than summiting/skiing with an overnight pack? Problem is that I haven't seen anyone else mention that option, and I can't seem to find the trip report again. Looking at a topo map, I see some spots that are possibly climbable back towards the south shoulder, albeit somewhat steep. Having never been to the mountain before, hard to say if they really go, or how sketchy they'd be. And I believe you'd have to cross a glacier after that. Not sure if this has much crevasse risk or not. So basically, this idea seems dubious given the lack of beta and my lack of experience on Adams.I suppose another option would be to top out on pikers if we don't feel like we can make the summit, thus shortening the day. Or we could plan to ski back down the ascent route, allowing us to leave camp gear at lunch counter.Any thoughts or suggestions appreciated!

If you camp around 7000ft, you can leave overnight gear there and pick it up on the way out without going far out of the way. It still puts most of the elevation gain in one day, but you get to enjoy a night out in the (sub)alpine zone, and you don't have to carry your gear too far.

Hardly anyone would carry overnight gear all the way to the summit, no matter what. I'm not sure why you're having trouble finding information on this, so I can only suggest you keep trying. 

Camp in the Lunch Counter area or lower down, or do it as a day trip. Altitude doesn't really get too bad unless you stay overnight, so if not acclimated it's actually easier to just go for it in a single day. Most will car camp at the trailhead and leave early AM, but I've hit the trail at 8:00 or 9:00 and had plenty of time to wait for the SW chutes to corn up. The skiing is seldom any good off the true summit, but it's worth being there once in your life (if perhaps never again). 

Oh, and much of what shows as glacier on the old maps is not dangerous at all. Just don't veer too far climbers right on the normal ascent route. It's all fairly obvious once you're on the ground.

Hope that's helpful.

Mark 

That is helpful! But I guess the part I'm trying to figure out is that Lunch Counter is the most common camp. But you can't get back there without climbing back up if you ski the SW Chutes. So do people who camp just ski the ascent route back down, and only single day-ers ski the chutes? Or do they hike back up from the bottom of the chutes to collect their gear? The Martin Volken guidebook suggests camping at Lunch Counter and then summiting to ski the SW Chutes day 2, which would seem to implicitly suggest hauling your overnight gear to the top... I'm really just trying to get a sense of what the most common option is.

To ski the main SW chutes, you drop in from Piker's peak, which mean's you'd need to carry your gear that high. There are many variations that others here might be talking about. With fitness and lightweight gear (axe & crampons needed most of the time, ski crampons often useful), S side of Adams is a very doable if big day trip. Starting later can make for a quicker and easier ascent since you can skin more of the face above the lunch counter.

Many will start from the Cold Springs parking area and do it in a day which should be considered if you're fit for it. The ridgeline that the climbing trail eventually runs into has ringed in bivouac spots from around 7,500 and up. Lower down, a black sand flat spot that is easy to get back to off the SW chute descent with a few hundred feet of climbing / half mile traversing. If it's melted out, nothing better around. There's also a cave around 7,200 level but it's small and rather hard to find. Only 2 star rated (occasional marmot poop)  & could fill up quick so I'll leave that to one's imagination.

cascade_concrete wrote:

The Martin Volken guidebook suggests camping at Lunch Counter and then summiting to ski the SW Chutes day 2, which would seem to implicitly suggest hauling your overnight gear to the top... 

 

Far be it from me to second-guess Martin, but I think this is nonsense. As I said, I've only done this as a day trip from the trailhead (although quite a few times), because I can't see any advantage to carrying overnight gear. An alpine start from an overnight camp would just mean waiting around longer for stuff to corn up. Spending the night at altitude increases the chances of altitude sickness. And carrying a full backpack up and over? WHY, fer godssakes? 

As you've figured out, camping above 6500 or 7000 feet merely makes it more difficult to get back to your camp, while killing the exhilaration which follows skiing the chutes. And camping a mere thousand or 1500 feet from the parking lot really doesn't give much advantage of any sort. Everyone's got their favorite route for getting back to the main trail; the easiest time I ever had exiting the chutes was when we managed to pick up the Around the Mountain Trail around 6200 feet and followed it most of the way back. Credit: Ron Jarvis and his faithful GPS. 

If you're skiing the South Climb, this might all look different. Just be careful not to fall into a waist-deep glissade track.

I can see how a non-skiing climber might want to get up and back down before the snow turns to unsupportable mush--as it can do on the South Climb route. But that's an excellent reason not to be a climber.