The Guardians of the Columbia: Mount Hood, Mount Adams and Mount St. HelensWilliams, John H. (John Harvey)
History
The Guardians of the Columbia: Mount Hood, Mount Adams and Mount St. Helens
Williams, John H. (John Harvey)
Adams, Mount (Wash.); Cascade Range; Columbia River; Hood, Mount (Or.); Saint Helens, Mount (Wash.)
From this point, the route becomes steeper, but is still over talus,
until the first of the three summit elevations, known as South Peak, is
reached. This is only five hundred feet below the actual summit, Middle
Peak, which is gained by a short, hard pull, generally over snow.
(See p. 94.) The north-side route is up a long, sharp ridge between Lava
and Adams glaciers (p. 104). Like the other path, its grade is at first
easy; but its last half mile of elevation is achieved over a slope even
steeper, and ending in a longer climb over the snow. Neither route,
however, offers so hard a finish as that which ends the Mount Hood
climb. From the timber-line on either side, the ascent requires six or
seven hours.
[Illustration: Snow cornice above the bergschrund at head of Klickitat
glacier, with another part of the same crevasse.]
The summit ridge is nearly a mile long and two-thirds as wide. It is the
gathering ground of the snows that feed Klickitat, Lyman, Adams and
White Salmon glaciers. (See map, p. 87.) Mazama, Rusk, Lava, Pinnacle
and Avalanche glaciers lie beneath cliffs too steep to carry
ice-streams. Their income is mainly collected from the slopes, and if
they receive snow from the broad summit at all, it is chiefly in the
avalanches of early summer. Nearly all the glaciers, however, are thus
fed in part, the steep east and west faces making Mount Adams famous for
its avalanches.
[Illustration: Mount Adams, seen from the northeast, with the Lyman
glaciers in center, Rusk glacier on extreme left, and Lava glacier,
right. The ridge beyond Lava glacier is the north-side route to the
summit. The Lyman glaciers, like Adams glacier on the northwest side,
are noteworthy for their cascades of ice.]
From the summit on either side, the climber may look down sheer for half
a mile to the reservoirs and great ice cascades of the glaciers below.
It is seen that with the exception of the Rusk and Klickitat, which
are deeply embedded in canyons, the glaciers spread out, fan-like, on
the lower slopes, and are held up by their moraines. Most of them end at
elevations considerably above six thousand five hundred feet. The
difference in this respect between Adams and Hood is due, no doubt, to
lighter rainfall.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, ASAHEL CURTIS
Mount Adams from Sunnyside, Washington, with irrigation "ditch" in
foreground.]
[Illustration: Crevasse in Lava glacier, north side of Mount Adams.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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