r0amwild
We had a bit of traveling ahead of us and had planned the day for the drive. We needed to drop south from Mount Rainier National Park to just above the border with Oregon (Red-ish route, from Mt Rainier to Adams [3]). Being wary of back tracking through the I-5 Seattle traffic, we plotted a route, staying east and taking what appeared to be a south-westerly shortcut toward the town of Glenwood. It was a secondary road, passing though the Yakama Indian Reservation. If there was a sign, "road closed ahead", we didn’t see it. Listening to music and talking of past and future conquests, the road looked fine -- as if others had been traveling it -- so, given the substantial milage savings we powered ahead.
After a dozen miles or so we began to encounter downed timber along the road. It seemed no had been maintaining the road. There was no snow per se, so we moved along slowly, moving logs and forest debris, and dodging large potholes as progressed. All these things became worse the farther along we moved forward and finally we encountered snow. This road also had not yet melted out, our short-cut had become a trap. No wonder we had not encountered any other vehicles!
It was now clear that we were going to have to turn around. Given we had consumed most of the day getting this far, we simply just called our current location the camp for the night. That night, no one came by and the following morning we back-tracked and were on our way to Mount Adams again. This time, taking the long way on the major road via Goldendale. Finally passing through the town of Trout Lake, we began making our way up a forest road toward Cold Springs Campground. We again began to encountered snow and were forced to park adjacent to several other cars along the road.
Stoked up after seeing Rainier, we loaded our packs and prepared for a night or two out. We had planned to climb the Southern Route, which was primarily a snow field -- if you stayed on the south side (right, above) and did not wander onto the glaciated west and east sides. Again, it was cold and snowing. We had not really planned on it being so cold but made the best of it as we followed the road on foot up to the campground to bivy for the night. It was now mid June, perhaps 6/18, I recall that my butane stove would barely put any heat out, a victim of the below freezing temps and the relatively low elevation of 5,600'. It was a cold night sleeping on snow rather than inside the heated camper on a mattress.
In Colorado, climbing starts at 10,000 feet typically, but here we were starting at roughly half that. The next day it was even more grim conditions, clouds, snow and wind. Jack, seeing the weather, took a pass but Dean and I were determined to give it a try and try using his GPS unit to lead us to the summit. With our half-dozen wands and the new-fangled GPS we set forth. As we moved higher the visibility fell and the wind and snow became worse. Not really trusting his GPS "electronic bread crumbs" we also set a precious wand with each crumb. Soon all our wands were gone and visibility had become reduced to a gray bubble within a 30 foot radius surrounding us.
Although the GPS told us where we were and where we had come from, we were not sure that Dean's coordinates would keep us reliably on the snowfield. Lacking confidence in the accuracy of the GPS and with no visibility to validate our position it was, once again, time to retreat. We began to use the GPS to guide our way back. To our surprise, we were able to retrieve all our wands. So hey, this new technology had worked! But alas, this newfound confidence had come too late for us to bag our peak. We found our way back to camp, packed up and headed back to the truck. Defeated again!