College students are full of great ideas like, let's climb Mt. Adams in October. It seemed like a good idea the previous weekend when we were up on Snoqualmie Peak. I had climbed the mountain when I was 12 years old, so how hard could it be. Larson and I left on Saturday because it was a long drive down to Trout Lake. We planned to climb the mountain and then head back up to Seattle where we had just had our first week of classes for junior year of college. The weather was looking really good, but it looked like some weather could move in by Sunday night. We would be off the mountain in plenty of time by then. We slept at the trailhead and then got an early start in the morning. The trail was pretty steep with a lot of uphill as one could imagine climbing a mountain. We were moving along pretty well though and we were well equipped for what we were going to encounter.
The trail was mostly dirt but led us to the rocks. From there, we fought our way over boulders, but didn't really have to deal with snow. That is until it started coming from the sky. The mountain looked clear in the early morning, but by late morning, we were in for it. It became almost whiteout conditions. We could not see where the route was going and the weather was windy, wet, and cold. After a while of dealing with this, we decided to bail on the mountain. It would have to wait for another day as we still had several thousand feet of climbing and we were still quite a ways off from the top. So we turned around and it wasn't too hard to make our way back to Larson's truck. When we got there, we were in for a surprise and that surprise was that Larson had lost his keys up on the mountain. We were successful in breaking in to the back of the truck and getting it unlocked, but getting it started was another story. What were we to do? We were the only car at the trailhead. As we were debating what our options were, we were lucky enough to find 3 lost souls who decided to drive to the trailhead. When we engaged them in conversation, they were happy to take the two of us back down to Trout Lake to call someone. I cannot believe how incredibly fortunate this random act of kindness was for us. From there we were able to call my mom. Her and her husband drove the couple hours out to Trout Lake, then the many hours to Seattle, and finally the couple hours back home on a Sunday in October to save her son and his friend from the unfortunate situation of losing the keys on the mountain. The next weekend, my dad was already going on a trip with me, so he drove Larson back to Trout Lake with his extra set of keys to pick up his truck. What a journey. Not really what we had planned when we haphazardly planned to ascend Mt. Adams in October, but it was still an adventure.
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