SummitPost.org

I live on the east coast, but I'm looking to head out to climb Mt Adams, the south spur route, either the last week of April, or first week in May with some friends. The ranger station has been helpful so far, but I'm just looking for anyone, that's been on the mountain recently, or has some experiences on climbing Adams in early season. I know that we have to snowshoe our way on the road, going to cold springs campground. In early season, I'm guessing there is no running streams and well have to fully rely on melting snow for water right? From cold springs, how is it navigating up to lunch counter? Is the trail defined while your in the trees? Also would the wooden posts leading up to lunch counter be completely buried? How's the snow pack, was wondering as far as avalanche danger if wind slabs is something to be concerned about.

Here's a recent TR:
http://cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthr ... ost1147817

I tried it mid-May and got kicked off. Here's THAT TR:
http://www.splattski.com/2001/adams/index.html

To answer your questions, the road to Cold Springs is the long way up the mountain, but there are no markers for any other route. Once above the TH, don't count on finding markers, although there are some. And if the weather is bad, you won't be able to find anything. Above timberline you can get in full white-out conditions (and there are 5 or 6k to gain above timberline). Make sure you can cope with that.

Avalanche conditions change by the hour, so start studying the conditions now so you can make an informed opinion when you see what YOUR conditions are.

Thanks for those links and the info. Yes were fully aware of the demand that's needed for this. Were going to have extra fuel/food so if we wanted to wait out for a weather window we could. But if the mountain doesn't let us, you live to climb another day. Even though well have map/compass/gps I wasn't sure if there would be a obvious boot path up to lunch counter at this time of the year. Or from there up to the false summit