Mt Adams Northeast and Northwest Alpine Camps
I have done trips with close to this route a number of times, but I decided it was time to post it again as it had been a while and it went well. I did drive up the day before and camped near the Muddy Meadows trailhead so I could get a fresh start in the morning. The weather was clear and not too hot, and there are no mosquitoes left. I managed to find a window of time between wildfire smoke moving in, so it was only slightly hazy in the distance.
Mt Adams from the Muddy Meadows from very near the Muddy Meadows trailhead. And of course it is not muddy at all by this point in the summer.
6.6 mile on and 1900 feet higher and I was at my camp on the Highline Trail about one mile past Foggy Flat. I call it Moraine Camp, at 6300 feet. This trip anded up being during the Perseid Meteor Shower and on a moonless night I saw a couple of them.
Most of the creeks around here are very silty or muddy, so this nice clear spring is a treat, at 6800 feet, surrounded my blooming arnica.
That clear spring joins this Muddy Fork nearby. You would need to wade across this to continue to Devils Garden, which I did not do on this trip.
The northeast face of Mt Adams.
The next day was again about six miles to High Camp. It was less altitude gain, but a very steep last mile. Here I am approaching the High Camp area.
There was a lot of dwarf lupine in the area.
And a little bit that was not dwarf.
My camp in this popular area. I had the previous night's area to myself, but High Camp was packed.
The small creek that ran by my camp was dry when I got there.
But the warm and sunny day melted the snowfield a quarter mile away and it was running next to my camp by about 6:30pm.
It was new moon and lowland clouds moved in at sunset. So I saw this view as Venus on and left watched over Mt. St. Helens sleeping on a bed of clouds.
Those clouds were still there in the morning and burned off slowly, here with Mt. Rainier in the background.
