Sticking Like Glue on Mt ADAMS: The NFNWR

There’s a feeling in steep skiing when your edges grab and your weight is centered. You feel like glue, like you can stick to any pitch, any mountain face. It’s quite the drug; you look out at a mountainscape, and rather than seeing all the un-skiable lines, you notice what is skiable.

Mt. Adam’s Northwest Face holds a lore amongst Pacific Northwest skiers. Legendary steep skiers Glen Plake and Doug Combs are rumored to first have skied it back in the 90s. From the top, it looks like the edge of the world: A beautiful plumb 45-50 degree face rolling over into infinity. Jason Hummel, a legend in the PNW, described skiing it as “skiing off the edge of the world.” Like the North Faces of the European Alps, it stands as one of the beautiful steep skiing lines of the Cascade volcanoes.

Jhjhjhjhjh…the screech of edges sliding on hard, frozen snow sounds like nails on chalkboard as we ski down the southside of Adams an hour before corn o’clock. In a way, I wish I had a mouthguard for the teeth chattering. Our young, slightly irrational sides are on full display as we opt for a double Adams ski day. We’re prioritizing the NFNWR, and we tell ourselves the southside is just extra, a little “warm up” for our edges. Our emotions are slightly different an hour later as we’re booting up the south side of Adams in perfect corn. We have 2,500‘ vertical feet to ponder our life choices, watching hoards of people ski down the Southwest Chutes in hero corn. Delayed gratification, we remind ourselves.