This isn’t a thru-hike of Mt. Adams. This is a dabbling around Mt. Adams. A meandering, a wandering.

Sure, we could hike all the way around (it’s about 40 miles and requires a short cross-country talus/scrambly section through part of the Yakima Reservation (advanced permit and permission needed), but we don’t want to go that far.

Sure, we could climb the mountain, but I have done that before, and I’m not a mountain climber (I don’t really get excited by getting to the top of things), so instead Kirk and I are going to hike out and back, touch part of the PCT on the west side, and just enjoy our Mt. Adams dabbling.

I was stoked to get Kirk on a trail, too. We definitely trend more heavily to the water in the summer. Sweating up the side of a mountain can be a little brutal on an 80 degree day, but my vague recollections of a stunning cruisy trail in an alpine wonderland when I hiked the PCT in 2006 was quite appealing.

We left Bend early afternoon and fought our way through the growing throngs of vacationers and their RVs and boats tied precariously to the tops of their Subarus. It would be faster for us to drive up to Washington and the side of Mt. Adams than some of the other destinations in Oregon we had been thinking about. I forget about Washington sometimes!

The last hour of driving up to the Cold Springs Trailhead where our hike would start was a progressive nail biter. The road got increasingly rutted and narrow the higher we climbed in my little Honda Fit (oh please little car, please make it!) When big dipping swales across the road started popping up (to divert water), I scraped bottom a few times and crossed my fingers. Just as I was getting real nervous about the drive, we were there. Cars and trucks filled in the little parking spaces between small stands of trees and open burn area.

We found a spot just big enough for our little car (note: we weren’t the smallest car up here!) and started packing up.

There was little planning for this trip, so a rushed trip to the grocery store on the way up provided our 4-day food provisions. We repackaged and shuffled things in and out of stuff sacks before we were ready to go.

Then, hiking.

We walked through the old burn…it continued in and out of view as we worked our way up 1000ish feet to the Round the Mountain Trail.

Immediately, my right hip started hurting. Like a real hurt.

This was baffling: it hadn’t been bothering me at all before I started walking today. This felt odd and different. It felt like an injury, but there was no injury. Did I sit weird on the drive up? I guess I’m of an age where things like this can happen without warning. One minute, you are fine and going to multiple yoga classes a week. The next, you are limping up the side of a mountain.

We walked and I tried not to think about it. Today was just about getting a few miles up, so we soon found camp a few hundred feet above the trail, and I broke out the feast.

The evening put on a good show, and we watched the sinking sun in a bug-free bliss, happy, full, and living large.