High Camp

Every November and December I try to edit the photos that I took for the year in preparation of sending them in for copyright registration. This gives me a good opportunity to find a few good images that I hadn’t really looked at or worked with earlier in the year. This year, I took a solo backpacking trip to High Camp on Mount Adams in late August. After I returned, I barely looked at the images I took because I was preparing for our trip to the Tetons and Yellowstone in September. So, with the year-end editing, I finally took a good look at the images from my Mount Adams trip and thought I’d post a few.

High Camp is located on the north side of Mount Adams inside the Mount Adams Wilderness Area. It is just shy of 7,000 feet in elevation and is about as high on the mountain you can go without a climber’s permit (required above 7,000 feet). Of course, the view of Mount Adams is fantastic, but it also has good views of Mount Saint Helens to the west and Mount Rainier to the north. High Camp is located at the edge of a large alpine meadow and great wildflower fields in August. This year, I was a bit late for the wildflower show. There were wildflower present, but it was definitely past the peak.

High Camp is a 10-mile roundtrip hike, via the Killen Creek Trail off of Forest Road 2329, with an elevation gain of 2,300 feet. Much of the elevation gain occurs in the final two miles, where the High Camp Trail branches off the Pacific Crest Trail. Though a popular spot, there are plenty of places to camp at High Camp. I picked a spot slightly sheltered by trees that still had a view of Adams to the front and Rainier to the back. The photos I’ve included with this post give a visual journey of a evening, night, and morning at High Camp.

You can read a little more about it and see a few more photos in my spot description of High Camp on Photohound.

The trail crosses a scree slope just below High Camp.
Moonrise over the shoulder of Mount Adams at sunset.
Mount Adams during the blue hour
Milky Way over Mount Adams shortly after moon set
Mountain goats lit by the rising sun on the shoulder of Mount Adams
Mount Saint Helens at sun rise
Mount Rainier at sun rise

 

Comments

3 responses to “High Camp”

  1. John Woods Avatar
    John Woods

    Great images Joe, looks like a fun trip. You didn’t happen to see any UFOs arund Adams did you? One night trip?

    1. joebecker Avatar

      Thanks John. No UFOs as far I as I know. I actually spent 2 nights on the trip. However, for the 2nd night I hiked back down to the PCT and found a spot looking out toward Rainier.

  2. […] to go with me, but solo seemed to be the thing to do this year. I spent one night at High Camp (see my last blog post) and a second night below High Camp at a spot several hundred meters off the Pacific Crest Trail. […]

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