Stagman Ridge to The Bumper and Horseshoe Meadow (Mt Adams)

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Naturebat
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Stagman Ridge to The Bumper and Horseshoe Meadow (Mt Adams)

Post by Naturebat » July 31st, 2014, 3:21 pm

Last Saturday, we hiked off trail up to The Bumper in the Mount Adams Wilderness and scrambled to the top. The Bumper is a prominent rocky knob on the west side of Mount Adams above the Pacific Crest Trail. At the top, it is 6,490 ft. high and offers superb views of Mount Adams craggy west face and its many hanging glaciers.

I have a new polarizer now, so this will be my first time trying it out. I already love it! :D

Opening image:
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Mount Adams from The Bumper.


We drove up Hwy 141 toward Mount Adams in southwest Washington's Volcano Country. The mountain loomed over the highway and Trout Lake valley, a truly impressive sight that never gets old.
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Primary Forest Road 23 over Babyshoe Pass (4,334') has always been one of my favorite Cascade Range drives, the views, beautiful forests, and feeling of remoteness are some of its greatest qualities.
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We accidentally drove too far and missed the potholed Road 8031 turn. We reached the Mount Adams Viewpoint before realizing we went too far. But I did get this picture from the viewpoint:
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We backtracked and found the road, and almost immediately crossed the bridge over the Wild and Scenic White Salmon River.
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The road wasn't too bad; we made it fine with our car. The only rough section was about half a mile long on FR 8031. Forest Road 070 and FR 120 were both very well-maintained and looked to be recently graveled.

FR 070 or FR 120 (I don't remember which.)
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We got to the trailhead by about 12:00 PM, much later than we hoped to be there.
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Right away from the trailhead, we got this amazing view of Eckhart Point at 4,592 ft, and Sleeping Beauty Peak at 4,907 ft. peeking from behind. There is a nice picnic area at the trailhead, with two picnic tables and a fire pit. Both tables have front row seats to the view west.
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There were many nice wildflowers at the trailhead too:
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We started the hike on the Stagman Ridge Trail:
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It starts out through the green forest for the first ~.7 miles.
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And follows an old logging road for about .5 miles in:
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After leaving the logging road, the trail gets really brushy:
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Entering the Mount Adams Wilderness and the burnt forest from the 2012 Cascade Creek Fire.
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There were quite a few Tiger Lilies blooming along the first part of the trail:
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And some more flowers that I don't know the name of, like this one here:
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Along this trail, the meadows were thriving! The fire brought more sun for the wildflowers to thrive. And along with the flowers, we spotted many butterflies, including this one here:
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And this orange one:
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Through the first mile or so, the meadows have really overgrown the trail.
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More wildflowers:
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Mount Adams constantly was peeking over the trees along the wildflower-lined trail:
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We encountered this strange tree around Grassy Hill:
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Trail through the meadows:
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As the trail descended the north slope of Grassy Hill, we entered a severely burned section of forest:
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But that did not last long, as soon we entered green forest again, and crossed a small tributary of the White Salmon River:
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At the halfway point between Grassy Hill and the Graveyard Camp Cutoff Trail for Lookingglass Lake, we crossed this nice meadow with an impressive view of Mount Adams. Older maps show this as the location of Bottle Camp:
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The "Bottle Camp Meadow:"
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Crossing the meadow, Mount Adams from the halfway point:
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At around this point, the lupines started to come out in full force. This is one of my favorite wildflowers.
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We didn't go to Lookingglass Lake, but here is the creek that the Graveyard Camp Cutoff Trail crosses at the Graveyard Camp-Stagman Ridge Trail junction:
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The Stagman Ridge Trail gently ascended to the PCT.
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View of Mount Adams through the trees:
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We could see Mount Hood and St. Helens along much of the hike too.

Mount Hood. I haven't hiked there all year :? :
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More fields of lupines along the trail:
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We turned north on the PCT junction:
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The Pacific Crest Trail just past the junction:
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This is the view from the 3-way PCT-Round the Mountain Trail junction:
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We headed north along the PCT from there:
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View westward:
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Subalpine landscape along the PCT:
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And rounding the corner to another view of Mt. Adams:
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A rocky cliff in the Mount Adams Wilderness:
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Beautiful meadows along the PCT:
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This is the point on the PCT where we went off trail up to The Bumper. It's a wide meadow at a V-shaped corner on the PCT and the closest point the trail gets to The Bumper:
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Our GPS died just as we reached the spot to head off trail, but I figured I did enough route planning to be fine. All we had to do was head in the general direction of The Bumper, which was almost always in view. And Its pretty hard to get lost above the timberline, because the PCT, Round the Mountain, and Highline Trails go almost completely around the mountain anyway
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Going off-trail to the Bumper. It is easy walking along the meadow for the most part of the journey:
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Rocky cliff to the right (south) of our route up. We followed the paths of some ravines up to the left (north) side of The Bumper.
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Cross-country to The Bumper:
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Looking up to The Bumper (6,490')
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We followed the ravines up to the left side of The Bumper, where we encountered the first snow along the hike:
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Looking up the northwest face of The Bumper:
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Mount Adams looming just above a small ridge in front of us:
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I walked up the "ridge" to get an unobstructed view of Mount Adams:
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Looking north to The Hump (6,608') I believe, but I could be wrong.
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We then headed up to the north side of The Bumper, and started scrambling up the slope:
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Crossing a snowfield:
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Looking northwest from the snowfield:
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Looking west from The Bumper. Mount St. Helens (left), the Lewis River watershed (middle), and the rugged peaks of the Dark Divide (right):
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At the top, we were greeted by this jaw-dropping front row view of Mount Adams and the Pinacle Glacier (left), the hanging White Salmon Glacier (upper middle), and the Avalanche Glacier (right), which caused a massive avalanche in 1997 that sent debris flowing most of the way down the Cascade Creek valley.
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Mount Adams from The Bumper:
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A panorama from near the summit:
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Full size:http://www.panoramio.com/photo_explorer ... er=7473456

The top of The Bumper is a wide flat area, a good spot to pitch a tent I think:
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Anyway, on to more pictures! :P Looking down from the peak to the southeast:
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Looking off to The Hump (?)
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The Hump (?):
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Mount Adams craggy west face:
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Icefalls on the hanging White Salmon Glacier:
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A close-up of The Pinnacle on Mount Adams:
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After soaking up the views, we headed down The Bumper:
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We had no trouble finding our way down. Here is another view of Mount Adams from the PCT:
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Mount Adams from the Pacific Crest Trail:
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Looking up at the rocky cliff again:
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Hiking back along the PCT:
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A view of Mount Hood:
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Mount Adams and more lupines :P :
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Mount Adams looks so amazing! Mount Adams is no doubt one of my two favorite mountains, the other being Mt. Rainier of course.
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At the junction with the Around the Mountain Trail, we headed the short .1 mile to Horseshoe Meadow. Still very beautiful and enchanting even after the fire came through. There is a water source at the meadow, but from what I hear it runs dry late in the season.
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Horseshoe Meadow:
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Mount Adams looming above the meadow in all its snowy glory:
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Horseshoe Meadows Panorama:
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Full size image: http://www.panoramio.com/photo_explorer ... er=7473456

Another panorama shot, but less wide:
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Full size image: http://www.panoramio.com/photo_explorer ... er=7473456

After taking a few pics at Horseshoe Meadow, we headed down the PCT to meet up with the Stagman Ridge Trail junction:

More lupines:
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Looking across the Cascade Creek Valley to Crofton Ridge from the Stagman Ridge Trail.
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Looking back to Mount Adams:
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We passed the "Bottle Camp" meadow again:
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We arrived back at the trailhead just as the sun was setting on the horizon. There was some sunlight all the way back to Trout Lake.

Sunset on Mount Hood from the trailhead:
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The sun setting behind the mountains from the trailhead:
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Summary
Distance: 12.22 mi

Elevation SRTM
Elevation Gain: 2391.65 ft
Elevation Loss: 2401.49 ft
Min Elevation: 4222.44 ft
Max Elevation: 6459.97 ft

http://gpsfly.org/gps_map.php?gps_id=3529&w=645&h=440
Last edited by Naturebat on December 30th, 2019, 1:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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drm
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Re: Stagman Ridge to The Bumper and Horseshoe Meadow (Mt Ada

Post by drm » August 1st, 2014, 7:26 am

Your opening picture, looking up from The Bumper is quite enticing to alpine travelers. There is a route from Crystal Lake, going up and right, that crosses over a high point and then you drop down to Horseshoe Meadow, that I think crosses the area in the your photo. It's mostly easy alpine walking but depending on route-finding there can be a few slightly scrambly places. This makes for a nice lollipop or even extending the PCT / Riley loop that has been talked about recently.

But maybe going up there via The Bumper is the fastest way to get there.

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Re: Stagman Ridge to The Bumper and Horseshoe Meadow (Mt Ada

Post by sprengers4jc » August 1st, 2014, 10:30 am

Nice work, Fluttershy! I'm glad your new camera is getting as much of a workout as you are. Very nice pictures!

Speaking of workouts, pretty sure those ponies are logging more trail miles than I am these days. Just sayin' ;).

PS: what equipment are you using for GPS tracking? I like the pinned images at various spots along the way. And what was the bug situation like?
'We travel not to escape life but for life to not escape us.'
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Re: Stagman Ridge to The Bumper and Horseshoe Meadow (Mt Ada

Post by VanMarmot » August 3rd, 2014, 6:28 am

Yes, the polarizer is a wonderful invention.

Thanks for this TR and the reassuring photos! I was concerned that you'd find the area more ravaged by the 2010 fire than you did. Or maybe you weren't in the worst burned areas? Even after the fire ( :cry: ) that W side of Mt. Adams still seems like a great place for a hike and the expansive views of the mountain are in a class of their own.

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Naturebat
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Re: Stagman Ridge to The Bumper and Horseshoe Meadow (Mt Ada

Post by Naturebat » August 4th, 2014, 10:40 pm

sprengers4jc wrote:Nice work, Fluttershy! I'm glad your new camera is getting as much of a workout as you are. Very nice pictures!

Speaking of workouts, pretty sure those ponies are logging more trail miles than I am these days. Just sayin' ;).

PS: what equipment are you using for GPS tracking? I like the pinned images at various spots along the way. And what was the bug situation like?

Hi, and thanks! :D Sorry for the late reply... been busy preparing for a big trip to the North Cascades. (so excited! :D )

This year's Ponies Around the World event was really big, ponies at practically every corner on earth! My contributions only made a small dent in the number of pictures. It's crazy! Someone even took some ponies to the south pole! ...now all we have to do is get ponies to the moon... and Mount Everest. :lol:

As for the gps track, I wanted to use an app I recently downloaded onto my phone to track my route, but my phone died before I even could start tracking it. :( So instead, I carefully mapped the route on gpsvisualizer, following the trails shown on the USGS topo map, then verified and adjusted the track to the satellite/aerial map layer. It was fairly easy to map, because the trail looks pretty obvious in the aerial map, especially in the burned out sections. It was time consuming, though. I placed the pictures at the approximate locations I took them, most were easy, like some being at a intersection for instance.
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Naturebat
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Re: Stagman Ridge to The Bumper and Horseshoe Meadow (Mt Ada

Post by Naturebat » August 4th, 2014, 10:54 pm

VanMarmot wrote:Yes, the polarizer is a wonderful invention.

Thanks for this TR and the reassuring photos! I was concerned that you'd find the area more ravaged by the 2010 fire than you did. Or maybe you weren't in the worst burned areas? Even after the fire ( :cry: ) that W side of Mt. Adams still seems like a great place for a hike and the expansive views of the mountain are in a class of their own.
It was definitely beautiful, and I would definitely go back again. Even though I wish I could have hiked there before the fire, at least now on the bright side there are more open views and meadows to look forward to. :)

Once on the RTM and PCT trails, it was maybe 35-40% burned, many areas survived at timberline. The worst areas of the fire was between Morrison Creek Campground and the Crofton Ridge Trail, on one of my earlier hikes this year I explored that area to see how bad the burn was. The burn around Stagman Ridge was patchy it seems, with many surviving trees and meadows here and there. Even in the worst burned areas, the meadows have fully recovered. The only place along the entire hike that appears dead with no ground vegetation at all, is right after Grassy Hill as it descends down its north face. Everywhere else had 1-2' tall grasses and wildflowers. The Lupines were exploding in the higher elevations, and many other kinds of flowers (especially a white and pollen-rich flower that-I-don't-know-the-name-of) were blooming like crazy in the mid-lower elevations below Grassy Hill all the way back to the TH.
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darvellloyd
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Re: Stagman Ridge to The Bumper and Horseshoe Meadow (Mt Ada

Post by darvellloyd » August 6th, 2014, 6:13 pm

Hi Jayson!

Wow, what a nice slide show of your hike up to the treeline on the southwest side of Mt. Adams! Susan Saul put a link to your post on the Friends of Mount Adams Facebook site.

I'm grateful for this current information because I'll be leading a FOMA hike (group of about 11) up to Horseshoe Meadow this coming Sat., Aug. 9th. It's nice to see some water in the little stream that drains through the meadow. And it's great to see the ground vegetation recovering nicely from the 2012 Cascade Creek Burn.

One note: Bottle Camp is located where the Stagman Ridge Trail first crosses another small stream after dropping down from the NW side of Grassy Hill. The old, abandoned Graveyard Camp is located along the Horseshoe Meadow outlet stream at about the 5500 ft. level, a short distance north of the junction of the Stagman Ridge Trail and the old Lookingglass Lake trail.

We always like to hike up to The Bumper via Horseshoe Meadow (a little less-steep). Then, it's a beautiful wander through the tundra and over the bedrock knobs past The Hump and down to Crystal Lake, looping on back to the Stagman Ridge Trail via the PCT.

Darvel

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Re: Stagman Ridge to The Bumper and Horseshoe Meadow (Mt Ada

Post by Roy » August 8th, 2014, 2:01 pm

So when are you going to pack up the ponies and climb your favorite mountain? You obviously have found a home around Mt Adams and a good one it is.
The downhill of the mind is harder than the uphill of the body. - Yuichiro Miura

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