Gotchen Glacier Moraine & South Butte (Mt. Adams) 8-30-17
Gotchen Glacier Moraine & South Butte (Mt. Adams) 8-30-17
I culled these destinations from Marge & Ted Mueller’s Washington’s South Cascades’ Volcanic Landscapes many years ago, but only checked them off my list this week. From the South Climb Trailhead, I hiked up through the fringes of the 2012 Cascade Creek Fire and took a right on the Round the Mountain Trail. Heading in and out of gullies with pocket meadows, I soon encountered a tongue of the A.G. Aiken Lava Bed, a manifestation of Adams’ most recent eruption perhaps only 2,000 – 4,000 years ago.
After I crossed a second tongue of the lava bed, I began heading off-trail towards the crescent-shaped terminal moraine of the Gotchen Glacier (The terminal moraines on Adams are much more impressive than those on Mt. Hood; the Avalanche, Crescent, and Mazama Glaciers on the south side all have shapely tall moraines). I stuck to a draw as much as possible because there the tread was vegetated and firm; any slope was soft and loose. There were a couple of old plastic signs lying face down. I passed under Point 6775, perhaps the source vent for the Aiken Lava Bed. Reaching the base of the moraine, I scrambled up a loose gully to the crest.
There’s a small melt pond in the moraine depression, and the Mazama Moraine looms above. Just to the west and north are the crumbly cliffs of Suksdorf Ridge. Views extended over Bird Creek Meadows to the Simcoes and south over the Gotchen Creek Meadows to Snipes Mountain and Mt. Hood. The next job was to effect a traverse to South Butte. The Muellers specifically tell you NOT to do this because of the rotten precipices, but I espied a breach that made it worth a shot. Basically I shuffled upward on moving scree. When things shifted too much, I planted more body parts (knees and hands) on the rock to spread my weight (There was no 50-foot cliff below me or I wouldn’t have done it). I made sure I wasn’t undermining large killer rocks above me. It was fairly slow work picking out a route, but it got me over the ridge. From there, I traversed outcroppings of whitebark pine and loose slopes of clinker lava to arrive below the red cinder cone of South Butte.
South Butte is similar to Little Mount Adams, which you can see from its summit: a red cone with eroded battlements of a basalt plug rimming a small crater. At 7,810 feet, it offers wide views, with Mt. St. Helens on the western horizon, but the devastation of the 2012 Cascade Creek Fire is also spread below.
I headed over to the north side of the Butte and suddenly beheld, 25 yards directly below me, my first hiker of the day. I introduced myself to begin a conversation. When he explained he was Bill E. Coates of South Butte, WA, I realized he was a local. He expressed some annoyance, by virtue of a furrowed brow, at my presence since he was obviously used to having the whole place to himself. I sat down and continued explain that my stay would be brief, but that he was blocking my chosen route to the snow gully below. Bill continued with his vegan luncheon. I observed that the composition of his salad was mostly hulsea (alpinegold), alpine goldenrod (These are two different plants), and alpine sedge with perhaps a peppery dash of smelowskia for seasoning. Mumbling through his (dare I say) goatee, he warned that there would be consequences if I kicked up dust all over his favorite greens, so I effected a wide circle, using mostly snow to end up below him. After one last long deliberative look, he made his way hulsea-grazing up the cinders towards the summit.
My route down from South Butte was rather haphazard, ranging from squeezing through dense thickets of 200-year-old five-foot-tall krummholtzy whitebark pine to clinker ball-bearings and a whole slope of platy andesite skateboards. I eventually found a series of snowfields I could foot-ski down until I met up with the South Climb Trail at a giant cairn near Morrison Creek. For some strange reason, even though the parking lot was fairly full, I met no humans on the trails that day.
After I crossed a second tongue of the lava bed, I began heading off-trail towards the crescent-shaped terminal moraine of the Gotchen Glacier (The terminal moraines on Adams are much more impressive than those on Mt. Hood; the Avalanche, Crescent, and Mazama Glaciers on the south side all have shapely tall moraines). I stuck to a draw as much as possible because there the tread was vegetated and firm; any slope was soft and loose. There were a couple of old plastic signs lying face down. I passed under Point 6775, perhaps the source vent for the Aiken Lava Bed. Reaching the base of the moraine, I scrambled up a loose gully to the crest.
There’s a small melt pond in the moraine depression, and the Mazama Moraine looms above. Just to the west and north are the crumbly cliffs of Suksdorf Ridge. Views extended over Bird Creek Meadows to the Simcoes and south over the Gotchen Creek Meadows to Snipes Mountain and Mt. Hood. The next job was to effect a traverse to South Butte. The Muellers specifically tell you NOT to do this because of the rotten precipices, but I espied a breach that made it worth a shot. Basically I shuffled upward on moving scree. When things shifted too much, I planted more body parts (knees and hands) on the rock to spread my weight (There was no 50-foot cliff below me or I wouldn’t have done it). I made sure I wasn’t undermining large killer rocks above me. It was fairly slow work picking out a route, but it got me over the ridge. From there, I traversed outcroppings of whitebark pine and loose slopes of clinker lava to arrive below the red cinder cone of South Butte.
South Butte is similar to Little Mount Adams, which you can see from its summit: a red cone with eroded battlements of a basalt plug rimming a small crater. At 7,810 feet, it offers wide views, with Mt. St. Helens on the western horizon, but the devastation of the 2012 Cascade Creek Fire is also spread below.
I headed over to the north side of the Butte and suddenly beheld, 25 yards directly below me, my first hiker of the day. I introduced myself to begin a conversation. When he explained he was Bill E. Coates of South Butte, WA, I realized he was a local. He expressed some annoyance, by virtue of a furrowed brow, at my presence since he was obviously used to having the whole place to himself. I sat down and continued explain that my stay would be brief, but that he was blocking my chosen route to the snow gully below. Bill continued with his vegan luncheon. I observed that the composition of his salad was mostly hulsea (alpinegold), alpine goldenrod (These are two different plants), and alpine sedge with perhaps a peppery dash of smelowskia for seasoning. Mumbling through his (dare I say) goatee, he warned that there would be consequences if I kicked up dust all over his favorite greens, so I effected a wide circle, using mostly snow to end up below him. After one last long deliberative look, he made his way hulsea-grazing up the cinders towards the summit.
My route down from South Butte was rather haphazard, ranging from squeezing through dense thickets of 200-year-old five-foot-tall krummholtzy whitebark pine to clinker ball-bearings and a whole slope of platy andesite skateboards. I eventually found a series of snowfields I could foot-ski down until I met up with the South Climb Trail at a giant cairn near Morrison Creek. For some strange reason, even though the parking lot was fairly full, I met no humans on the trails that day.
Re: Gotchen Glacier Moraine & South Butte (Mt. Adams) 8-30-1
What a great TR!
Three things I love seeing on hikes: glaciers, goats, and contraptions.
Three things I love seeing on hikes: glaciers, goats, and contraptions.
Re: Gotchen Glacier Moraine & South Butte (Mt. Adams) 8-30-1
On your wooden contraption, my guess would be a base for a bridge or boardwalk over a wetland bog. Not certain why it would be built and not used unless it was helicoptered in and forgotten.
Re: Gotchen Glacier Moraine & South Butte (Mt. Adams) 8-30-1
No, there are two buttress planks nailed to the tree and the box may have been on the tree at some point. No bogs or creeks in sight - it's in a lava bed and any water flows under the surface for a couple of miles.