Escaped the smoke and did 2 night backpack through Mt. Adams Wilderness and wow this area is beautiful!
Itinerary: Day 1: Killen Creek TH -> High Camp (4.6 mi, 2300ft); Day 2: High Camp -> Glacier Lake -> Foggy Flats (7.6 mi, 1600ft) Day 3: Foggy Flats ->Muddy Meadows TH -> connector trail -> Killen Creek (8.8 mi, 500ft)
Day 1: Started from the trailhead around 6:30pm and set a brisk pace to hope to make it to camp by sunset. The first few miles until crossing the PCT was somewhat dusty but straightforward. After crossing the PCT the trail gets more rocky and poles were definitely helpful. Golden hour was in full force and we were treated to amazing views of Rainier and the cascades to the north. We arrived at High Camp and found a great creek passing right through camp -- seems in no danger of drying up this year. With poor light we found an established site but found a bunch more near the tree stands in the terminus of the snow-field the next morning. Beautiful stars -- we wished we had slept without our rainfly! Only 1 or 2 other parties camping at High camp on Friday.
Day 2: Woke up to (even better) visibility and decided to trek to Glacier lake before moving camp. We mainly hiked up the snow-field and were treated to views of Mt. St. Helens, Rainier, and, of course, a very impressive Mt. Adams -- we even saw a marmot! For this excursion I definitely recommend having downloaded GPS/maps. After getting back to high camp we struck our tent and headed back down to the intersection of the PCT. Trail conditions were superb and we only saw a handful of other groups. We veered off the PCT to the Highline trail and began the climb to Foggy Flats. After consulting other trip reports, we filled up water at Foggy Flats, but camped 1/2 mile further up at the edge of tree-line near Muddy Fork Creek (too sediment-y to use as a water source and the other small creek has already dried up). After a short nap we decided to do a trail run loop back to PCT->Highline trail->Muddy Meadows Tr. and it was AMAZING. The cloud cover helped with temperatures and the trail was very run-able and flowy. Slept with our fly off and the stars were spectacular. A couple of parties at Foggy Flats camp and 1 other tent near the creek where we camped.
Day 3: Woke up just after sunrise to our dog rustling about in tent and we saw a fox (!) running across the path. Very cool as I had never seen a fox in the wild. Relatively quick (and dusty) miles back to Muddy Meadows trailhead. We took the connector trail the ~2 miles back to Killen Creek TH which was slightly brushy and had a fair amount of horse manure, but was nice to not walk on the road. We stopped by Takhlakh Lake on our way out for a quick swim and it was so spectacular (highly recommend).
TLDR; Amazing wilderness area, relatively few people, bugs not too bad, dusty trails, and superb views.
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