A Ride to Climb: Bikepacking to Mount Adams (Video)

Our friend Chris Wilson’s latest video documents a ride-to-climb adventure up the South Spur of Mount Adams in Washington State. Find the 16-minute video here alongside some words and photos from Chris…

Words and photos by Chris Wilson

I bought a mountain bike six years ago after my friend Rob suggested we ride to three local volcanoes and climb each of them. That never happened, but I ended up discovering bikepacking in the process. A few years later, Rob would join me on a ride across Washington on the XWA route. We’ve continued to talk about combining cycling and climbing, but it wasn’t until this September that we finally made it happen. It wasn’t the weeklong trip we originally planned, but sometimes you’ve only get a weekend.

We decided to climb the South Spur of Mount Adams. This is a non-technical climb with easy logistics. Rob would start his ride from Portland, OR, and I would meet him two days later in Trout Lake. We had had a blast on the trip and the conditions were perfect. Despite looking difficult on paper, this turned out to be one of our easiest rides this year!

  • Bikepacking Mount Adams
  • Bikepacking Mount Adams
  • Bikepacking Mount Adams

“The horizon begins to radiate pink and orange, and an incredible landscape is revealed.”

Bikepacking Mount Adams
  • Bikepacking Mount Adams
  • Bikepacking Mount Adams
  • Bikepacking Mount Adams
  • Bikepacking Mount Adams
  • Bikepacking Mount Adams
Chris Wilson

About Chris Wilson

Chris Wilson was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest and is based out of Vancouver, Washington. He started backpacking, then moved to climbing, and after riding the White Rim Trail, got hooked on bikepacking. Find a few more of Chris’s videos documenting various routes in the related content grid below.

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