06-20-2011, Mt. hood Summit

Met up with a couple of ladies who I work with at Meadows to tour on Mt. Hood as they had never done any back country. We met at Timberline at 10:30 after the low clouds burned off and headed up to the top of Palmer where we set up to hike. Since they wanted the tour of the mountain, we hiked up along the White River Glacier where the crevasses were starting to open up. From there it was the long slog up "heart attack hill" to Crater Rock and the start of the Hogsback. The Bergshrund Crevasse was opened up fully and was easily 50 feet deep, though I never did see a bottom to it. After having lunch, we made the group decision to go for the summit.

So, from there, we climbed up West Crater Rim, crossing the avalanche chute one at a time as there was some ice and rock falls on a regularly frequent basis. The final chute to the summit had steepened noticeably in the last month from the limited melting that has occurred. I would estimate it to be pushing 60 degrees and about 6 feet wide and a hundred feet long to the summit. It was solid ice and I had to actually chip out steps with the ice axe for a safe ascent. I could not believe how damn cold it was up there for June 20`th. Everything in the shade of late afternoon, was frozen solid and the temperature I was reading showed 29. The wind was absolutely fierce at the summit. We hung out for about 15 minutes, took some pictures then got the hell out of there as it was about sunset and we needed to get all the way back before dark.

The ride down was not even remotely fun. West Crater Rim was nothing but frozen death cookies cemented together; ranging is size from golf balls to bowling balls. There was absolutely no making any kind of turn on that shit so it was a long series of linked traverses to the Hogsback. From there, things improved greatly and we had a very fine ride sown the Zig Zag Glacier with the exception of the frozen crust on top that was a little like falling throw a plate glass window when you tried to turn too aggressively and broke through. We made it to the parking lot just as full darkness set in. They were super stoked as they never dreamed they would summit the mountain today.

Here are some of today`s pictures: