Home > Trip Reports > July 6, 2016, Hood, Cooper Spur/NE Face

July 6, 2016, Hood, Cooper Spur/NE Face

7/6/16
OR Mt Hood
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Posted by jimw on 7/9/16 11:26pm
On Wed, I rode Hood via Cooper Spur/NE face and onto the Eliot.  The route barely goes... but it goes.  Probably my most epically cool day in the mountains ever so far!  Will come back here and post a proper TR soon, but meanwhile here are a couple pics.  You can just barely see the tracks in the first one.  Route follows the spur proper from the top through the upper chimney, then traverses onto the NE face just below that, above the obvious rocky chutes about 1/3 of the way down.  Of course, Hood is getting dumped on yet again right now so it will probably all look different next week (maybe it will be good to go again?).



Nice, dude! Looks like you climbed the Spur. A couple folks and I were planning to ride that line as well, but were ascending from the South. We were deterred by the clouds.


nicely done!   I skied Snowdome for the first time on July5th- hadn't seen that side of the mountain in person before- I never woulda guess that Cooper Spur was still ridable.   Hell of a steep line there :)


author=Pete Alderson link=topic=36717.msg149578#msg149578 date=1468288520]
Hell of a steep line there :)


That does look steep! Nice work!

Finally getting around to a proper TR on this.  I'm probably breaking a bunch of rules with too many pictures etc, but... I'm gonna do it anyway. :)  This trip meant a lot to me.



But, I'm getting ahead of myself.  Lemme back up.

The Backstory

Waaaaay back in the day, I used to subscribe to Couloir magazine.  God I loved that magazine.  At the time I lived in upstate NY, where the mountains have trees on their summits.  Looking at the pictures in Couloir was like looking at another planet.  I soaked it up and dreamed of the day that I might too be able to climb and ride those big mountains.  One issue in particular I remember, it featured a few of the Cascade volcanoes.  This was in 1998.



Shasta was on the cover, and there was a great article on it.  I grew up in Seattle (way before I knew what a snowboard was, and that "backcountry skiing" was a thing), and went to college in southern CA, so I had driven by Shasta.  I remember thinking "I wonder if people actually climb that thing".  Little did I know.  Anyway, that article prompted me to check into Shasta a bit more.  Later that year, a friend and I did a guided 3 day trip up Shasta in the spring, summited, and rode off the top in epic corn.  That trip was truly mind-expanding and started me down the path of backcountry snowboarding.  That trip was also where I saw my first splitboard, in person.  It was one of the early Voile Split Decisions.  At the time I climbed all the way to the summit on Verts (which were reviewed in that same issue) with my solid board on my back.  Times have changed.

In any case, that trip really opened my eyes to the awesomeness of touring in the backcountry, and over the years I've gotten more and more into this little niche sport.  Among other things, I find that time alone in the wilderness is invaluable for clearing my head, especially appreciated in the tumultuous times were are going through in the world at large today.  I appreciate having the opportunity that our wilderness gives us.

There was another article in that same issue of Couloir that caught my attention.  It was by Doug Coombs, an account of his descent down the left NE gully on Hood.



I remember reading that article and thinking, that guy is crazy! I knew he wasn't really crazy, just had skills way beyond what I could imagine (same with Steven Koch, who rode the right NE gully several years earlier... just a whole different league).  Also, the description of skiing on ice, rappelling, jumping over bergschrunds (I had to look up what that was), it just didn't sound like my idea of a fun descent.  But something about that picture of Hood lodged itself in my brain.  The lookers left skyline on that picture seemed like a potentially doable descent, without all those pesky cliffs and crevasses.  I later found out that was Cooper Spur.

Looking into Cooper Spur some more, I found that first of all it had been the site of many accidents on Hood.  But it had also seen ski and snowboard descents.  Years later, I saw an account of a descent on a splitboard by christoph bennels, who posts here, and that cemented it in my mind as something I wanted to try "one of these days".  In the meantime I had been spending lots of time honing my riding in the steeps of the Eastern Sierra, so I was starting to feel that riding something like Cooper Spur was more within the realm of actual possibility.

The problem was that I lived in CA, and I didn't make it up that far north in OR very much, and on top of that it seemed like it was tricky to get good conditions on the route.  A couple years ago, my friend Buell (OR volcano connoisseur) convinced me to come up to give the NFNWR route on Adams a shot.  Since we were going to go right past Hood on the way, I talked him into checking out Cooper Spur on the way.  This was almost exactly 2 years ago, on July 5.  We approached from the closed Mt. Hood Meadows and traversed over (actually not a bad way to go) since the beta we found was that Cloud Cap road was closed.  We were at the base of the apron below the route where it starts getting steep at about 8 AM, and even then was too late on that day.  The snow suddenly turned to totally unconsolidated sugar.  A little further up a rock fell onto the slope, and we watched as a point release turned into a huge loose snow slide.  Time to get outta there.  (As consolation, we did get to ride the NFNWR a couple days later, albeit in the opposite conditions, a bit too firm...)

Since then, I've been thinking about that route more and more.  Studying various pictures, it seemed like there ought to be a way to stay a bit lookers right of the main spur line and move out onto the NE face, and thread your way through bergschrunds at the bottom, without ever having to hit actual ice/rappel/huck.  And it seemed like conditions were more likely to be good for skiing on that aspect as it doesn't get as much direct sun.  In recent years, that's exactly what a number of folks have done.  Here are a couple TR's from this forum of folks skiing this exact route, which I found quite inspiring and helpful:

http://www.turns-all-year.com/skiing_snowboarding/trip_reports/index.php?topic=34273.0
http://www.turns-all-year.com/skiing_snowboarding/trip_reports/index.php?topic=36605.0

So, fast forward to last week.  I had planned to take the week of July 4 off work.  Over the years I've learned to not really plan any definite objectives, and rather just go with what looks good given the weather and conditions.  So I loaded up the van with the bikes and boards and headed out.  But it did look like there was a potential window for Hood around Wed, so I kept that open.  My beta from my friend Morgan was that the OR volcanoes had gotten a pretty good late season dump, and then it warmed up.  He had been out on Wy'east during that warm period and said it was borderline dangerous.  The forecast was for things to cool off Mon/Tues, so I thought that after a good freeze, things might be decent on Hood.

I went out to North Peak (by Tioga Pass) on July 4th for a warmup... 4 chutes on the 4th! :)



Then after talking to Morgan, we agreed to give Hood a go on Wed.  The drive started late for several reasons (one being that the ATM ate my debit card the day I was leaving for a week, so I had no way to get cash, awesome), and I made it up to Bend at about 1 AM... crashed out for a couple hours, then got up and drove the rest of the way to meet Morgan at Cloud Cap a little after 5 AM.  Things were not looking promising when I got there.  The forecast was for clear skies and light winds.  The reality was it was windy even down where we were, and the upper mountain was hidden by fast-moving clouds.  It was clearly gonna be cold up high, and possibly low visibility.



We hung out and discussed it for a while, kind of hoping things would improve while we waited.  They didn't.



So, at that point Morgan decided to bail.  He lived nearby, and if it wasn't a pretty sure thing, he felt he'd be better off heading back and going into work.  I on the other hand had the week off, so I figured what the hell, I'll just head up there and if nothing else get some pictures and beta for next time.  I figured actually getting up the line probably wasn't gonna happen, so no need to rush, plus with it being windy and cold I didn't feel motivated to charge up there.  So I got a nice "sub-alpine" 6:30 AM start at the trailhead.  One thing - big props to those folks who have climbed up before the Cloud Cap road is open.  That adds a bunch of vert/mileage to the approach.  I'm way too soft for that, so I'm glad the road had opened a couple weeks earlier!

Going Up

The trail from Cloud Cap was very straightforward, and actually pleasant.  Not a slog at all, just felt like a nice morning hike in the mountains.



When I got to the shelter, I ran into 2 of the 3 people that I would see the entire day.  They had camped out nearby and were making breakfast.  What a cool spot to camp out!



A little further up, the entire route started coming into view every time one of the trail switchbacks got to the ridge.  The other thing that happened each time I got to the ridge is I would get blasted by high winds.  WTF was up with the forecast??  The clouds did seem to be diminishing though.  The view of the Eliot glacier and the route above was impressive, to say the least.  I could see a number of tracks down low, and out on Snowdome.



Here's a pano of the entire route, with Adams, Rainier, and St Helens poking out.  Truly awesome scenery.



As I started getting further up the ridge and the views of the glacier got closer, I started taking more pictures of the potential route down.  There were a number of cracks opening up even in the flatter part of the glacier, and I wanted to be damn sure I knew where I was going *if* a window opened up for a possible descent.  The riders right edge of the glacier looked to be relatively crevasse-free and looked like the best descent option.



The tricky part would be finding a way to exit off the NE face and avoid the gaping bergschrund.



I had left my big DSLR back at the car, partly because I wanted to go lighter, but also because I carry it attached to my pack straps in front of my chest - normally this works great as the camera is right there for easy access and it doesn't get in the way on descents... except for when the descents get really steep.  Then it can actually be a problem as it's sticking out into the steep snow wall on toeside turns.  If this descent happened, it was gonna be steep, so I left the camera.  I kinda regretted it because that left me with just my phone, and digital zoom sucks.  I did get this pic of the exit above the bergschrund though, which was enough to convince me that exactly ONE of the exit chutes went, just barely, and apparently without requiring any schrund hopping.  It's the furthest lookers right line that actually goes through.  I could also see that a hard right traverse after exiting the chute would bring me to a nice big snowbridge across the schrund.



A bit further up, the upper clouds cleared a bit and I got my first look at the entire route, and it looked like the upper part of the route went as well.



Finally got to tie-in rock around 10:30, and amazingly, the winds started to die down.





Took a break at a great bivy spot just past tie-in rock, and considered my options.





The winds seemed to be dying down to more accurately match the forecast, and the clouds had dissipated at least on the NE side (they seemed to be swirling around the other aspects though).  From everything I could see, the route went.  There was no sign of rockfall or massive wet slides, just a few small runnels on the main spur route, which I expected from the high temps the previous week.  It had been cold the past couple days, and in the morning, and in fact was still pretty cool despite the summer sun being out and the winds dying down.  I had scouted the exit route extensively on the way up and felt pretty confident with it.  So, I figured I would continue on, and if at any point I was sketched out about anything - snow conditions, steepness, rockfall, weather, whatever - I'd turn around and bail at that point.  I thought of the rule that Tom Burt and Jim Zellers said they followed on their trips - "go until the fun stops".  Or more accurately, go until just before the fun stops.  That's what I planned to do.

So I put on the crampons (it was all dry hiking to here) and headed up.



My plan was to bear right and get onto the NE face as soon as possible to assess snow conditions, and also get a closer look at the steepness and exposure of the face itself (and see if the fun stopped).



It started to get steep, I measured a sustained 45 deg in the steeper parts.  But really no steeper than that except for short sections.



The snow actually was great for booting, and felt like it would also be great for riding!  My steps were mostly going in about arch to ankle deep, without requiring multiple kicks.  Really solid and not sketchy at all.  In fact (and I'm sure this will get me in trouble with the climbing police), I didn't use my axe at all on the way up!  Just 2 whippets and aluminum crampons.  Before anyone scoffs at that, I have racked up a fair amount of experience climbing snow that way and have gotten to the point where I feel comfortable and know where my limits are... and my axe is in a quick-release sling on my pack so I can bust it out at any moment.  Honestly part of my thinking was, if I need the axe on the way up, I'm probably not gonna want to be riding down it.  Go to where the fun stops.



Once through the chutes above the big open NE face, I traversed left below a big rock band into the upper chimney on the main spur route.  I could have traversed right and out towards the left NE gully, but I couldn't tell from below if that route actually went, and I also felt that the change in aspect might lead to frozen snow.  I figured I'd rather take my chances with potentially rotten snow on the upper part of the main spur route - at least it would be short-lived.  Sure enough, once I traversed left onto that aspect, the snow changed to be more textured/runneled, and booting got deeper.  But it wasn't rotten, it had refrozen just enough.



Looking down onto the main spur route.  The snow looks rideable here as a bailout option, but not as fun.



Looking up, the left route doesn't go.  Gotta go right.



Up above the right option.  Pretty steep and narrow here.



Finally can see the top of the route!  Still pretty steep here, as the route heads directly up to a snow ridge.  That ridge then gets substantially less steep as it heads up diagonally to the right to the summit ridge.



Looking down, a random old rope from climbers past.



Finally on the last snow ridge!



Looking down, the route snakes down and to the right and disappears.  You can see the entirety of the descent here... well, minus the entire middle steep section!  Pretty cool and trippy view.



At this point, I was still feeling good about everything.  I didn't see anything that I didn't feel comfortable riding, either steepness or snow conditions wise.  Yes, it would definitely be a very focused do-not-fall kind of descent, but I felt good about it.  I was however starting to worry about clouds.  They had been swirling in and out lately (as you might have noticed in the recent pics).  On the way up I had considered what might happen if I got into a cloud on the descent.  I figured that since I had climbed almost the entire planned upper descent route, worst case I could sideslip and follow my booter down.  I was starting to think the clouds might be coming back, and because of that I almost bailed on the climbing the last mellow stretch up to the summit ridge.  But then I figured what the hell, I came this far, I gotta get up there.

10 minutes later I was on the summit ridge.  What a cool place!  Didn't see anyone around up there.  That must be rare!



But the clouds were already getting thick on the south side.



So I didn't bother walking the 100 feet or so along the ridge to the true summit.  I hurried to get transitioned for the descent, strapped in, and...



Crap!  Now there was a cloud right in the middle of the descent line!

Going Down

I debated waiting around to see if the cloud would dissipate.  It might.  On the other hand, I could tell that this cloud was (currently) just in the middle section, and it was clear below (and above) it.  If I waited it could just as easily get worse.  Also, it was getting late - 2:45 PM!  Normally this would be waaaaay to late to descend along the Cooper Spur route, but the conditions worked out on this particular day to keep things from getting too soft, and I knew from climbing it that it was going to be fine... but if I waited much longer, things would start to go into the shade and start refreezing.  I decided it was best to drop in now.

For perspective, here's a shot I found on the web looking at the entrance to the Cooper Spur line from the summit:



In lieu of editing all the helmetcam footage down to some reasonable size, I pulled some frames to use for a summary of the descent.  I didn't take my phone out much - except to refer to reference pictures a few times to figure out exactly where I was, as everything looks different from above... or when you're inside a cloud.  So here's the blow-by-blow.

OK.  At the top, about to drop in.  This section is mellow, and actually had great snow.  Gives you a few turns to warm up.  Goes right down that nose where the booter is.  Note cloud below, we’ll come back to that later :).



Bottom of the first mellow section, here you go riders left onto the first part of the steep face.  As I mentioned earlier, you could get onto that left face right from the top, and go down to the rock band at the top of the pic and below and riders right around it to stay on the NE face (which is the way tabski/JH went in their TR from the end of May), but I wasn't convinced that that line went on this day.  I went down a bit of this section, then riders right above that rock and into the upper part of the Cooper Spur chimney section, then back left onto the NE face ending up at the same place as the other route.  I also didn’t feel comfortable dropping into this left side higher up from the summit as I suspected it would be icier (this is where tabski reported 2” on top of ice), and I was happy to have some warm-up turns on the mellower initial pitch that I rode!



Looking back up from the same place.  I came down from top left basically on top of the diagonal snow ridge.  Kinda looks like remnants of tracks in the main NE face just lookers right of the ridge.



Little further down.  Line makes an S curve though the rock bands and then curves right onto the top of the Spur chimneys.



Through the S part, about to go right into Spur chimney.  Left side is where tabski/JH went and would have then cut right below this nose.



In the upper Spur chimney.  Main Spur route goes straight down to the right.  I traversed left below the rocks and onto the NE face.  You can see the snow is more “runnely” here, as it faces more E (the usual problem with the main Spur route).



Above the chute at the top of the NE face section.  Sustained steep here over exposure below.  Don’t want to fall.  Snow was good but I was taking no chances, so this is the one spot where I did some toeside falling leaf action.  I think I was also a little sketched by the small rocks rolling down you can barely see in the pic from my last turn, and the fact that I’m about to not be able to see my route due to the cloud.  Crap!



Uh, where am I again??  Actually didn’t feel TOO sketched here, I knew it was just a layer of clouds and I could see it opened up below.  I followed my booter and between that and referring to my phone pics a couple times, I knew where I was.  The bummer is the snow on this entire face was excellent, and in good visbility I could have actually opened it up some here.  Anyway I rode down a bit and traversed riders right to the vertical line of rock bands (obvious in the pics of the face on the way up).  I then hugged the edge of those rock bands down.



While I was stopped here and had the phone out for reference pics, I took a sweet selfie.



Next to the rock bands.



Little further down, still next to the rock bands and visibility is opening up.



Looking back up.



And back down.  At this point I went riders left of the main rock band below me, then the route traverses right above the next big rock band to get to the exit chute.



Good turns here, route to exit chute is basically a vertical line from my heel up the pic.



Above the exit chute.  It is critical to get into the right chute.  This is the only one that goes, and it barely goes.  Rock choke is about board width.  Still steep here but it relents just below the choke.  Snow is a little bumpy in there, kinda like the beginnings of some runnels.



Closer to the choke.



Going through the choke.  Not obvious in the pics but the pitch is lesser just below this.  This is good because that is right above a huge crevasse, and you have to cut hard riders right.  Fortunately there is a lot of room for this once through the choke.





OK, through the choke.  Crevasse is below me, totally not obvious.  Route across the snow bridge is to the right, in a straight line just below the big rock.



Crossing the snow bridge.



Done!  Well, with the sketchy part at least.  There’s still the rest of the Eliot glacier which has a bunch of crevasses, but the terrain is mellow.  I stayed far riders right kinda hugging the cliff edge of the canyon, which has very few cracks and I scoped it on the way up.



OK, done with the helmetcam stills blow-by-blow. :)

It's hard to describe the feeling I had when I got to this point.  The adrenaline was definitely flowing, but the full realization of all the elements that had come together to make that descent possible didn't really hit me until days later.  And yes, it appears that had I waited a bit I might have had a window without clouds.  Doh!



The rest of the descent was incredibly mellow and scenic by comparison.  Still had to keep the eyes peeled for cracks, but I followed the route I had scoped on the way up and only ran into a couple small cracks.  Oh and now the clouds are back. :)



Turns look cool on dirty snow.



Once I got to the flats, I took a much-needed long break, had some lunch, and took a nap.  This is also where I saw the first person I'd seen since the Cooper Spur shelter 9 hours earlier.  He was going for a hike checking out the glacier, and a cool waterfall on the right side of that cliff.



I ran into him again about an hour later when I got up from my nap, as he was on his way down.  Cool guy named Scott, just out for a nice hike.  He got a shot of me just as the clouds finally lifted for good in the evening.



From there it was a short scramble back up to the ridge, and then a cool hike directly down the top of the ridge (different way than I came in).  You can actually see Cloud Cap Inn from here just past treeline down the ridge.



Looking back up, I just couldn't get enough of this view.  It just felt so raw and wild here, despite the fact that I think Hood is the second most climbed peak in the world or something?  I felt lucky to have gotten my own raw and wild experience of the mountain.



Just a bit further down, back at the trailhead, there were a bunch of folks camping and hanging out.  I ran into 3 climbers who were planning on going up Cooper Spur the next day (and down the Sunshine route), so I exchanged some beta with them.  Then I headed up to check out Cloud Cap Inn, which I'd never seen before.  What a totally cool place!  Too bad it is closed to the public.  This could be such a cool climbers hangout!



Not a bad view from the back porch.



Then I drove down a bit to check out Tilly Jane.



The A-Frame there looks awesome!  This would be a cool place to spend a couple days in the winter.  Added to the list!



Also learned some history of the area.



I love this picture of one of the OG climbs up the north side back in the day!




And then I drove back to Bend to hang out with my mom for a few days.  It was pretty tough trying to explain to her what this trip meant to me, and why I do these things.  Sometimes I have a hard time explaining it to myself.  All I know is that I feel more alive on trips like these than any other time.  We all have our own personal "gnar bar" as my friend Buffy puts it, the limit of what we think is safe and reasonable.  For some folks, I'm sure a trip like this is just another day in the backcountry.  For others, it might seem crazy or borderline suicidal.  For me, I felt like it was one of those few days where I got push my personal "gnar bar" just a little bit higher, but almost as an unintended by-product of just going to where the fun stops.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading, and happy trails!


I read the whole thing and enjoyed it all. Thanks for the report!

fantastic write-up!  congrats on such a great climb & descent. 

That's a lot of words Jim.  ;)

Awesome stuff, so stoked you pulled it off! 

Epic ride, what an effort! Well done and thanks for the TR.

Nice writeup, Jim. I especially enjoyed the old Couloir pics. Coombs!

Great writeup! Fun to read and good photos.

That was awesome!!  Thank you for posting all those pics.  Can you post the entire video?  I've skiied from the summit down west crater rim all the way to the highway.  Always dreamed of skiing the Sandy Headwall.  What you did looks much scarier.


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