May 15, 2017, - Mount Hood Summit with Ski Daddy

We started at 8:30am from the Timberline Parking Lot (~6000 ft elevation) on a freshly corduroyed climber€™s trail. It was beautiful blue skies with little layers required on the 5,300 ascent up to the summit. There were around 8 groups out that day, and we had a skin track to follow. A few folks decided to use the Palmer chairlift to get to 8,800 by mechanical power starting at around 10am. Mostly powder on the way up, but ski crampons would have been helpful at times. We used ice axes & boot crampons for the last 1,000 ft. with some light hiking over dirt piles & then a steeper boot pack up a section of the Old Chute.

The summit was beautiful!! There were great views of Mt Jefferson & the surrounding area. The wind picked up & clouds started rolling in. We started our descent down by boot packing w crampons & ice ax for the initial part. It would be a sheer icy drop to ski off the summit with exposed blue ice in places. Skiing down was great until the thick layer of clouds rolled in creating whiteout conditions. The use of a GPS & compass got us back safely to the parking lot.

This was a great first volcano summit experience! I€™m so lucky to have Chris Mosetick as my guide & ski daddy.

Pictures here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8hi3K0hGFkXV21YOE5XLTJSYjg