June 2, 2018, Mount Hood, South Side
6/2/18
OR Mt Hood
1890
1
Good climbing and skiing conditions were had on the easy route up Hood. We found continuous skiing to and from the car. A 4am start put us on top before 9am. The snow was softened quite nicely for most of our ski down (below 10,500') at around 10am.
The Pearly Gates route is still in good shape with a nice boot pack up from the Hogsback. The bergshrund is easily passable. It was quite firm above the Hogsback, so we left skis below the Pearly Gates at around 10,500'. We observed a few others carrying skis up as we were descending, but didn't wait around to see if they were able to ski off the summit.
We encountered maybe a dozen skiers and several dozen climbers. Most of the crowd went up a couple hours earlier than us, so we had the summit all to ourselves for 20 minutes or so. Clear skies and very little wind made for a memorable time up there. We saw some ski tracks on the Cooper Spur route coming off the summit ridge, which looked like it could be an exhilarating descent.
During our ski down we traversed far skiers right to Illumination Saddle to have a look down the Reid Glacier. It looked super smooth. We found good skiing below Illumination Rock skiing fall line down the Zig Zag Glacier, traversing skiers left below the Palmer lift.
The Pearly Gates route is still in good shape with a nice boot pack up from the Hogsback. The bergshrund is easily passable. It was quite firm above the Hogsback, so we left skis below the Pearly Gates at around 10,500'. We observed a few others carrying skis up as we were descending, but didn't wait around to see if they were able to ski off the summit.
We encountered maybe a dozen skiers and several dozen climbers. Most of the crowd went up a couple hours earlier than us, so we had the summit all to ourselves for 20 minutes or so. Clear skies and very little wind made for a memorable time up there. We saw some ski tracks on the Cooper Spur route coming off the summit ridge, which looked like it could be an exhilarating descent.
During our ski down we traversed far skiers right to Illumination Saddle to have a look down the Reid Glacier. It looked super smooth. We found good skiing below Illumination Rock skiing fall line down the Zig Zag Glacier, traversing skiers left below the Palmer lift.