Apr 23, Mt Hood, South Side

This is my first post so bear with me - I'll try to just stick to the goods...

A few friends and I climbed and skied Hood from the climber's lot at Timberline.  We left the lot around 4 a.m., and skinned up despite horrendous winds coming straight down the mountain towards us.  The "snow" was pretty much bullet hard, which made for interesting skinning in certain places.  This was a little discouraging, but my friends and I trudged on, anticipating some nice, soft mid-day snow.

We made it up to the Hogsback around 11 (yes, we were moving slow) in bright sunshine, but the heavy winds persisted.  Things were not softening up.  So, we told ourselves by the time we carry our skis up to the summit, they'll be a little softer, and if nothing else we'll get some nice turns down low. 

We headed up lookers left of the true Pearly Gates.  (I think this is correct - by the way my friends were talking, there is only one path that is technically called the Pearly Gates?)  In any case, it was pretty hard and choppy through there - not what you want for skiing.  So, after summiting around noon-30, we decided to opt out of skiing the Gates (or pseudo-gates), and traversed west across the summit ridge.  We found a good entry point not far from the summit and dropped in there. 

The snow was bullet hard and the pitch was steep, leaving me no choice but to survival turn it back down to the base of the Hogsback.  After a brief rest here, we started the descent, looking foward to  softer pastures.  Sadly, the snow remained rock hard for pretty much the whole trip back to the car.  The wind never let up and really got pretty annoying. 

Back at the cars, our heads were pounding, our faces were sunburned, and we smelled like sulfur.  Depsite all of this, the wind, and the snow (or ice), we couldn't help but grin as we toasted the mountain with a round of Hamms.