Oct 23, lower leuthold, Hood
10/15/07
OR Mt Hood
3588
1
A late start at 9:00 was all in the plan for an attempt at this westish facing route. I felt like an old man skinning up the cat track; I havent had much exercise in the past month except work, and of course the pounder curl. The standard route to Hogsback looked really pretty, but I had made up my mind on the Leuthold, made it to Illumination saddle by 11, then down to the wet and deep snow on the Reed. Most of the chutes above had already craped, and I was dodging rock and the fading Rime ice for most of the traverse. The rime ice was falling plentifully as I hiked up the Leuthold, I learned the safer side of the of the wide couloir after getting nailed a couple times. The rock and Ice fall was constant although most was golf/ baseball size, a barrage of cannon ball size ice pellets fired down every minute or so. I stood there pondering, just below and to the side of the hourglass, the hanous concentration of all the debris. It would have been suicide to enter, best left for another day. I timed the shallow melt freeze of the snow right, but the late start didn't help the ice/rock fall, temps were also in the 60's for the most part. Wet snow on the Palmer and below, the ZigZag was corn though.
Looks wrong to me too. It is the couloir north of the labeled one. I have only done the top 2/3rds.
It became all rock and runnel.
It became all rock and runnel.
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