Climbing Mt. Hood

Each time I get ready to attempt a climb at another big mountain, I have a bit of trepidation; some doubt and a slight and occasional pang of fear. These are about whether I am in good enough shape, will I I have the stamina and skill necessary to summit and descend, will I run afoul of some accident where I would die and not return. I always try to be honest with myself, part of that is recognizing where I am in relation to my fellow mountaineering enthusiast. As I've written elsewhere, when it comes to highly technical climbing, be it rock climbing or mountaineering I am a follower not a leader. In terms of being "in-shape", usually in the past this hasn't been a worry, I've done four peaks in a week, 38 miles and 15000 vertical feet, or The Enchantments in a day, 21 miles and a 15 hour day. But since messing up my knees and core in Beijing, and being busy with work I haven't been as active or felt as strong as I did in the past. I hoped that I would be ok.

Back in 2006, I'd made a Flickr contact with Chris Kruell a climber from Portland. We met in real life, 15 miles from civilization along the trail to Mt. Olympus. Chris was returning from a summit and we were on our way up. Chris invited me on his Mazamas climb for the weekend after Memorial Day.  The plan was for Friday but this was pushed to Sunday evening/Monday when four feet of new snow feel on Hood as it rained all Memorial Day weekend.

The itinerary for Hood didn't look easy to start out with. We'd meet Sunday evening at 11:00 pm at the Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood hike all night, summit at dawn and then hike back out. Stac, myself and the kids drove down to Portland after work on Friday and spent Saturday and Sunday hanging out with Allison and the Downs. I caught a ride in Portland with Hye and Chris Killmer. We arrived at the parking lot at around 10:45 pm. Chris and the other 3 climbers (Carolyn, Kathrin and Jacob) arrived shortly thereafter and we registered at the lodge and went over the climb.
 We departed at around 11:20 pm from the lodge on snow, the elevation was just under 6000 feet. Mt. Hood offers ski'ing 12 months out of the year and grooming machines spend summer nights piling up snow in from the Palmer Glacier to ensure skiable terrain. The first 2500 feet of our hike, (or half our total elevation gain of 5000 feet) was adjacent to the ski runs through the tracks of the grooming machines. The groomers have large tracks that leave distinct tank-tread-like patterns in the snow which aren't very stable to walk on and you are constantly having your footing give a lithe with each step. The night was cold for us, the snow was firm, though the track tread were not 100% rock solid. I started hiking with only a single layer on and my shell on, as I heated up or the wind got stronger and things a bit colder I would open or close the front zipper and pit zips of my shell. I didn't over heat and was a comfortable temperature for the entire climb.
I was definitely the slowest of the group. I kept up but I was consistently at the back of the group, a good 10-15 feet behind everyone else. They occasionally stopped for short breaks, I'd catch up and then they'd carry on with me just continually plodding, plodding along. This is a bit mentally debilitating to be at the back, occasionally Chris Kruel would drop back and chat with me or Carolyn would hang with me in the back. I appreciated this, and it was a good reminder for me since I often hike with others who aren't as in as good a hiking shape and they end up at the back and I need to be more empathetic. Despite me being slower my knees never hurt which was nice, and it was mostly a general level of fitness, I wasn't totally out of it but not up to everyone else's speed. I did experience severe and extended waves of narcolepsy, where I just wanted to close my eyes and sleep. I wasn't physically tired, but I just wanted to close my eyes and sleep. I felt like those pioneers you heard stories about marching all night in the snow and who laid down and feel asleep never to awaken again. I wanted at times when this feeling of sleep overcame me to just lay down on the snow, and close my eyes. I countered this by popping caffeinated jelly beans and drinking water and eating cliff bars. This made the waves of sleep come and go, interspersed by plodding through the dark over lines in the snow.
By 2 am just under 3 hours into our hike we arrived at the top of the upper ski slopes, at 8500 feet. Here the wilderness area of Mt. Hood begins and the terrain takes a slightly steep incline. The tracks of the grooming machines end, and there are only dark bootprints in the snow. Knowing that the terrain would continue to steep as we went, we opted to put on crampons and carry on upwards. Previously the slope was gentle enough that you could directly hike "straight" up, now as things steepened you needed to trapse with angled switch backs at a lesser angle to make the ascent more gradual and somewhat easier. The sky was clear, the stars shone, but I was mostly focused on keeping up and getting up. In this steeper section I feel slightly more behind, 20-30 feet behind. Carolyn once again hung back with me several times and I appreciated the moral support.
Finally around 9800 feet as the sky started to lighten around 4:30 am we approached the Coleman Glacier which lies in between Cathederal Peak, as mall rocky prominence on the left of the glacier and a north-south running ridge line on the right. Coming off the north/up-mountain side of Cathederal Peak is steep ridge known as the Hogsback that separates two bowls, the one of were in the middle of and traversing up. We stopped at the Devils Kitchen which sits in the middle of this bowl at the base of the Hogsback ridge. The Kitchen is a set of volcanic fumarole which belch steam and quite strong sulphor odor. Clomping up the snow in the dark is only made all the more appealing by taking deep breaths of rotten egg smells that curl your nose hairs. I finally pulled out my camera and slung it round my neck as it was now possible to take photos. As the rest of the group started up the slope of the Hogsback I took a bio break and snapped a few pictures. By the time I started up, a mother-son climbing duo was in front of me and my climbing group was almost at the top of the Hogsback ridge. Here we stopped and stashed extra gear like trekking poles, extra food and water. We got out our ice aces and put on our harness. We would now ascend the ridge line of the Hogsback before cutting to the left and traversing at a steep angle into the other bowl feature that the Hogsback separated. This traverse zig and zagged steeply up the steep slope towards the gendarme ridge line of the summit whose rocky forms were encrusted in rhime ice. As we climbed higher the sun began to rise on the other side of Hood and the alpenglow lit up Mt Jefferson that lay far below behind us in the southern line of volcanic peaks of the PNW.
There are several access points to the top of the ridge within this bowl feature. To the far most right is a very narrow and steep access point between two rocky snow covered features known as the Pearly Gates. Just to the left of this is the Mazama's Chute and slightly to the left another 50 feet is the much wider "Old Chute" which is also between two rock croppings. As we made high angled steep traverse Chris Killmer, as Chris Kruell's climbing assistant, hung back with me to ensure no one was left behind. The group carried two ropes and pickets in the event that we approved the most step section a few hundred feet before the top of the north ridge that if people felt it was too steep or uncomfortable we could set an anchor and a running belay in the event someone slipped. Things were not so steep that anyone felt this uncomfortable and there were very distinct steps that had been kicked into the snow which made the path and the process much more stable. Everyone else pulled way ahead of me here, as I now was very knackered and I fell about 200 feet behind everyone else. Killmer waited patiently behind me as I slowly, ever so slowly plodded towards the top of the ridge line. Finally as the rest of the team disappeared over the ridge line we had only a 100 feet left to go and then eventually as the sun lit up the top of the ridge we stood on the ridge line running east to west. The true summit lay to the right or the east. There was a traverse along the top of the ridge, on either side was fairly steep drop offs, but the ridge line was at least 4-6 feet wide and had some notion of steep but not straight down drop offs. With a well trodden path and winds at around only 15-20 miles per hour I had no problems, slowly walking along this path towards the summit bluff where the rest of the group had congregated.
By this time my feet really hurt. Especially my left foot. I think my boot was laced too tight, which squoze the outside of my left foot. Additionally I had spent all night kicking that side of my foot and the crampons into steep slops as I angle stepped over and over again. My foot was bruised and every foot step hurt. I stumbled up tot he summit and plopped myself next to everyone else where we ate food, I drank what very little water I had left and I chomped on some brownies that Kathrin or Carolyn had brought. In the meantime another 2 man team arrived on the summit, they were from Salt Lake City and they helped us take a group summit photo. After a short rest we gathered up our packs and set off along the ridge line to the top of the old chute to descend.
The initial drop down off the summit ridge is quite steep. In our case we down climbed (you face into the mountain, and back down the mountain) for the first 50 feet or so. I only did so for the first 15 feet and then I turned around as I prefer to see my feet in front of me and with the steps, despite the steepness I felt comfortable descending. We made our way back down the Hogsback where we took off our harness, retrieved our gear and "borrowed" 3/4 of a litter of fluid from Killmer and filled my empty camelback. I had clearly not brought enough fluid (2 liters of gatorade and 1 to 1.5 litters in my camelback). From there we descended ice ax in hand with our crampons on. As we descended off the Hogsback and then dropped down pas the Devils Kitchen the snow slope was hard and not really glissadable but I couldn't imagine continuing to walk on my pained lett foot. So I took off my crampons and announced that I would be glissading down. They looked incredulously at me but I explained the pain in my foot and I set off sliding down the mountain.
The hard snow was flat and as long as I chose a line that didn't traverse over boot prints in the snow I was fine, I just had to control my speed by digging my ice ax deep in the hard snow. Further down there were even glissade paths left over from pervious deserts when the sun was higher and the snow warmer. I started sliding down in these paths, though the snow was still hard the path was smooth and I zipped down. When the snow is warmer, over time a small mound of snow will snow plow in between your legs and bunch up. After a while this pile becomes too big slowing you down, you have to stop, scoot yourself over the mound and keep going. One of these mounds of snow in the middle of the glissade path had frozen solid and as I barrelled down I forgot that it was hard and whack hit my tailbone right on the mound of hard snow, otherwise known as ice, and I immediately felt that horrible "oh crap I broke or badly bruised my tail bone." The good news is I forgot about my feet hurting. I kept on glissading but now more on only one butt cheek to avoid hitting my tailbone. Soon the slope ran out of steep and the glissade ran out of steam and I had to stand up and start tromping down. This was around half way down the ski slopes and the groomer tracks were now soft and slushy and you could almost skate/slide down in the snow, each footstep sinking 4-6 inches and sliding forward 3-4 inches. I sloshed my way down through the snow, well ahead of the rest of the group, thanks to my glissade. I arrived at the parking lot at 9:34 a full 20 minutes ahead of the others.

After we all gathered in the parking lot, we re-exchanged gear, changed clothes and drove to a 24 hour restaurant called Government Camp where I ordered a short stack of huckleberry pancakes and an order of onion rings. We ate, laughed and then I rode back to Portland with Hye and Killmer while I feel asleep off and on, tired and tuckered from being up all night and climbing a mountain in the process.