Mt Hood Trip Report

Having come out to the Pacific Northwest for a family reunion I decided I might as well bag one of the state highpoints I lacked. Unaware that late July is out of the normal climbing season for Mt Hood I was somewhat surprised to find myself the only one on the mountain. The normal climbing season runs May, June and the early weeks of July due to the later melt-out of snow on the crux of the standard route through the "Pearly Gates."

Around mid-day on the 27th I arrived at the massive historic log structure, Timberline Lodge. Upon checking the rates ($235 for a room with a queen bed) I decided I would either sleep out or in the car that night. As it turned out with temperatures in Portland that day soaring to more than 100 degrees, it was pleasant enough to just lay my bag out under the stars.

I awoke before the alarm, which I had set for 3 A.M. and started up the mountain with my headlamp. Unable to find the normal climber's trail, I just made my way first up bare slopes then ski slopes, taking care to keep the chairlift in sight to my left. I passed the Silcox Hut at 4 A.M. Since this is 1000' higher in elevation than Timberline Lodge it gave me a good gauge for my rate of ascent.

The ski slopes were steep and the snow crisp enough that I stopped to put on crampons. The chairlift topped out at 8500 feet elevation. From there I continued up a glacier, coming on a party of four creeping slowly upward in the early morning twilight. I quickly passed them while moving straight up the slopes. I never saw them again, so they must have given up.

I moved left off the glacier onto steep volcanic dirt and rock trying to keep tracking with a climber's trail. At one point I realized I had lost a crampon! Fortunately I was able to backtrack a short ways and recover it. I secured it to my boot and didn't have that problem again for the rest of the climb. Losing a crampon later on the crux slope up to the Pearly Gates would have been a disaster, as they would likely have gone all the way down into the bergschrund.

The rock soon became too steep and I moved back over to the glacier, cresting near the high side of Crater Rock just as it became more light. I could see the crux of the climb ahead of me with the "Pearly Gates" high above a steep ice field. To get over to the ice field I could see a snow ridge which looked safe enough. From the top of the snow ridge I angled over before heading straight up towards the Pearly Gates. The ice was "plastic", but solid enough to get traction with my crampons. Near the top of the ice field the ice had melted out and I was faced with a rather dicey scramble up loose rock and dirt for the final 15 feet. Once I crested over the top it was a cakewalk to the summit on dirt and some ice.

I reached the summit around 8 A.M. and with little wind it was already getting warm. There was some debris from an old structure up there and some ancient rappel ropes hanging off the south side. I made a quick call to my daughter, Marlene then contemplated climbing down that ice wall. I didn't like to think about it too much though, so I just started back along the ridge.

I carefully lowered myself down the 15 or so feet of loose rock and dirt at the top of the Pearly Gates, then turning to face the ice, I front-point cramponed down the ice field, planting my ice ax with each step and thinking "One more step closer to the bottom. One step at a time." No worries. No slipups. Soon enough I reached gentler slopes and walked past the fumaroles, inhaling their sulfurous rotten egg fumes.

When I reached the top of the chairlift I asked the attendant if I could catch a ride down! Unfortunately, there was no way I could do that because of how they were set up down below. Apparently these chairs were a one-way shot. He told me the trail was over on the far side of the slopes, but when I asked said it would be all right if I went down along the chairlift, as long as I didn't go on the slopes.

As I plunged down the soft snow a skiier yelled down from the chairlift, "Did you summit?" "Yes" I replied. "How was the rockfall?" "Not bad, but I went up before the sun hit the mountain." A little later he skiied up to quiz me closer. When he suggested that he wanted to climb the peak in the afternoon I did my best to dissuade him. By afternoon sun the ice slope crux would have been a bowling alley of rockfall. Later when I stopped on a rock to eat a Clifbar his wife skiied up to me to ask about climbing the mountain in the afternoon. She was more realistic, and when I told her of the dangers she took it to heart and I'm fairly confident that they didn't follow through with it.