Mt. Hood Climb

I’d love to climb Mt. Hood again sometime when the weather is better. I felt very fortunate to have made it (thanks again to Patrick for making that possible for me) and I look forward to the next time I have the privilege of being on this striking mountain!

June 4-5, 2009

My buddy Sean Conklin (who did Mt. Shasta with me last year) and I have been dreaming of climbing Mt. Rainier, so we thought we’d climb Mt. Hood, just outside of Portland, OR as kind of a warm up. It turned out to be more than a warm up type climb....

My good friend from high school, Patrick Bolan, was gracious enough to let us crash at his place before the climb and wound up coming along as well.

After some last minute supplies and the requisite rentals at REI, we drove to Timberline Lodge at 6000 ft. and started up the mountain. Despite my workouts at the gym the previous couple of months, the 60 pound pack on my back felt kinda heavy!

It clouded over almost as soon as we hit the trail and we were treated to a hailstorm with whopper sized hail stones!

I snapped this photo from the parking lot as we started up- it was the last time the upper mountain was clear on our climb!

We slogged our way up the mountain for 6 hours, gaining about 3000 vertical feet

We made camp in an area known as the Triangle Moraine at about 9000 ft., a few hundred feet above the end of the Palmer ski lift. As night fell, we set up camp and I started melting snow to replenish our water bottles and cook dinner. A light rain started falling and pretty soon I was soaked. Sean and Patrick managed to keep some of their stuff dry in the tent but it was a pretty miserable night.

We had some awesome views of the Sisters mountains behind us.

We had been planning to leave for the summit about 3 am, but the rain was still coming down and heading out with soaked clothes wasn’t a good idea. We waited and just about the time we were ready to give up, the rain broke. However, by this time my snow pants had been soaked and I thought my summit hopes were dashed.

Patrick offered to loan me his snow pants, foregoing his summit attempt. What a gracious offer! He said that prepping for his half Ironman in a few weeks was much more important for him than risking injury on a summit attempt. Still, it was very selfless of him to loan me his snow pants when he’d gone more than half way and likely would have summitted. I took him up on his offer and Sean and I got ready. We left at 5 am.

We ascended into the mist above us, making our way to the Hogsback at 10,000 feet. From here the route heads left near the fumeroles and over to the Old Chutes.

Because it was so socked in, we were especially grateful for a gentleman who confirmed above the Hogsback that we were indeed headed in the right direction. Some climbers ahead of us had stopped and were wanting clarification when this man (I didn’t catch his name), who was leading a ski mountaineering group, told us we were on route. He wound up going down and the rest of us- a group of 2 from Idaho, 3 from Utah, and the 2 of us- started up the Old Chutes headwall.

For the upper mountain, I’ll show some comparison photos so you can see the topography a little more clearly.