Trip: Mt hood - Southside

Date: 1/30/2010

Trip Report:
Decided for my birthday I wanted to take advantage of the nice weather forcast for Sunday the 31st. So I told my buddie Nate that he didnt have a choice and to start packing.

Plan : Hike to Twin rocks and camp wake up feeling fresh "hahah" get up and go for the summit.

Saturday:
We had a later start than planned. Leaving the parking lot at about 2:30pm in snowy conditions. Soft snow hooray for snowshoes. The last 45mins of the palmer was a whiteout and we ended up digging a platform a few hundred feet above the top of the palmer in the dark. Wind was steady and lightly snowing. I boiled some water and we went to bed. I forgot my earplugs which lead to some pretty crappy sleep YOU stupid wind.

Sunday:
Woke up at 4:30am to a whiteout. Went back to bed
Woke up at 5:30am to a whiteout. Went back to bed pretty much accepting that were not gonna get up high enough before the sun starts baking the ice and snow and throwing chunks at us.
But at 7am I woke up to cloudy slightly windy conditions. I yelled at Nate to get his boots on. We left about 7:15am and headed up. We got above twin rocks when the Sun came out and started softening the snow... ALOT... Nate started to run outa steam. Were both outa shape. So we took a break took a few pics and then headed back to camp. Packed up and headed down.

Either way it was a great birthday weekend.

7am

Clouds starting to open up

My tent Evie

Thats not gatorade !

Fun pose !

Nate with the mountain finally visible


Ill add some more pictures shortly.

Gear Notes:
Snowshoes !
Brought equipment to rope up knowing that Nate's wife would kill me if anything happens to him. But obviously we didnt use anything.

Approach Notes:
Fun. Moderate wind. Snow conditions were great.

never heard of "twin rocks" before - wherezit?

I was about to ask the exact same thing. From his pictures, it looks like the flats around the top of Triangle moraine.

Ya know I thought I was crazy and only ever used the Location Twin rocks with my friends after hearing it from the first guy that took me up MT Hood. But recently I noticed that PMR labeled it on their map of mt Hood. So I thought other people used it. But Im pretty sure that me, a few friends and maybe 1 guy in PMR use it.

Its basically the larger boulder section a little below triangle moraine. RIght now its just a bunch of Ice blown mini cornice's

PMR's map of Points on Hood
Link

Oh I see. We call it "break spot #3."

Spot #1, Silcox hut

Spot #2, Top of palmer lift.

Spot #4, Hogsback

Spot #5, Summit.

At least that's how I like to break down the slog up the SS.

Usually a good place to stop and smoke a camel, drink some water, and down a cliff bar or such.

hey todd, that tent looks heavy... how was it packing it up the hill for 3 hours?

AHAHAH

I thought that same thing when I climbed adams and the road was snowed out last year.

But honestly. Packed up with a few parachutes and guylines it weighs just over 5pounds and making someone carry the poles its even lighter. Overall having a huge 5 star hotel room and not having to dig an all out snowcave has always been worth it to me. Its my home away from home.

Carrying it down after it was full of frost and chunks of ice that did'nt break off really sucked.

-Todd

nice work Todd-Poo

looks like this weekend could be good for a repeat...

Nice TR!