Climb: Illumination Rock-SW Ridge

Date of Climb: 6/18/2006

Trip Report:
Climbed the SW ridge on I-Rock under full-on rock conditions with Michael Nozel (AKA the Great Iron Monger for his pitoncraftwerk). The day was beautiful and the rock very awful. It may have been up to 5.9 but the easier the climbing, the worse the rock got. Luckily, the gear was good since falls due to broken holds seemed very likely.

Nozel on the first pitch:



We got to the West Gable in four pitches - moving east of ridge crest for the third and fourth (i.e, east of where Wallace has the route on his great topo). Pitches 1, 3, 4 were semi-terrifying due to crap rock but the gear was pretty good.

The best part of the climb was moving along the summit ridge from the West Gable to the true (East) summit = exposed and spectacular!



The overhanging summit block (perched over Michael in pic below) was very cool too, a nice exposed mid-fifth boulder problem.



I-Rock covered in ice is a worthwhile objective (I climbed just east of this route in winter and had a very different opnion of I-rock then) but leave the rock alone!

Jeff Thomas said it perfectly: "The volcanic rock of Illumination rock is good when compared to the rest of Mt Hood, but terrible when contrasted to what modern rock climbers prefer. Still, to paraphrase Tom Patey, any fool can climb good rock, it takes a special fool to climb bad rock." I would advise against becoming a special fool.



Gear Notes:
Nuts, pins, hexes (yes!) and a few cams

Approach Notes:
Don't disturb the skiers, they paid and we didn't, damn it.

nice work

yeah!
sounds way better when covered in unprotectable rime vs. unprotectable choss.
any pics from when you did it in winter. the "portland to patagonia" TR pics I posted were from this exact same route.

sweeeeeet - so can i expect to being doing this in the mountie basic class or not?

Just think, Doug . . . in three months, when the important details fade, you'll find yourself recommending the route. "Good Christ, are you kidding me? It's the finest rock route on Hood!"

Regrettably, you'll not be entirely wrong.

Wow did you find the belay bolt? Did you do the squeeze passage on pitch 3?We stayed right on the rest the whole way. did it with a thin layer of october ice most things were solid