Trip:Mt Hood
Sunshine Route
[b]Date:12/2/09
[b]Trip Report:Last Sunday night my girlfriend Danica and I were jonesin for some mountain action and decided we should try to summit Mt. Hood via the Sunshine route with a ski/snowboard descent. The weather seamed optimal for climbing. Sunny during the day, freezing cold at night, and plenty of time to let the last dump, settle and consolidate. We left our house in Beavercreek at 11:00 the next morning in my VW bus and rolled through the hills until we landed at the trail head at the base of Cloud Cap road. Dani slapped on her AT set up with skins and I hiked along with her up the trail to our base camp wearing my mountaineering boots and snowboard strapped to my backpack
Dani heading up to base camp
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Ponderosa missed by the Gnarl Ridge fire
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The summit through burned out trees
The trail to our plush accommodations was well packed and skied out so I didn't use crampons or snow shoes from 3500' to 5700'. We got to base camp at sundown and raged a fire and had the place to ourselves. Midnight was our designated time of departure. I had trouble sleeping because of the stoke factor and Dani couldn’t sleep because her therma rest had a really fast “slow leak” that she periodically had to attend to. I offered her mine but she refused. Hardcore. I finally slept for an hour and a half and Dani had a nice 3 hour cement nap before we took off at 1:00 am.
Cat mug with decaf green tea. Thats how I roll
Dani doing some maintenance
We took off through the woods and aimed for the west lateral moraine of the Elliot Glacier hoping to pop out on top of Langille Crags. We hit the gully too high and short and ended up taking the left lateral moraine instead.
Cruisin up the moraine
The mountain was illuminated by the moon and was reflecting off icier sections above. Headlamps seamed like a joke on a night like this so we turned them off. Heading up the moraine we banged right somewhere around Cooper Spur stone hut and cruised across the big bench between the upper and lower Elliot.
Ice Ice Baby. Bench between upper and lower elliot
Our target was the S-shaped gully in between Langille crags that would spit us out below Snow Dome. The conditions couldn’t have been better for climbing. This would be my 5th climb of Hood and 2nd Sunshine route and the best conditions on this mountain I’ve experienced yet. It was hardened and consolidated wind blown powder from the Elliot to the top of Snow Dome.
Half way up Snow Dome
Summit morning shadow to the NW
On top of Snow Dome
I think we got to the top of Snow Dome around 7:30 or 8 and took a much needed break. Unfortunately we decided to stash our snow sliding gear on top of snow dome and retrieve it later after summiting. The only way down from Cathedral Ridge was a very steep and now icy section climbers right of Horseshoe rock. We thought about how much it would suck to eat it there on our skis and snowboard and end up in the lower Coe Glacier. No thanks. Stashing our skis and board at 9000’ ft. made the rest of the climb more fun by making our packs lighter. We strapped on our crampons and busted out our tools and got to work. Heading up what we like to call Snow Dome 2 below Horseshoe Rock we realized how F-ing cold it was. Dani was shivering a bit and my toes had been numb for a couple of hours. We shook the cold by heading up to the right of Horseshoe Rock and over the now filled in bergshrund.
Extracting water from frozen bottle. Please dont miss Dani
Big bad Horsehoe Rock
Berg filled in with softish snow to the right of Horseshoe
This part was pretty hairy actually for a class 2 climb. The winter conditions made this section a steep 55 to 60 degrees of ice and shallow snow over ice for about 100 ft or so. It was hard to tell if my crampons were biting because I couldn’t feel my feet. Apparently they were fine as I didn’t slip once. Dani cruised up with cautious confidence and we gained the mellow rolling crest of Cathedral ridge and looked down at what we climbed. F! We have to down climb that! Exhausted, we rolled up through the Cathedral rime and topped out on the west summit ridge.
Dani kickin up to Cathedral Ridge
Dani sneakin behind some rime on Cathedral Ridge
The summit ridge was a series of mini gendarme-like frozen, melted and re-frozen rime globs. Beautiful.
Summit Ridge
We traversed underneath one on the very top of the Old Chute and looked down thinking, “I can’t believe we skied that.” We road down the Old Chute a couple years ago in June in way worse conditions. I think I’m either getting smarter, or I have way less tolerance for fear now because I don’t think I would ride down it today and the conditions looked halfway decent. I just hate the Idea of slipping and getting cooked in the Fumaroles. Anyway, we rolled up to the summit and reflected on our climb. It was warm and sunny and somewhat windless. We laid on the summit resting, eating and drinking water, preparing for the descent.
Chillin like a Villain
Summit dorks
After about a half hour of basking we tromped down the summit ridge heading west and down Cathedral Ridge. Yocum Ridge was lit up like a Christmas tree and I thought to myself “what psycho would climb that thing?” No offense to those of you who have climbed it but that’s totally psycho man. Seriously.
Yocum ridge from Cathedral. Nuts
The steep down climb wasn’t as bad as we thought. Once we got into it, it was hard not to be focused and enjoying it. We Kick kicked, swung swung to the bergshrund and then plunge stepped it back to our gear on top of Snow Dome.
Upper Coe mini Ice Fall
I put on snowboard boots and we got our packs together. Dani had first crack at Snow Dome and lit into some beautiful turns on her skis. She must have forgotten about the giant pack on her back because she looked good. Danis been on skis since she was 2 and skis junk like its powder. For super hard and windblown frozen powder it was awesome! I love Snow Dome. You could navigate the bumps easily and get good turns in and the lower you went the better it got. The gully through Languille Crags was sick! Big long turns with lots of speed!
Dani rippin down Snow Dome
It spit us back out onto the Elliot and across the bench to the other side. We joked about living on the mountain and not going home. “ Dude we’ll just eat bark and pinecones and climb and ride new routes all winter and live at TJ.” A few more turns got us to the lower terminal moraine on Coopers spur side and we popped skis and board off and hiked up the ridge for more turns.
NE side looking good
Navigating the woods below Cooper’s Spur proved to be tiring. Those damn hemlocks are so close together. We grabbed the rest of our gear from our cozy base camp and drank water from the creek. Hydration. Yes please. Two and a half miles to the bus under heavy packs and the trail was a mess of frozen skied out ruts mixed with sticks and rocks. We road it anyway knowing we would be resting and cruising in the not so warm bus soon. Popping out of the woods and into the parking lot we encountered two climbers getting ready to go up. They were the only people we saw in a day in a half and they were headed for the North Gullies. I think they were in for a real treat. I did not envy them. I was f-ing tired. Guys if you read this let me know how it was!
Well Enjoy! And be safe up there.
Gear Notes:Alpine Axes
1 Ice tool a piece
Crampons
Skis and Board
Beacons/shovels/probes
Warm Clothes and Food
Positive Attitude
Approach Notes:Skis or snow shoes are a must for the woods from 6000 to treeline. The snow was still soft in sections and when I started to post hole I threw on my snow shoes. Im really glad I brought them. We probed the snow periodically on the Elliot and Snow Dome but didnt find any cracks. That doesnt mean they're not there.
We didnt bring a rope because we didnt think we would need to protect anything. I dont think we could have placed pro on the steep section. The snow was too soft and the ice was junk.
Its cold up there! I got stage 1 frost bite(frost nip) on my toes and they're still a little numb a week later!
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