FineLine

Climb: Mt. Hood-South Slog Date of Climb: 8/1/2004 Trip Report: I am a recent member and this is my first trip report. In short, I suspect this route is done for the season, at least for me. We started at 12:30 and had a leisurely trip up to the summit. I was accompanied by a first time climber and if he hadn't wanted to summit, I would have turned around. Devil's Kitchen is very exposed, and the sulfur smell comes from vents on both sides of the Hogsback. It upset my stomach so we made a quick pass through the area. We got to the shrund, and were starting our traverse east when a bowling ball came screaming down the chute and I dodged it. Missed me by about 2 feet. It wasn't warm enough yet for the mountain to be deteriorating, so it must have come from the 4 person rope team that had a 40 minute head start. We waited a good five minutes to see if additional debris was going to come down. If it had, I was going to call it over. But alas, not a pebble, so I emptied my shorts and we pushed along. We made our way to the east corner of the shrund, for a pretty easy crossing, but I don't know how much longer it will last. By going to the east, the entrance to the Pearly Gates was a little steeper and a pleasant section. The snow was in surprisingly good shape. About midway up the chute, the snow was gone and in it's place was loose rock and gravel. It was very difficult to avoid sending rock down the shoot, but at least you could avoid moving the bigger rocks. My partner dodged some golf ball size rocks, and most settled down pretty quickly. Because we knew that there was a solo climber behind us, (a rockin' Moroccan lady with brass ovaries who had never summitted a peak), we carefully picked our way over to the ridge on the right so that any additional rockfall would not go down the chute. We continued up to the summit. As we were on the summit, the four person team started down, despite us asking them to wait on the last climber for the day. They declined. Then, when the solo climber made her way passed them and out of the chute, they had the guts to ask her to hold up so she didn't send rocks down on them. I may be out of line, but this seemed like a load to me. We carefully picked our way down the scree and home. I know this is the beginner's choice for Mt. Hood, but I wouldn't recommend it to a beginner until next year. I think this route is done for the season. Nice forum, thanks to those that contribute time to make it happen. FineLine