BigD

Trip: Mount Hood - Leuthold's Coulior Shutdown Date: 4/25/2009 Trip Report: Jeremy and I decided to try the popular variation to the south route up Hood, Leuthold's coulior, after I got off work at 10 pm on friday. We raced from Corvallis and made a late start from the Tline parking lot at 3 am on the dot. We made up some time on the south side approach with good surface conditions. We approached illumation saddle at 6:00 am while I tried to keep from dosing off mid stride. Weather on the south side was decent with slight winds, however this quickly changed at illumination saddle. We came upon a group desperatly trying to control their tents like circus trainers trying to control a rogue elephant. The weather report called for 30 mph gusts from the west. I admit I may have underestimated what this might mean for an ascent of a coulior on the west face of Hood. We chatted with the group who had bivied there all night with the winds. They said they checked out the coulior and had decided to just go back down. Wanting to see for ourselves, Jeremy and I decided that we would drop down onto the Reid where we hoped we would be shielded a bit from the wind. This proved to be the case (thank god). However, after traversing over to the bottom of Leuthold's we came upon a spray of ice and rock debris shooting out of the hourglass (literally). We decided to ascend a bit a get a closer look. As we got closer and the ice chunks started coming at us faster and with more frequency, I realized that trying to pass through the hour glass without getting popped in the face or worse would be unlikely, since everything that was being blown off the west side of the mountain was probably all being bottlenecked at the hourglass. As we retreated we each got our fair share of reminders from Leuthold in the form of ice chunks to the backside. The wind had gotten worse by the time we got back to the saddle and threw us around like bad dancers while we stumbled around trying to maintain footing. We each were knocked off our feet at least twice as we retreated back down to the palmer snowfield. Turned back from then hourglass at 8 am. Back to car at 11 am. We will try again soon...with less wind. Bummer. Gear Notes: 30 m rope (roped up just below the west side of Illumination saddle). 4 ice screws (didn't use) extra ice tool each (didn't use) crampons, axe, helmut (duh)