WageSlave

So what is this? We found it in Strobach, but weren't sure where we were.

Any of you folks want to go up to Strobach? I have Friday through Monday free and would like to swing some tools. Mt Hood is losing its allure. I'm in Portland sans car, but will gladly pitch in for gas.

That was me above. I'll have to do the no pad/bag thing next time for the bivy.

Friends of Tilly Jane would be a smart place to start. No names or numbers on my stuff, but the stove and fuel bottles have "Reed College" on them. Whoever took the stuff went through my pack that I left up there with almost everything in it. And they didn't even take the bottle of whiskey under the journal. The hot pink biner from your picket almost makes up for all the looted gear, but not quite.

Here's photos snagged from Wayne Wallace's website. Good luck on the climbing. Conditions are great up on the NE side, but might be windloaded slabs the more E you get. The Black Widow is its own climb that's on the far right of the topo.

Yeah, that's you I'm drunkenly ranting at on the internet. You stole our stove, fuel, pots, sleeping pad, clothes, and my buddy's fucking JOURNAL you assholes. We bailed off the North Face of Hood and down the Southside in a whiteout and couldn't get our gear back for 5 days, so you looted it with no remorse. We're not dead, so give it back you pricks. In the meantime, I hope you use it for some big alpine climb that avalanches on you and leaves you cold dead and alone. PS If you give it back, or at least the journal, I'll promise to not sic the attack dogs on you.

Trip: Mt. Hood - North Face Gully (Right Hand) Date: 2/1/2009 Trip Report: After Ivan's purdy picture of the conditions on the NF, Laura (lnf) and I decided to go for it. We suckered her buddy Matt into it and got him to fly out from Laramie, WY to come climb a mountain. Got our gear sorted out Sat. and hiked in to the Tilly Jane cabin. Needed provisions. We ran into Winter and eldiente at the cabin and they gave us beta on the NF that cheered us up. Loud drunk PSU students (myself not included) almost ruined the cabin experience, but it sure minimized the mountaineering sufferfest. We got rolling at 3 am and hit the berg around dawn at 7:30 am. Sun coming up over Cooper Spur Trying to find a way around the berg. Not sure what Ivan and Tvash did to get up and over the berg, but to the left we found this tiny narrow ramp that hung precariously over the abyss. Its about a foot and a half wide and added to spice of the morning. Both the left and right hand gully entrances are in but a little thin. Laura leading up the first crux on the right. We broke the first section into two 30m chunks and I led the second. Lots of step kicking up perfect neve almost all the way to the exit from the gully. Thin and vertical climbing (with a little stemming to volcanic mud) gets you out of the gully. Once out, weather started to roll in and visibility dropped. Everything iced up and we all had a nice suit of armor in little time at all. Full value mountain experience. The last crux was getting up to the summit proper. The ice is thin and there's little snow after a bit. We simulclimbed some and pitched out 150m or so until we could finally see the summit in our limited visibility. This was Matt's first big mountain route, so he was getting a full dose of alpine glory. Please sir, could I have some more rime? Matt hauling himself onto the summit. We topped out as things went to shit even more. Time to get the hell off the mountain. Matt looking too excited for his own good. Human popsicles. We decided to bail down the South Side route instead of our plan down Cooper Spur cause we didn't want a repeat of either Dec 06 or Laura's previous adventures rapping the Black Spider. Calling friends/family to give us a lift from Timberline seemed like a much more cozy plan. Took us fucking forever to climb down the Old Chute and we found our way down by following the rank stench of fumeroles coupled with compass bearings. Did the standard lost-on-the-South-Side-in-a-storm thing and hiked downhill instead of to Timberline. I haven't been this happy to find the ski hill before. The stroll down to the lodge gave us plenty of time to savor our victory. The NF is in sweet condition, but don't believe NOAA when they say you're gonna get most sunny weather and low winds. We had winds in the 30 mph range and minimal vis from the top of the gully till we were just above the lifts. Laura is one damn strong climber. She racked up for the exit from the gully and laughed saying she hadn't led ice in two years. Hot shit. Matt got broken in for mountain climbing all proper-like and seemed to have had a blast with it too. All in all, a super fun time in the mountains, though our sleeping bags and gear are still at Tilly Jane. So is most of that Jim Beam. If anyone is up there and wants to grab that stuff, you get the whiskey and then some. P.S. Here's that picture of the NF on Monday morning to make you wet your pants. Gear Notes: 9 screws, 3 pickets, some thin pins (didn't use em), 60m rope Approach Notes: Icy trail to Tilly Jane and hardpack to the berg.

No slow shoes for us, but our pre-climb whiskey and sleeping bags are still at Tilly Jane. If anyone wants to get them for us, they get the Jim Beam.

Heh. Not quite. We were gonna go down Cooper Spur until weather rolled in and made that a dangerous proposition. Took a while to get a ride back up to our car at Cloud Cap.

I'm glad things went as well as they could for you two. Weather rolled in not long after you got down and turned into a whiteout in the afternoon. No time to be finding your way down the south side while injured. Hope he heals up well!

It went well. Topped out in a whiteout and came down the SS. We'll get a TR up here sooner rather than later.

That looks like a sweet climb. Nice job.

Legwarmers are Ade. Oh snap! Pun!

Plastics suck. Hardcore. Someone here is gonna argue with me over that, but they still suck. La Sportiva Trangos are nice indeed. I'd also check out Scarpa Triolets and Charmoz. I use a pair of Charmoz for summer climbing, both ice/glaciers and easy rock. If you're in the Seattle area, the folks at Feathered Friends and Second Ascents will get you set up nicely.

Amazing climb and even more amazing legwarmers.

Thats really bad news. Jesus. My heart goes out to her husband and family.

Looks like you guys had a lot of fun on that route. How many vertical ft of climbing are on that gully?

Goddamn. Thats some bad news. That icefall is ugly. When its rimed up like that, temps about freezing are not the time to be there. That stuff likes to fall off spectacularly, I've been learning.

votostey, yup that was us you heard tromping around outside your tent at some ungodly hour of night. We were just really happy to put away the ice tools and not think about falling off anything or getting pegged by more ice. Bet you guys had one hell of a night in those winds. billcoe, the catch for the climb was that it was in beautiful shape and that kept luring us higher. Oh, the folly of youth. As my mother put it, "When you survive, its called a learning experience."

For DonnieK:

Trip: Mt. Hood - Reid Headwall (left-hand gully) Date: 1/17/2009 Trip Report: Early in the morning, cycling_mike and I headed up and over Illumination Saddle going towards the Sandy Glacier/Headwall. The one snow crossing over looked super unstable, so we headed up the Reid Headwall instead. Soloed up the ice for the first 900-1000 ft. We got hit by a pretty large pile of ice when the sun first hit the top of the gullies. Roped up when we were at about 10k and simulclimbed and pitched out a few rope lengths more. Got about 200 ft below the ridge/buttress before overhanging, super unstable rime made us back down. Michael led one horrifying pitch up and over to a rap station and we started our retreat down. We didn't want to downclimb/rappel our way up because the rain of ice was going down our path up. We rapped off what we could find and some gear of ours, mixed with a lot of downclimbing. We could just barely see the bottom of Leuthold's Couloir when the sun went away. The wind picked up and brought down bigger and bigger chunks of ice. We started getting beaten up and a big hunk scrapped a piece of my helmet off. We had an endless treadmill of 40 degree ice to downclimb to the Reid. We From there it was a long, happy walk back to the car. The Reid Headwall before we started climbing. Climbing through the avy debris chute. At 9800 or so we tied in and started simulclimbing. Me leading up one of the gullies. Retreating as the sun fell. In retrospect, climbing in the high temps this weekend was a bad idea. We only had one pile of ice fall come down onto us while climbing up, so it was easy to not notice conditions nearby. The retreat was long and arduous. I'm happy to be alive and not staining a glacier. Better analysis of the conditions would have had us either turning around or not starting the climb at all. Live and learn, and thankfully we lived. Gear Notes: two tools, 2 pickets, 5 screws, a rope Approach Notes: Go up the ski hill.

sweatin-that was me and cycling_mike at the car. We ditched the idea of the Sandy shortly after getting on the Reid. Looks like you guys had more fun than we did, though the ice conditions on the Reid HW were superb. Continuous 40-60 degree ice for 1200 ft.

That above comment was me.

I'm game for anything on the east side too.

There's the possibility that they just don't know how to use the internet.