WageSlave

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.

Yeah, that was me. The traverse over to Sandy was kinda spare on the snow, so we gave a variation of the Reid a shot. Got to some bigass buttress at about 10400 and the rime falling off made us bail down towards Leutholds and into a very long epic day. I'm just glad that there wasn't a second helicopter picking us up at the end of the day.

I was wondering why that Blackhawk was coming up over the mountain when I was near the top of what should have been the Reid Headwall. The ice fall was super nasty yesterday, especially down all the gullies that go to the Reid Glacier. Some really big stuff was coming down. The wind picked up last night as soon as the sun went down and it was bringing down even more icefall.

Hows the elliot headwall compare to the sandy headwall?

I was wondering if any of you folks have secrets to share about how you deal with your gear rusting up. I've been using steel wool when I can, but is there anything preventative that works well on crampons and picks?

jfs, anyway you could post those pictures of the Reid and Yocum to get us having some fantasies before the weekend comes?

Any luck with it surviving another week? Best guesses?

There's rumors of ice that you can top rope around Bachelor. Unverified reports at least.

lolz...indeed

Well that trip report made me stop regretting spending time with the family. Nothing like 35 degree rain to make you happy and numb.

That kind of tactic usually only last until the second jab, from there on, I chain smoke Camels and drink beer while laughing at the poles shoved up you ass! Haha. Camels and beer, that sounds like a high quality mountaineering trip to me. Where are the massive Slaveway sandwiches to go with it?

I was planning on the kind where I walk behind you and jab you in the ass with poles to hike faster. I'd be up for some cc.com gangbang on Hood action. Time to switch from alcoholism back to climbing.

But photos? I mean, NOAA has good weather forecasts too, but it ain't got no photographic evidence.

Is there a good internet resource around with recent/regularly updated photos of any aspects of Hood to judge conditions by? I'm drawing a blank here.

Yeah, thats a safe assumption for sure. Hell, there's probably a bunch more ice up there right now. I'd say just go for that hike up the ski track and check out whats up on the mountain.

I'm looking at these cold temps Sunday night and the lack of precip thats expected and thinking that maybe that North Face might be in condition. Anyone game to go check it out and climb it Sunday night/Monday AM? I don't have a car, and only have a couple screws, but will make up for that by doing most the trailbreaking and being obnoxiously awake at 2 am C'mon, you know you folks want to get out of Portland and swing some tools... Either PM me or gimme a call at (three 6 oh) 723 three three 44.

PM sent too...

The easy answer is that climbers drink to fortify courage for later endeavors. And put some training weight on the gut.

I'd be game to do some scouting with you one of these weekends. Hopefully we'll be getting some cold weather and precip up there. A week and a half ago it was a shitfest with rocks coming down off of everything and hardly any ice anywhere. It hasn't been that cold since then.

You just aren't trying hard enough. The rain at least shifted all the broken glass around so it wasn't where I remembered it.