goran

Thinking of givin'er a go this weekend, but don't know Hood well enough to know what to expect. Has anybody taken a peek around Illumination Rock at the glacier / Leuthold Couloir / Reid Headwall? Any general thoughts about the SW aspect of Hood this time of year? Thanks!

We did it 3 weeks ago with stiff mountaineering boots (I was using Trango Ices, my partner had Nepal EVOs). They made the snow travel extra-secure and were just fine for all of the rock climbing. I'm a big fan of trail runners, but if the snow traverse were firm and didn't have pre-kicked steps, it'd be very sketchy to use trail runners with crampons. That said, you might find success dropping over the S. Side there and avoiding the snow traverse, as per Steph Abegg's report. For what it's worth, my partner brought rock shoes and never bothered to put them on though they might have been nice in some of the slabby, loose, sandy class 4 on Torment. We did carry crampons (mine were the steel Kahtoola KTS's), and I'd say they're mandatory with all of the glacier travel. Aluminum would have worked for our trip. [added] In retrospect, it was a huge time-saver to not bring other footwear. No faffin' around changing shoes, just a bunch of long simul pitches. Bring extra double+ length slings to extend simul blocks, since most of the pro consists of large slung horns.

We did the traverse 3 weeks ago, and all of the snow travel was casual. We did put on crampons for the snow, though a party in front of us didn't even do that. It was a spectacular trip, and all type-1 fun except for some irritatingly loose, sandy class 4 climbing on Torment.

We saw it laying next to the trail below treeline on Sunday 7/14 at about 5:30p. The rope looked dropped, not stashed, so we carried it out. PM me here identifying the rope and I'd be happy to get it back to you.

I was up at Colchuck Lake for two days last weekend. The snow line was about 4600 feet on the hike in on Saturday morning, and about 5300 feet by the hike out on Sunday afternoon. The lake is melted out, but the ground around it still has plenty of snow; by the look of it, a foot or more fell in the area last week. I'd describe Aasgard as wallowy but passable. I'd assume the long, flat(ish) walk over to Prusik would involve some postholing but wouldn't be too heinous. That said, everything on Dragontail and Colchuck was thoroughly drenched during our visit, largely because the wet dump of snow from the week stuck in all sorts of improbable places and continued to melt, seep, and fall down. If Prusik had a similar snow fall (and I reckon it did), it'll take a bit of time for the snow to melt off and everything to dry out.

Check your messages! I'm around 12/29-12/31 and stoked to get out.