catstack

I'm looking to do some climbs in either area (rock, snow, or ice). I can lead 5.8 trad and WI3. I can follow .11 though.

Thanks for the suggestions. I think the plan is to do some single pitch stuff in Leavenworth on Saturday and then get up Condorphamine Addiction on Sunday.

oops, I was looking at the Cascade Rock book and noticed it mentioned June as the start of the season. Any suggestions for similar climbs that would be in season?

Has anyone been up that way in the past week or so? I'm looking to climb Vesper and the Mile High Club route that's near by. Is it too early in the season for these routes?

pioneerian - thanks! The lens is a Nikon 20m 1.8. The night shots had the following setting: ISO 1600, f1.8, and a 30 second exposure

water - the night shots were taken with a nikon d610. The others were both with the nikon and iphone.

diepj - glad someone could get some benefit from that effort hah.

Trip: Mt. Hood - Leuthold Couloir Date: 4/16/2016 Trip Report: I made my way up to palmer in some decently firm snow. At this point I started to cut over towards Illumination Saddle. Here I started to hit some softer snow. I made it to the saddle and popped on over. The Reid Glacier was looking pretty chill, the only opening that I could see was the bergschrund. I was doing a good bit of snow swimming the whole way across the Reid, slowed me down big time. Eventually I made it to the couloir and was relived the snow was more firm. The hourglass section was really mellow. The sun was starting to come up at this point. There really wasn't much ice fall while I was going though. I kept going up till I made it to the Queen's Chair. I hung out here for a bit to take in the views. Then I kept moving up till I got to the summit ridge. I then down climbed the mazama chute (I think?). I really need to learn to ski... Gear Notes: pretty standard Approach Notes: I tried to keep as much elevation as I could on the Reid.

Damn, that's awesome. I spoke to you briefly coming up Leuthold, I was wondering where you ended up going.

Looking good!

Trip: Mt. Hood - Devil's Kitchen Headwall Variation 2 Date: 1/25/2016 Trip Report: Around 12:30am, Sean DaCosta and myself left Portland and made our way to Timberline. We roll in around 2am, got ready and left for the slog by 2:30am The full moon gave plenty of light so headlamps weren't needed We saw a party heading West towards Illumination Saddle, later we found out they climbed the Reid Headwall. We strolled into the Devil's Kitchen just before sunrise. Time to enjoy the views for a bit, eat some cold food, and get the gear ready. We decided to go with the second variation. Looking from climbers left it would be the second chute. Entering the chute the snow steepens a good bit till you hit the first ice pitch. It seemed like WI2 and in pretty good shape. I was able to find a few ice screw placements that seemed decent. The chute eventually split, I took a look at the left side and that dead-ended. Sean took lead and started up the right side. This pitch was a little steeper but not much, The awesome thing about it was that you have to climb / crawl through a very narrow section 3/4 enclosed with rime ice. Once you get through that you pop out on the ridge. From here we climbed some crusty ice up a bit and started the Wy'East traverse. I'm really not sure what you're "supposed" to do in this section. We stayed lower which had more exposure but seemed more manageable. I saw someone climb up and over this section a few weeks back instead of doing what we did. Once we got through the traverse we followed the ridge up to the summit. There was a good bit of wind-blown powder on this side. We did a fair bit of swimming through this section. From the summit we down climbed the old chute and made our way back. Gear Notes: 55m rope 6 ice screws 3 pickets

Day was getting late and bad weather rolled in. We left two pickets at the top of the far right gully. If anyone happens to stroll on by and can recover the gear. I can give a nice reward for your troubles. They will probably be covered up by the next time someone goes though.

thanks for TR and photos!

Trip: Mt. Hood - South Side - Pearly Gates Date: 11/29/2015 Trip Report: A little late writing up this TR but suppose someone might get some use out of it still. I drove up to Timberline from Portland around 10pm. I planned to get a few hours of sleep in the car and head out around 3:30am. The wind was pretty intense when I rolled into the parking lot. The car was rocking back and forth from the guest and falling asleep took longer than I expected. The alarm went off and sure enough the big wind was still around. I figured it would calm down once I got up near the Steele Cliffs. I left the parking lot around 4am and started to work my way up. The wind was relentless. Every Once in a while a big enough guest would come along and push me down. Besides the wind the conditions were great. Crunchy packed snow the whole way up. Once I made it up to the Steele Cliffs the wind calmed down completely. The sun was rising up and made for killer views as usual. A few people were a head of me and plenty more coming up from behind. I got up to the top of the Hogsback and decided to go up through the Pearly Gates. The bergschrund that's usually hanging around this area was filled in for the most part. You could still see that it was there though. The angle grew stepper and I was getting great purchase with each step. The first half of this is just a step snow climb through the chute. Around the half way point the angle increases a bit and the snow starts to turn into ice. The crux was an ice step like feature that I had to mantle and kick my way up. The ice was super solid and I had a blast climbing up. After this it turns back into a step snow climb up to the summit. I had the summit to myself. I ate a burrito. After a bit I made my way over to the Mazama chute to head on down. Everyone I saw going up was going up this chute. I'm guessing the cat walk is still a little thin? Gear Notes: 1 ice tool 1 ice axe crampons

wow, I had no idea this kind of information was out there. tstory - Thanks for the book recommendation. I really have never gave much thought about reading up about weather besides the forecast that's given to me. JasonG - Do you know of a blog post or write up somewhere that breaks down all of that information and some ways to use it? I'm not familiar with a lot of the terminology so I'm not even sure what some of information is.