ktarry

Based on the topo below, I am pretty sure we climbed the Center Cirque Direct (Wallace-Olson, 1989). The location and route description matches up. Matt and Theresa would have climbed the McJury-Leuthold (Right Cirque), 1938. http://www.portlandrockclimbs.com/mt-hood-rock-climbs/eliot-headwall.htm

Cool, so we're in agreement that I should list them?

Seems like a nitpicky edit; all of those routes share the finish, so I see no reason not to list them. The headwall was RIDICULOUSLY FAT. I used 17cm screws on a bunch of the pitches, which is nuts for Mt. Hood. We started towards the right side of the HW, then went slightly left and topped out right near the top of Mazama Chute. @zaworotiuk started near us but went a bit more right, and topped out near Old Chute, and I think they report it was also fat over there.

I have added the route to MP: https://www.mountainproject.com/route/120567268/cathedral-ramp Good stuff folks!

I had several close friends express concern about choice of objective when I climbed it, and one potential partner opted out because he felt the hazard was too high. I think that feedback on risk is really valuable, and important to get from outside sources, because our own ability to assess risk is screwed up by all kinds of built-in biases. They talk about this regularly in avalanche education ("heuristic traps"), but for some reason it's much less discussed with regard to climbing (too much history of punk rock and macho attitudes, maybe). Here's some info from the avy side of things: http://www.sunrockice.com/docs/Heuristic traps IM 2004.pdf

No conjecture is needed guys, I was on the route a few weeks ago, and vast majority of the high risk climbing could be protected with a rope. Anyway, that's not the point, we don't need to argue about a route that most people in this thread have never seen up close. I'm simply saying that there are a lot of strong young guys making bold climbs, and I'm worried about them. Hardly seems controversial...

Artem, you've climbed one easy route on Hood, and yet you're arguing that soloing Yocum might be safer than climbing it with a partner. This is exactly the culture of risk that I'm worried about. Please be careful out there and stay safe.

I bet that's why he has a professional instagram account and the post about this climb includes 30 hashtags... I know what decisions I made when I was 20 years old, and I know the stories that I told myself to justify them. I also know how they look now, with 15 years more accumulated wisdom. I don't think pointing to Marc-Andre is a very convincing argument either, considering he left this world before his 30th birthday and left behind a grieving community. I will now depart my soapbox and won't bring any more negativity to this significant achievement, but I am out of patience for seeing young/new climbers hanging it way out there and getting nothing besides "atta boy!" from this community.

Extremely experienced alpinists (like Jim Wickwire) use a rope on Yocum for a reason. That's not to diminish the accomplishment or the vision, but come on guys, is this something you're comfortable encouraging? I refuse to encourage a 19 year old climber to play Russian Roulette; if I'm alone in this, so be it

I climbed it on May 16th 2017, ice was fat.

Trip: Mt. Stuart - Ice Cliff Glacier Date: 5/21/2017 Trip Report: Climbed the Ice Cliff Glacier on Mt. Stuart on Sunday May 21st with my climbing partner Aaron. I found the route to be high quality and varied, with a remote and committing feel, and significant objective hazard. While the climbing is probably easier than Triple Couloirs, the location, objective hazard, and more difficult descent made it feel a bit more serious (although definitely less sustained). Approach via Mountaineers creek took us about 5 hours from the parking lot. Still decent snow cover in the woods, we mostly walked on top, some occasional postholing. We camped at the end of the meadow below the moraine. Good access to water, close to the route, and safe from hazard. Here is the view from camp, Ice Cliff on the right, descent via Sherpa on the left. Lots of debris from recent wet slides due to the warming weather. We left camp around 3:45 AM, due to warm temps on the forecast. Easy approach, huge debris field below the ice cliff from icefall and slides coming from the upper glacier. We elected to climb the ice cliff directly, instead of skirting around the left side to the second step. In hindsight this cost us some time and there's probably no reason to make this route harder than it already is. I found the pitch to be WI3 or WI3+ and pretty hard brittle ice. Not easy! Second step was a lot easier, standard AI2, good fun. Above the second step I belayed off a deadman and brought Aaron up: Aaron then led off through the upper icefall, where we climbed between a few of the big blocks to avoid a sketchy crevasse crossing into the easier ground on the left. This brought us to the upper plateau. Slide debris had filled in the center of the schrund so we went right up the middle, with some simulclimbing and some quick belays for the crossing(s). There was a decent amount of ice/rockfall through here, the obvious groove is cut by shit coming down off the upper mountain, and we almost got clobbered by a couple baseball-sized rocks whizzing by. As soon as we were past the schrund we hopped out of the groove and headed for the left side of the couloir. Aaron led a long simul block through here, placing some spare rock and ice pro. We elected to go through the left exit (contrary to the guidebook), as the right exit had a massive cornice and was in the sun, resulting in rockfall and spindrift avalanches at regular intervals. I led a fun short pitch of thin ice and mixed, and then Aaron led the last pitch over the top where the cornice had fallen off, providing an easy exit. We took a break to eat and hydrate, and elected to skip the summit traverse due to poor snow quality on south-facing slopes. The downclimb on the Sherpa was long and tedious but not overly difficult, and there is an awesome cave with running water that we used to refill our bottles. We saw a few more small avalanches here, so we chose to stay out of the bottom of the groove for safety. A good snow bridge led across the schrund, and we turned around and walked down the rest of the way (felt like forever). We ate some food, packed up the tent, and it took about 4 hours to walk back to the car. Gear Notes: 2 pickets, 4 screws, half rack of nuts, 2 hexes, 70m half rope, 2 tools each. Approach Notes: Yikes. Cross the log, bushwhack, posthole.

Crazy how much conditions can change in a couple weeks. We got up the route this weekend and there is WAY more ice than it looks like in your pictures, and we probably didn't kick a singe step, firm neve pretty much the whole way. A bit of easy mixed climbing in the runnels too, at least on the right side line that we took.

SO AWESOME! Really good work. Looks like that's a difficult but reasonable line, well done. Thanks for wallowing up DKH early in the morning, we appreciated the steps you guys kicked in.

Got on this route this morning. It's in really good shape, awesome route, even with the crazy winds today (50+ mph supposedly?) bringing down lots of spindrift. Highly recommended. We did the first 3 pitches (had to break the 3rd pitch into 2 due to lack of screws, don't ask...). 4th pitch is probably in, if you're a better climber than we are. We found the first pitch to be spicy on the curtain, and the 3rd pitch to be pretty sustained. 2nd pitch is mellow and really fun. If the party climbing below us is on here, sorry for the ice bombs, hope you still had a good outing. Early bird gets the worm and all that... Whole route: 4th Pitch (we did not climb this, looked hard!) Just past the 1st pitch crux:

Well done fellas. I'm sure if you hit it in just the right conditions (spring freeze/thaw?) it's awesome, but every time I've been up it's real spicy. I'll never go up there without a couple pins and a spectre, that's for sure. Like Ben, I thought about going up there last week, and decided "no way, too much fresh snow and insufficient warming cycles." You're braver than I am!

No problem! I get a lot of beta from this place, trying to pay it forward a bit. Has anyone done this route in full winter/spring conditions? How does it go? Looking forward to getting on it again, although I feel like the W. Ridge has better exposure. The SE buttress looks like a REALLY good route too, but it was terrifyingly thin this weekend so we didn't dare get on it. I assume it will go easier with more rime & ice... This was my second trip to I-rock, and it does NOT disappoint.

Trip: Illumination Rock - Iron Maiden Date: 10/22/2016 Trip Report: More of a conditions report than a climbing report, for folks who may be interested in getting their early-season alpine on. TL;DR: Thin conditions, lots of mixed. With the weather that came through the last week or two, I was watching the freezing levels and it looked like they'd get some good frozen stuff up high, and then we were due for a thaw-freeze cycle. Perfect recipe for alpine ice, I thought! So, I recruited climbing partner Jason to go up there with me and take a look. First pitch was decent ice in the gully, not really deep or solid enough for screws, but good sticks so not bad. First chimney was a spicy mixed affair with some drytooling. The headwall traverse didn't look promising, I got halfway across and was confronted with loose snow on slabs, so we downclimbed a bit and then came back up under the next chimney on thin ice on slabby rock. The next chimney was another mixed affair, really fun climbing here but strenuous for me on lead. We rapped off from the west gable, summit ridge was looking scary and we were pretty worked. Left Timberline at about 8, climbing around 11, done rapping around 4:30, back at the car at 6:30. I haven't done this route "in season," but I did the West Ridge in spring last year and I thought it was much more straightforward. FYI, the SE Buttress, April Insanity, and Rime dog are all thin ice on slabs., much respect to anyone who takes them on in these conditions. March Madness is basically nonexistent, a few small icicles up high but nothing continuous. Route line (approx): Start of the 1st Pitch: Near the top, looking down the final chimney: Gear Notes: Short screws (basically useless), picket (basically useless), a couple cams 0.75-2 (useful in a few spots), nuts, a few pitons, and a spectre. Approach Notes: Normal southside approach, really good conditions.

Trip: Mt Adams - Adams Glacier Date: 7/16/2016 Trip Report: First post here, seems like some people have been struggling with this route this season so wanted to try to help out with some beta. Approximate route: Left work early Friday, out of Portland around 3 PM, at Trout Lake Ranger Station right before 4:30. Made our way to Killen Creek Trailhead at about 6, freshly graded! Normal approach via Killen Creek Trail to High Camp Trail. Camped on snow just above the moraine lake. Left camp around 4 AM Saturday morning, walked up the glacier for about 30 minute then roped up. It got steeper at the snow dome at the base of the glacier: About a third of the way up we hit some icier bits. It looked like you could avoid the bulk of the ice by skirting around on the left, but we chose the direct line and simulclimbed with a tibloc and microtrax for protection. Took two pitches to reach the safety of a nice crevasse to rest at and went back to moderate snow slopes. The first pitch of ice was probably AI2+ (maybe AI3), second pitch a little mellower. The navigation about this got a little bit more complicated. We came up on a HUGE crevasse (50 feet deep and about as wide), looked for a snow bridge on the left and didn't find one, and elected to drop into the right end and climb back out. We found a nice snow ramp down about 100 yards from the cliffs and a good notch to climb out. Easy snow ramps led to a short vertical pitch maybe 10-15 feet tall: I led out with a couple good screw for pro and then belayed the team out on a pair of pickets above the slot. From there we went up some easy snow slopes to another huge crevasse, but this one had a cool crossing through some icefall towards the left, it looked like you could also go around the right side, right up against the rock band. From here we cruised nearly straight up, and elected to finish by going to the right of the huge icefall, instead of left under it like the guidebook says. There were a few big slots up here but they had narrow spots with snow bridges. Later in the season these might not go, and you might have to go to the left. In hindsight the left might have been better, you're under the seracs but it seems relatively safe, and it avoids the big schrund and some deeper sugar snow in the basin towards the top of the glacier. After that, we slogged across to the summit, arriving around noon (8 hours from camp). We took a long break and then headed down the north ridge. It's loose and crappy but not too difficult. Packed up camp and headed out, home in Portland around 10:30. In the end, we climbed the two ice sections with pro (mostly screws, a few pickets), and simul-soloed nearly everything else. This is a really fantastic climb, the glacier has amazing features and it's quiet and serene. Expect to find a few short ice steps to get through the complications, and some backtracking trying to find your way around slots. The ice sections aren't long, but they're enough to possibly send you packing if nobody on your team leads WI2-3 comfortably. Gear Notes: 2 alpine tools per person. 1 alpine tool and 1 hybrid would work great. 5 screws and 3 pickets for a team of 3. Approach Notes: Killen Trailhead.