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Yocum Ridge was on our objective list for this winter. Initially, I was thinking sometime in March or late Feb would be optimal conditions. On Thurs 2/1, I was perusing Mountain Forecast and noticed that the temperatures on Hood were still quite cold, despite the unseasonable warmth in the rest of the PNW. Wind/visibility for Sat looked excellent. I also found some photos from a couple days prior of the South side, and the rime ice coverage looked quite good. I texted Ian, and he responded right away with a “lets do it”. On Fri he met me at work in Cashmere at 3:45pm and we left for Oregon. At 8:45pm we were skinning up the cat track towards the top of the Palmer chair lift. With Ian carrying our 70m rope, we were able to sustain around 2,600’ of gain to the top of Palmer in around 90min. From there we left the cat track and traversed another 800’ up to Illumination Saddle, arriving at 11pm sharp. We set up the tent, made dinner, and were sleeping by midnight. We awoke at 6am to start the morning routine. I got breakfast and water started while Ian prepped gear. We were on the move by 7:20am, just behind three pairs of climbers on the Leuthold Couloir route. We quickly descended and crossed the Reid Glacier and gained the ridge at 8,800’. The first 700’ of ridge climbing was very fast, and conditions were perfect. Firm snow made for one-swing sticks. At the base of the first gendarme, we set up belay and I lead two short pitches to the top. The rime was still quite solid and easy to climb. Protection was with pickets. We ended up using pickets, a couple cams, and a couple ice screws on route, but mostly pickets. From there, we slung the top of the gendarme and with no way to ease into the rappel, I jumped off the top. The rappel was very awkward and mostly sideways along the ridge. Ian followed, and we traversed a longer section of moderate simul-climbing terrain on the serrated ridge crest. I made it to a ledge shortly after and in the rising sun, I changed into my t-shirt and belayed Ian up. The terrain on this part of the climb is amazing. The rime ice formations are sharp and huge. Coupled with the blue skies and views of the other Cascade volcanoes it makes for a very unique and beautiful setting for the technical climbing. We simul-climbed the ridge crest past the less-remarkable 2nd gendarme on the South side, and up the 3rd gendarme. We then made a similarly awkward traversing rappel from the top. This time I had to take out an ice tool while on rappel to get around an awkward tower and back to the ridge crest. The rope reached just far enough to get past the scary terrain. From there, I called out “off belay”. Ian pulled his backup picket and came down as well. From here, we solo’d up the ridge to the base of the massive upper buttress. I entered a forking gully at the base, and decided to go left. This lead to a nice flat bench, where I re-organized my pack a bit and called my wife. Meanwhile Ian pulled the rope, packed it up, and carried it through the moderate terrain up to the bench. I often like to joke that Ian is basically the guide and I am just a privileged client. He is often willing to do 90% of the work on a route without a single complaint, which sometimes makes me feel guilty. At the bench, we switched the rope to my pack and Ian took a turn leading us up to a very intimidating looking rime-ice headwall. From what I have read, not many people, if any, actually go to the top of this thing. It’s much bigger than the gendarmes, and we attempted two vertical routes to get up it. Ian tried both unsuccessfully. I was feeling good and gave it a shot, only to have the rime beneath my feet, then knees, then ice picks all give out and I took a good 15’ fall. Up until this point, we were making very good time, but we burned over an hour trying to scrape up the headwall. We decided to try the right branch of the gully, and ended up rappelling a full 35m down into a 60 degree gully. I would have liked to try and find a way up the upper buttress, but we were starting to run out of time, and I believe most other parties (if not all) also made the 3rd rap down into the gully like we did. This rappel was the only place that we deviated from the ridge crest on the climb. Once in the gully, we crawled upward until reaching a 15’ vertical step. Ian managed to lead up, build an anchor using a picket, and belay me. From there, we were able to follow the rest of the gully up to the ridge crest again. By then it was 3pm. We could see the top of the Leuthold route, and the last of the groups we left with was just heading up to the false summit. We solo’d around lots of unstable rime formations on the South side of the ridge, and finally reached the end of the technical difficulties. We stopped there at around 10,600’ to melt water and we were both exhausted. That is not the easiest 1,800’ of climbing one can do. We haggardly slogged our way up to summit and reached it at 4:20pm in warm, windless conditions. The views were amazing, and I sat there on my knees for around 10min just resting and enjoying the scenery. After taking photos, we followed the bootpack down the South-side route, past the sulfur vents and back to our tent at Illumination Saddle. We packed up in around an hour as darkness was setting in. Not wanting to ski down in the dark, we forwent dinner and skied decent powder down toward Timberline Lodge as the last rays of sun disappeared. We made it back to the truck in the dark at 6:15pm. We then proceeded to crank the heat up and beeline for the Hood River McDonalds. 4 hours and 4 cheeseburgers later, I made it home to my wife and one-month old baby girl, Navy. GPX Track: https://www.alltrails.com/explore/recording/mount-hood-yocum-ridge-2c8ed85 Gear List: https://www.packwizard.com/packs Video:

Hi! Looking to hike a South Side route on Mount Hood this Memorial Day weekend, probably on Saturday early am. Need a partner or two or three mainly for good company. Hit me up if you're available!

Cheers, so this morning I found a ton of crevasses within a couples hours hike of timberline lodge on Hood. I stayed close by the edge because I got there late but if you get there early there’s potentially hundreds of climbable routes. I honestly can’t tell how long they are but the one I checked out nearby the edge was perfect because you could walk in from the moraine slope instead of moving over the glacier. It had 10 ft walls perfect for trying it out and sweet walls and corners that were 50+ ft with everything from dead vertical to overhanging. And the corners were just awesome you could’ve wedged yourself up into the funkiest spots. It’s obviously not great ice but even with the sun coming up it stayed hard enough that it was tricky to get tools out and I put my stakes on the glacier with the sun on them and they held a perfect anchor for at least an hr. I know a lot of people go here and there’s even a trip organized for September but if anybody lives around Hood, I live ten minutes from timberline, and it’d be great to find a belay partner. I’ve been messing around with a double belay device by myself and it definitely works but it’s beyond tricky on most steep ice. I work most days but I should have off at least once a week to go up in the am and I can go up at night most days. I’m definitely a beginner but I get out there a ton so while I might not send the craziest stuff I can at least promise I’ll remember to place the anchor and just overall not do dumb stuff. Ill be here for a while and it only gets better up there.... reach out anytime. -Trevor Ps- there’s some sweet not-too-chossy boulders all over Hood too

Im looking for a partner to ski tour the south side climbing route of Hood, with the goal to summit Mt Hood on 5/25. l'll be leaving from Portland around 11pm-Midnight 5/24 (Thursday, night before and am more than happy to pick you up and carpool) and plan on starting on the trail from Timberline around 1am. I'm relatively new to ski mountaineering, with two seasons under my belt, but Ive done St Helens, Broken Top and Mt Washington before. Mt Hood is my current white whale. I've gone up to Hogsback twice but have turned back due to lame conditions one time and equipment failure another. Looking for a buddy to try and summit this thing for real this time!

Lose an axe recently? Maybe two? Give me a description and we’ll get you reunited. Text 503-867-6139