[TR] MT. HOOD - Wy'East Face 01/26/2019

[kadyakerbob]

Trip: MT. HOOD - Wy'East Face

Trip Date: 01/26/2019

Trip Report:

With the warm inversion taking place and fairly certain most other routes would be full of falling ice Mike and I decided to climb the Wy'East.  We left the car at 4:30am with the temperature in the mid 40's, but the surface/snow temps fairly reasonable.  Mike and I left the car with the intention of getting to the top of palmer in under and hour but unfortunately for the 5th time so far this year we just missed it and managed to hit the top of palmer right at 5:36am.

 Once at the top of palmer we traversed slightly up as we made our way over to the White River glacier.  We did rope up to cross the glacier although everything is pretty covered up right now.  From here we had a quick look at the South face of the steel cliffs just to see if it might be in condition and it definitely was not so we continued down and around to the standard Wy'East route.  This was our first time climbing the full Wy'East route and overall we think that the conditions were pretty good.  The guide book is pretty spot on with the description although the traverse really inst that exposed and the overall climbing is extremely straight forward and mellow.  With surface temps being a lot better than we had planned we topped out and then decided to run down to illumination rock and see if we might be lucky enough to hit one of the south west side routes before they became ice/rockfall funnels.  Unfortunately once we got there and started to head down we quickly realized that we might be a dollar short and a day late as ice was just screaming down.  Overall it was a great day with stellar spring like conditions.  

Gear Notes:
2 x pickets (didn't use them and not really any need for them on this route)

Approach Notes:
Standard south side route up to Palmer then traversed up and over to the White River Glacier. We roped up for this crossing although everything is pretty closed up right now.