[TR] MT HOOD - Sandy Glacier HW 03/13/2021

[kadyakerbob]

Trip: MT HOOD - Sandy Glacier HW

Trip Date: 03/13/2021

Trip Report:

With the long Conga Line heading up the mtn Saturday morning our plans to head somewhere different was set.  Sandy Glacier HW being the last face we haven’t climbed this year seemed like a great choice.  
 

    Made great time up to Illumination and quickly headed down and over to cross Yokum at 8600ft.  Made it up and mostly over Yokum but a huge fracture line had me second guess that variation so we down climbed and traversed back down to the Reid and made our way down to the normal low crossing route around 7600ft.  At this point the snow wasn’t too bad and travel was fairly quick. Once we hit the Sandy we encountered some really amazing powder and had a few thousand painfully slow feet of snow swimming intermixed with a few feet of front pointing on ice.  
    Overall the route is more of a hike than a climb.  Definitely can be done with just ski poles With the conditions we had.
 
    Overall summary/recommendations  for anyone looking to head over to the Sandy HW would be definitely jet down to the lower traverse around Yokum.  in my opinion it is an overall faster option. The HW itself is not technical but is a really long slog up although it’s a beautiful side of the mtn that most of us rarely see.  

Gear Notes:
30M rad line for the glacier crossing

Approach Notes:
TImberline to IR down and over to Sandy.

[zaworotiuk]

Nice. See any interesting ice climbing variations?

[nonbasketless]

9 hours ago, kadyakerbob said:

The HW itself is not technical but is a really long slog up although it’s a beautiful side of the mtn that most of us rarely see.  

No kidding, couldn't recognize it's Hood in some of your sweet pics!

How important did the rope feel for glacier wandering? I heard crevasses are opening early this year.

[adventure43]

Thanks kadyakerbob for the trip report. I wanted to do it the same day your party did but conditions didn't seem right. Did you guys go all the way down to 7600? I got tired of skirting around and bee-lined to the ridge at 7770 and saw that it was easy to get on to the Sandy there, so I did.

A few images from my climb on 2021 03 17  https://imgur.com/gallery/WBap5Qe.

nonbasketless, I saw 4-6, 6 - 8 wide inch seems opening up around 8400 on the Sandy as I was heading to the climb. All were covered or at least mostly. I looked at one more carefully as it had small holes, an inch around, at its edge and one could see black below. The crevasse at the top of the Hogsback is very open as is the tube just above the Devil's Kitchen area. Didn't see any opening on the Reid but it was dark.