Hood via Hogsback and Rainier via Tahoma in Aug?

[stachyra]

Some climber friends and I from New England are

planning on visiting the cascades for a week of

climbing in the middle of August. Currently we

are bandying about which routes to tackle, and

two that we are looking at are the Palmer

Glacier/Hogsback route up Mt. Hood, and the

Tahoma glacier route up Mt. Rainier.

 

Has anybody ever climbed these in mid-Aug?

Are they do-able at that time? If so, what

are the glacier surface conditions like?

I.e., is there sufficient snow cover on

top so that you can still navigate across

them easily, or are the crevasses so opened

up by that time that you have an impossible

route-finding nightmare?

 

Thanks,

Andy

[scot'teryx]

Yikes, hood in August will be a choss pile with some slush mixed in {near} the top. I would advise doing Adams up the south side, with the normal snow year, base camp to pikers peak {might} be snow free. Tahoma Glacier route on Rainier is a commiting route as far as I have heard. Generally done with 2-3 base camps (Input anyone?) and the Tahoma glacier can get pretty broken up. Go around the other side and head up the Emmons route.

[russ]

I did Rainier via Tahoma Glacier in July 10-12, 2004. At around 10,500 the remaining snow bridges were very weak - didn't think they'd last much longer. Mid-August will probably be fairly complicated...