Youngins on Hood

[Winter]

I climbed the South Side today with my buddy's 11 year old kid. The 'schrund was easily passible but there was some super sketchy rockfall coming back down through the not so pearly gates. The kid did great even with the 50+ mph winds we had for the first three or four hours. I thought he was gonna get blown into the White River.

 

Anyways, I'm sure it gets a lot younger, but does anyone know the youngest kid to climb Hood on his/her own power?

[Big_Wave_Dave]

1974 Penelope White age 5 and 1936 Harry Callicotte, age 5.

 

I'd be surprised if they are still the "record holders".

[Alpine_Tom]

What a remarkable coincidence! I climbed the route with MY buddy’s 12-year-old son this weekend as well. We did it as an overnight, and summited Sunday. He displayed a remarkable tenacity for someone so small (he’s about 70 pounds, and small for his age) In my experience, the problem with hiking with kids is keeping them interested; they usually get bored or lose their motivation well before they get physically tired. By contrast, I think Michael pushed himself to his physical limit, and the wind and dampness at the summit really sucked the strength out of him.

 

And the conditions ARE quite hazardous. The “pearly gates” are now “chossy gates;” there’s a stretch of water ice and an almost constant rockfall. As we were descending the upper hogsback, a rock the size of an engine block came bounding through; anyone in the chute would have been killed. I suppose the numerous other softball-sized rocks would have done the same thing. IMHO, the route ought to be finished for the year. But I bet there were two dozen others up there.

[texplorer]

If you summit before sunrise you greatly reduce your chances of rockfall. For most people this means leaving T-lodge around 11:00pm the night before. I agree though AT, it gets sketchy this time of year.

[iain]

Not only sketchy, but it just isn't very pleasant compared to a nice rimed-up winter or spring climb! mt hood is revealed as the chosspile that it is now.

[Alpine_Tom]

quote:

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Originally posted by texplorer:

If you summit before sunrise you greatly reduce your chances of rockfall.

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Actually, a lot of the rockfall seemed to be caused by people above the chute, either coming up or down. That's what caused that huge rock to come down. Certainly warming makes it worse, but the safest way to climb the hogsback this time of year is to be the first team up.

You can, however, go up a chute to the left, avoiding a lot of the rockfall hazard (as long as you make it through the water ice.) We didn't do that because I didn't think Michael would be able to front-point up it. One unforseen problem with climbing with a very short person is he can't use the steps adults have kicked into the steep snow; his legs just weren't long enough.

 

And, it appears that if you took a line up the left, bypassing the pearly gates entirely (called, I think, the old chute, or the Mazama route?) it looks to be safer, if you were up there predawn.