Hood S Side Conditions

[Monty_Smith]

I posted this for the PMR'rs and thought the CC'rs would also like to know, so am posting it here, too.

 

Monty

 

I went up Hood with Erik today (we, and Terry Campbell, were the Ready Team) – Erik asked if I could post the conditions as well as remind of the change to 8:30 departure time (see Scott’s email below) on tomorrow’s Ready Team.

Nothing to note below ~10,000ft.

Crater Rock had a 12”+ layer of fresh over a very thick and very consolidated layer, that slope was moderate avy potential. The normal crack at the foot of Devil’s Kitchen was bigger than Erik and I had seen it before; only about a ft wide, but 10+ft deep; we opened up the small snowbridge, making it more visible. The bootpath goes lower on Crater Rock than usual, taking teams right over the crack.

 

The Gates still looked steep, with a full gully below them, and a 10ft? ice step thru the center. Cutting around to the Mazama Chute looked like lots more avy-prone snow - so before continuing I dug a pit on the both sides of the Hogsback, looking at the layers in either direction. The thick fresh layer seen below kinda petered out just below the Hogsback, and the right/south pit (Crater Rock side) had only about 8” of 4-finger over an indeterminately-thick consistently well-bonded layer of pencil hardness (I stopped digging at ~3ft). A shovel shear showed no sign of movement of the lop layer at all. Yeah, I could have dug deeper, but I knew this layer dumped 5-6ft of snow and didn’t want to find out just HOW deep it was!

 

The left/north side had a clearly seen thin ice crust about 8” down that looked and felt like rime crust, and had a thin unbonded layer between it and the top layer (buried surface hoar?). But the rime was very rough and full of ice nodules, holding the looser snow in place above. A tap test went the full 30 whacks without moving. So we decided to try the face/Chute, while Terry checked out the Gates.

 

The layer (mostly) disappeared just below the cliffs, and we had (mostly) good conditions all the way to the summit. But there were a couple places of VERY deep loose snow – like thigh-deep, but only for ~10ft. Just below the Chute there was more fresh snow and boots/crampons slipped on the hard layer below, but there was no indication of crack propagation or anything that smelled like avy. The Chute itself was ice; a second tool would be nice, but only for ~10ft.

Terry said the Gates were OK coming up, but wouldn’t make for a good descent route.

Normal steepness on most areas; the Chute itself was 35-40deg, and one large wind ridge was probably closer to 45deg. We opted to go unroped but all other climbers (3) at the Hogsback turned without summiting. Right now, ropes and protection are highly recommended unless everyone in the party is very comfortable with steep snow, ice and self-arrest.

 

So if you’re going up, watch the temps. Rising temps could cause loosening of that upper layer, and be particularly careful around Crater Rock. We almost turned back at the Hogsback but the pits were encouraging, and higher up, things were more stable. Another couple freeze-thaw cycles should stabilize things, but I’d be especially careful on N and W-facing slopes, looking for that ice/loose layer combo.

 

Monty

 

Edited February 16, 2008 by Monty_Smith

[rbw1966]

Icy conditions with lots of death caps from the top of the palmer to crater rock than tasty powder from there to almost the summit where the death caps recur. If you're planning on skiing, you might want to shoot for later in the day. Still pretty icy at 2 p.m.

[billbob]

Thanks for the details, appreciate your experience and all the info on snow conditions !

 

Late Saturday afternoon(4-ish) I met a couple youths up at the I-Rock saddle who told me they had gone up the Leuthold and descended the Gates. Being the nosy type I asked them "by what means did you descend over the large ice step?", to which they replied "we just downclimbed w/ no pro". One could only politely assume they were simply far more accomplished climbers than they appeared, given the potential for disaster and all that. Being an older type, I try to avoid such situations and typically employ solid anchors connected to a reliable rope/climbing partner.