[TR] Mt Hood - Cooper Spur Biatch! 5/21/2009

[Sanchez]

Trip: Mt Hood - Cooper Spur Biatch!

 

Date: 5/21/2009

 

Trip Report:

My white whale, cooper spur, has taunted me for 3 years now, with 2 failed attempts on the books. Finally nailed it yesterday (Wed night), and I have never been so pumped about finishing a climb.

 

Long long long would accurately describe it, aggravated by extremely variable snow conditions, complete with post-holing in the middle of the night for hours on end.

 

We left P-town at 5:30pm, parked a car at Timberline and me and my twice-cooper spur succeeded partner headed up (he must be a glutton for pain to sign up for this route AGAIN). Got to Tilly Jane Trailhead around 7:30, and left at 8.

We hiked through the completely destroyed (sad!) forest on the way to cabin, can't even recognize the trail it's in such bad shape... We stopped for an hour or so at the cabin, but couldn't sleep since we A) didn't bring any bivy gear, B) there was a full grown bear snoring upstairs and C) I was so pumped to finally do this climb.

So around 11:00PM we started the never ending march of death up Cooper Spur.

Snow conditions sucked, post holing, oh and we got a little lost in the woods like idiots so we had to backtrack and get a proper compass bearing, since the route isn't long enough so we thought we'd add a mile...

 

Finally broke through the trees and saw our white beast looming depressingly far away in the distance, did I mention this is a long one? Snow firmed up finally and we covered some ground quickly up to the climbers shelter (full of snow, don't even think about using it for another 3 weeks). Made it to Tie in rock pretty quickly (around 2am I think) and had a break in the snow moat sheltered from the mild wind. It was probably around 28 degrees, not too bad.

 

Then the uphill began... as I said, snow conditions sucked, 6 inches of powder on top of hard ice. As the slope increased I was getting real nervous about the quality of my foot holds. we made it to the first rock navigating right at first light (sun comes up QUICK on this side, 4:30am first light, 5:30am full sun). It got warm fast and I was getting scared. I had numerous tool placements blow out, so every step was a kick kick kick, every axe was a 3 or 4 swinger to make sure I didn't become an Elliot Glacier antiquity. Some areas were clean, hard pack snow, others were slushy soft, but it all looked the same so there was no rythym climbing at all, every step was in question.

 

We didn't bring any ropes, nor should we have given that no pro would have worked in this junk. I 2-tooled as fast as I could, getting real nervous about the hot sun on my back.

 

We had one snafu where we got dead-ended by a large sideways L shaped rock fortress, Mark said left, I said right. He went and checked the left while I hung (literally) out. Left was a no go, but to go right meant downclimbing (screw that) so I tried to get fancy and go up through a tiny slot in the rock with (what looked like) clean water ice, about a 60 degree pitch for 50 feet. Oops. First tool smacked through 4 inches of rotten, frozen slush which hit me in my shins on the way down. Smack smack smack, then I got down to rock. Oh shit. I was feeling pretty committed now, so I tried pinning a tool in a nice rock divot, which blew little shards of pummicy crap on my face when test loaded (oh yeah, this is mt hood, mental note, don't dry tool on mt hood). I finally got my right tool in some good ice and grabbed the rock with my left and did a little pull up with my feet helplessly kicking away at the crumbling rock/ice. Finally got a crampon on some solid rock and the ice was better above it. "That was stupid" I thought as I made a break for the summit ridge and met Mark on the other side of the rock fortress- some shortcut.

 

Snow firmed up for the last push to the summit. It was T-shirt weather at this time and I was dripping sweat. At about 5:30am made it to the much friendlier slope of the summit approach and was happy to not need the 2nd tool anymore.

 

Stuck my head above the summit ridge and was greeted by 20 degree F south wind that literally froze the sweat to my forehead. Holy shit it was like a different world on the south side, so freaking cold it hurt! I said screw that and kicked nice bench for us on the north side and had a pleasant, warm breakfast with our feet hanging 3000 feet over the Elliot Glacier.

 

 

 

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=15995&id=1646342363&l=b17612f350

 

Descent was uneventful but cold at first, then hot, then cold (make up your mind, jeez), summit was a clusterfu*k of huge rope teams, which I was in a hurry to get ahead of, so we made a break for it down WCR, dodging golf balls the whole way. Nice powdery fluff to plunge step, so one of the easier trips down I've ever had. Back to the car at 10am, 14hr round trip. Wow, that was a slow one!

 

 

Gear Notes:

2 tools, for sure

Huge balls

 

Approach Notes:

Long deathmarch. TJ trail is pretty beat up, no snow for the first half of it, then soft snow.

[ryland_moore]

Great TR! Glad you finally tagged CS! So, we were thinking about leaving Tilly Jane TH at midnight. Sounds like too late to make it up top early enough? Or how long did you hang out at the TJ cabin?

 

Thanks,

Ryland

[pdk]

I think from here on out all trip report titles should end with "Biatch!"

 

 

 

[Joe_Poulton]

Nice one....I went up that side for the Cooper Spur on Wed afternoon only to get to treeline and realize I left my headlamp and compass in the car....hiked back out drove around to the southside to try that...got to Silcox only to realize my lamp didn't work, even with new batteries. so I drove back to P-town in disgust...

[leora]

I couldn't quite tell from this report, and the Ranger station and Forest service are giving us different information. Was the road open only to the gate at Cooper Spur (at around 1050ft) or was it open all the way to the Tilly Jane trailhead (at around 3800ft)?

 

leora

[pu]

tilly jane trailhead

[The Cascade Kid]

hmmm, nothing like pressing on when you're not sure of you ability to manage the risk with which you're confronted. glad you pulled through, and the photos are great.