dawuda Posted December 27, 2013 Posted December 27, 2013 Trip: Mt Hood - North Side Conditions Date: 12/25/2013 Trip Report: Went up for an attempt on the north side of Hood. Found very warm temperatures and very little snow. We parked at the Tilly Jane gate Christmas Eve and caught a few hours of sleep. Up and on the trail before 2:30am. The first mile of the trail was solid ice, making for slow hiking. About half way to the A-frame, the snow covered some of the ice. There is only an inch or two of packed snow on the trail... There were some deeper drifts and more snow accumulation above the A-frame, but as soon as we gained the exposed ridge, we were hiking on rock again. The glacier was firm and provided fast travel with crampons. It was shockingly warm out, even on the glacier at 4am. I was content in a T-shirt as long as we were moving. We were becoming suspicious of the warm weather. At around 8400 feet, we stopped and checked out an ice flow on a cliff coming off the cooper's spur. It was fairly fat, but had water running down it. We decided to bail, assuming that if it was this warm before sunrise, that the gullies would be even worse after the sun was hitting them. We decided to play on the wet ice flow before descending. Good times. From the pics, looks like the ice steps at the start to the gullies would have been thin anyways. Quote
dmcintosh Posted December 30, 2013 Posted December 30, 2013 So Cooper Spur looked in okay shape? Looking to maybe go up on New Year's Eve for summit early on New Year's Day. Great beta! Quote
dawuda Posted December 30, 2013 Author Posted December 30, 2013 Looked like the spur would go. The snow slope looked good when we were there and I could see a continuous snow line through the rock bands. Quote
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