[TR] Mt. Hood - North Face Right (Yeah...another one) 3/31/2016

[mgetlin]

Trip: Mt. Hood - North Face Right (Yeah...another one)

 

Date: 3/31/2016

 

Trip Report:

Timmy and I took a little jaunt up the north side last week and I thought I'd throw some photos and a few highlights up here for anyone who's curious.

 

Left the TJ trail head a little before 1am, got the the schrund at first light and topped out a few minutes after 1pm. Carried skies up and over, had perfect weather, decent pro, and widely varying snow conditions. 12hrs 15min car to top with another two or so hours to make our way down the south side.

 

The bottom part of the TJ trail was already melting out last week and is surely a sneakers outing at the moment. We took our time getting to the schrund and tried first to cross all the way left, only to punch through a very sketchy section and rap back down to the flats. We then tried the middle but got shut down by multiple feet of sugary snow on the overhanging uphill side. Finally opting for a smaller gap near the rock rib on the right, we belayed and wallowed across. All in all, it took us nearly two hours to surmount the thing!

 

Timmy led up to and through the first step, mercilessly crushing through waist deep snow and WI2+ inc like the rabid gorilla that he is! We simuled the step, dancing playfully with an assortment of debris sprinkled down on us from the upper mountain.

 

In the gully, the going was slow and we alternated between insecure and crumbly ice on the left and deep, unconsolidated snow in the middle. We fired in a screw here and there but soloed most of it.

 

The famed second step lived up to it's WI3 reputation but was relatively short and uneventful, if not a little exciting

 

Above that the climbing stayed interesting with sparse pro. The steep slope above the cathedral spire saddle may have actually been the crux of the route and involved a crampon guessing game with a thin layer of uniformly sloppy loose snow over rock. The belay planb was to jump down the cathedral ravine, which Timmy would gladly have done had I peeled. I figured better him than me!

 

We got spooked looking up at the summit rampart, with the cornice looming HUGE and overhanging in the disconcertingly warm midday sun. After a brief look at the Cooper finish convinced me it was no better, Timmy chastised me for being such a pansy so I set off up the middle, finding surprisingly decent gear in a couple places. It turned out the cornice was all of about 18 inches high, and not at all overhanging. It had been some strange optical illusion aided by no sleep, water, or food for quite some time.

 

We plowed through wet, balling snow down to the hogsback where we donned the skies we had been carrying all day and cruised on down to T-Line through some perfect corn.

 

 

Gear Notes:

2 Stubbies, 3 13's, 2 17s, and a long one. 1 Picket (which we complained about carrying but did use several times). If I ever had to climb this route when rock pro was the best option, I'd probably just shoot myself.

 

Approach Notes:

Eeeeeew

[Cameron Brown]

Yeah man! What kind of pro did you place after 2nd ice step? I was only able to place a handful of screws that were mostly psych pro with screamers backed up with more psych pro. I did find a decent screw placement in a smear of ice her and there. My "I'll get some pro in" moral was good due to the illusion that I would be able to sling a block up ahead. But each block would have required some serious excavating and wasn't worth the effort. I finally put in a good picket just short of the summit and finished it off on nearly the exact same line that you chose through the rock bands.

 

The NF is definitely a rad climb.Nice work guys.

[mgetlin]

Pro? What pro?!

 

I was able to get two screws in above the cathedral saddle and then a horrible picket in cotton candy snow on that little snow knuckle below the summit ramparts. I mostly placed them for an excuse to catch my breath cause they would have held better screwed into a bag of popcorn. Then, all of the sudden, the ice for great on the summit block. The placements were a little creative but bomber. I sunk a 22cm screw to the hilt!!!!!

[The Cascade Kid]

How was getting down from cooper's spur onto the Eliot?

[mgetlin]

Very mellow at 6800 ft. We took off the skis and threw crampons on because it was dark and we couldn't see much past 20 ft below the cairn. We could have booted or even skinned it.

 

Also, the ramp from 9k ft (below tie in rock) down to the Eliot looked easily navigable. Would have been a handful of turns on skis or a quick down climb.