April 13, Mt Hood

Mt. Hood

April 13 - Mt Hood

A brief note on the therapy that Dunkley and I employ. We have each found that climbing/hiking in the back country provides a healthy release of pent up frustrations, while providings some great conditioning. Dunkley has climbed Mt Hood (11,249 ft) more than 75 times in his life. Very few people have bettered his record of one hour forty-five minutes from the Timberline parking lot (6,000 ft) to the summit. I had never climbed Hood and it was a natural place to test out my new plastic boots. We leave the parking lot at 4AM and reach the summit about 10AM, a leisurely jaunt on a beautiful day, almost cloudless till we reach the summit when a weather system starts to blow in. My boots do fine and aside from a brief "moment" at the top, I do fine.

The normal summit approach to Hood is up a feature called the Hog's Back and then to the right and up a steep snow slope through "The Pearly Gates". The gates are covered in bulbous ice rime pearls up to 12 inches in diameter. The picture makes the name obvious. However, a steep ice ridge has blocked the path up through the Pearly Gates and the trail now heads west and then up an alternate steep snow slope. My "moment" comes as we traverse the ridge to the summit and make our way to the summit. We come to a section that is 12 inches wide and 8 feet long. On the north side of this narrow bridge is a 1000 foot sheer drop. I mean, you have zero chance of survival if you fall that way. On the south side the slope is only 75 degrees and there are obstructions (seracs) between 50 and 100 feet below. If you fell to this side and immediately did a proper and effective self arrest with your ice axe, you would stop in a few feet and could easily regain the the ridge. If you failed to arrest your rapid slide down the south side, you would become a large pinball, crashing into the seracs between 50 and 100 feet below. You would be battered but likely survive. I'm ahead of Dunkley and as I approach, I think of the line from Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade. "Ask Yourself, In What Do You Believe?". My memory is a bit fuzzy, but I think this is Walter Donovan talking to Jones immediately after shooting the older Dr. Jones. The connection for me is, "Do I believe in myself?". I drop to hands and knees and am across in less than 5 seconds, breathing a huge sigh of relief. And yes, my palms are sweating as I write this!

The view from the summit is good but there is a bit of crud in the air preventing the view from being stellar. To the north we see St Helens, Rainier and Adams. To the south, Jefferson is most prominent with Bachelor just visible through the goo. Winds are about 40mph (added bonus while crossing my favorite 8 ft section of real estate) and still mostly sunny, although with the wind we start to chill after 30 minutes and head back along the ridge. I reach my little bridge and spend a few seconds contemplating my navel before Dunkley arrives and says, "Dave, this is the the crux right here (Duhhhh Dunkley, what planet do think I'm from??) And it's best not to sit and comtemplate, just walk over, like this....." I sigh, step gingerly over this section and in 3 seconds am back on the "relatively" secure portion of the ridge. After I'm safely over, Dunk tells me that next time I should have the ice axe in my other hand (the one facing the survivable slope). It makes it more likely that if I do fall, I will fall in the "good" direction. I learn something new on all these expeditions.