Mount Hood: South Side (2019)
Trip Date: March 3, 2019
Distance: 7.79 miles
Elevation Gain: 5163 ft
Fees/Permits: Oregon Sno-Park Permit (winter)
GPX: View my Gaia GPS track here
After a February of continuous snowfall, Washington’s skiers breathed a collective sigh of relief, and hope for a (mostly) normal season was restored. But that also meant a lot of waiting around for good weather windows and snow conditions to climb volcanoes. And that opportunity finally presented itself this weekend.
With temperatures in single digits, the low hum of distant snowcats grooming the runs, and the occasional twinkle of headlamps of climbers in the distance, I found myself trudging towards Mount Hood on Sunday morning with my friend Shelby.
The never ending cat track.
Seriously, how is it still going?
Finally we’re getting somewhere. Illumination Rock.
After what felt like an eternity, the sun began to rise as we neared the end of the cat track. The snow was perfect and I was able to skin up the majority of the easy slope up to Crater Rock. I transitioned to crampons and booting when we were just a little ways away because there were a couple of patches that were getting a bit icier and I had noticed a guy who was out there solo, clearly very new to all this behind me copying what I was doing. (I have so many feelings about that whole situation).
As we approached the Hogsback, I saw a crack in front of me and visually followed it over to Devil’s Kitchen. It spanned from a smaller fumarole next to Devil’s Kitchen and ran a ways uphill towards Crater Rock on climber’s left. We were able to avoid the crevasse by climbing uphill first and going around it. However, with the crevasse being as large as it is this time of year, this may pose a problem later in the season.
The snow on the Hogsback was soft and tracked out, and I spent the majority of the time thinking about the route we’d take for the descent. The first option would be to downclimb the Pearly Gates (which I wasn’t entirely sure Shelby would be comfortable with) and the other option would be to ski/walk down the Old Chute (which I was a concerned about wind loading).
Photo by Ben Price
While we waited around for the traffic jam to clear at the Pearly Gates we chatted and found out that many of us up there ran in similar circles in Seattle and knew or knew of each other. I also spent a fair bit of time admiring the rime ice up there (seriously, such gorgeous formations!)
Photo by Ben Price.
Shelby waiting her turn to go up the Pearly Gates.
Rime ice: “a white ice that forms when the water droplets in fog freeze to the outer surfaces of objects. It is often seen on trees atop mountains and ridges in winter, when low-hanging clouds cause freezing fog.”
The Pearly Gates were much much more mellow than everyone had made it out to be and conditions were pretty ideal. It wasn’t very steep (30 degrees maybe?) and there was really only approximately 15ft section of ice that was easily climbable with crampons and a single ice axe (of course, it depends on your comfort level!). After the Gates is a quick walk up to the top! The summit was a bit corniced out so we stayed back a few feet.
Through the Pearly Gates.
Summit! Photo by Andrew Tat.
After a quick assessment and check in with Shelby’s comfort level, we opted for the short traverse across the summit and descend via the Old Chute. I snapped into my skis while Shelby descended on foot (if this doesn’t get her into backcountry skiing, I don’t know what will!).
Old Chute was a bit stiff for the first 20 feet or so, but the snow softened up considerably below that and skied beautifully down to Crater Rock. After Crater Rock, the crampon-churned snow had been sitting in the sun for quite some time and was pretty much mush the rest of the way down. I headed towards the groomed run the rest of the way back to the lodge where I unceremoniously dumped most of my pack out to find the gummy worms that had wormed (ha) its way down to the bottom of the bag to snack on while waiting for Shelby to get back.
