Saturday, May 30, 2015

Mt. Hood Summit

When a fellow hiker Noelle asked if I wanted to summit Mt. Hood I could not turn this opportunity down. I could not sleep at all that night after agreeing to go. Excited, nervous, fearful, I had several emotions rotating through me. After all, I had never climbed a mountain like this before. This was going to be epic for me, but being a mom I think I had more fear than many would because of the cost to my son and family if something went wrong. 


I had never actually met Noelle before. We met on our online hiking group and exchanged messages. We met that morning at 5 am in Sandy and drove together from there to Mt. Hood where we would meet up with her friend Jon. He has tons of experience climbing and had climbed Hood many times before so that made me feel safe. But what made me nervous was how late we were getting started during that day. Most people start in the middle of the night to get down before the sun warms the ice. The risk of falling ice, rocks or yourself increases the later you start. It had been hotter than normal already this year and the snow had been melting sooner than normal. But I pushed my fear aside and went with my excited emotion instead. We hit the trail at about 7:30 that morning.


"Slow and steady" is what Noelle would tell me when I felt like I was slowing them down at all. It made me feel better. I did get some leg cramps at one point in my quads. I had been drinking a lot of water but probable not enough. Nothing a little gel pack of GU energy with amino acids and caffeine couldn't fix and I soon felt better. We climbed a little further and sat and ate a real snack before we started to head over to the hogs back. We had to pass our first crevasse and fumarole. It is kinda crazy to think that Mount Hood is always emitting volcanic gas. I know it is a volcano but it is alive and well. And you never really think about how alive it is because you just see it as Oregon's tallest mountain. It's a bit stinky up there too with the gas going out of it.

Fumarole
After climbing up the hogs back you have the large crevasse you have to go around. We saw a group of climbers who looked like they tried to climb up the pearly gates and were taking hours to come back down and around this crevasse. We thought about going up the pearly gates but there was just too much rock fall making it not the best route. Once getting to the other side of this crevasse it was time to make our way up the home stretch of the old chute.
Crevasse
Although the climb up this point was long and tiring, it was not difficult or what I felt, posed any danger. This last stretch up was the steeper part where I feel like I had to watch my step. This is where my crampons and ice axe got some use. Making sure I secured my toes into the ice and my axe down into the ice so I did not slip, I followed Noelle and Jon up to the summit.

Coming up the old chute
"I made it! Holy shit I made it! Oh my goodness!" It was beautiful. The view and the feeling inside me was beautiful. As I peaked my head up over the ledge and took a look around I felt overwhelmed and overjoyed I could not believe I was there. I just wanted to soak it in. We all congratulated each other and others who also made it to the summit.

Reaching the summit

The true summit


Mt. Adams, Mt. Rainier and Mt. St. Helen's behind me from the summit


Looking east from the summit
From where I first made it up on top I had to walk over to the right a little further to reach the "true summit". We took pictures and talked to others up there and took in the views. The man who climbed up behind me carried his skis up and had a parachute in his backpack. We watched him ski off the summit which was pretty epic. There where three guys who climbed up with their snowboards who snowboarded down the old chute. I was sure they where going to get hurt but to my surprise they made it down okay. That takes guts and skill cause it looked deadly to me.

We decided to rope up for the climb down the chute. Jon gave a little safety talk before going down. I don't really remember what he said but I remember teasing him about not giving it to me earlier. Getting turned around and taking that first step down was a little scary and awkward. I think it felt scary because I was going down backwards and could not see where I was stepping as well. I feel like this made me be more cautious about making sure my ice axe and crampons where secured into the ice with each step back down. We ended up climbing down to the "hot rocks" and walked across them to the hogs back. Just past the hogs back where we passed the first fumarole we encounter climbing up, we stopped for a few minutes. We took our rope, crampons, and helmets off and packed our things away in out backpacks. From here we glissaded down as far as we could and then walked our way back to the cars.


Climbing back down



My climbing partners John and Noelle on the summit
In all it took up about 12 hours. I really have to thank Noelle and Jon for such an amazing day. I overcame some fears and accomplished a goal. Now I have a list of mountains to summit. It kinda gets addicting.

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