Mt. Hood Practice Climb

Friday, the 18th,  I set off with a friend I met through climb school for a practice climb on Mt. Hood. Our plan was to leave Portland after work, climb part way up Mt. Hood Friday evening, camp on the Palmer snowfield, then wake up early Saturday morning and climb as high as we could. Neither of us had summited a technical peak before, so it was largely a practice and learning climb, and we weren't sure if we'd make a push for the summit, or not.

We arrived at Timberline Lodge (a historic lodge and ski area on Mt. Hood that is the starting point of the standard route up Mt. Hood), geared up, filled out our wilderness permit and were on our way up the mountain by eight o'clock. From the parking lot at an elevation of 5,800 feet, we had a two-and-a-half mile hike up a snow field to reach our planned camping elevation of 8,600 feet. This portion of the climb parallels the upper ski lifts of Timberline Ski Area. Hiking up a partially groomed trail made the hiking easier in plastic mountaineering boots and a 30lb pack. About halfway to camp, the sun was setting and we'd reached the less protected area of the mountain, where the wind was gusting up to 20 mph.


We stopped for our first break to put on shell jackets and warmer gloves. From there on up, each time I stopped for a Clif Bar, the wind swept every bit of heat I'd worked up off into the night, so as to constantly prod me to keep moving. In the darkness, it seemed as though we were walking aimlessly, never getting closer to our goal.

Finally, after a three hour slog, we made it to the top of the ski lift (no camping is allowed in the ski area, so we had to get above it and into the wilderness area before we could find a place to camp). By that time, it was after eleven o'clock, the wind was howling, and we were searching by headlamp for a place to camp that was protected from the wind. There wasn't one. The snow was frozen solid, so digging a snow cave was out of the question; all we could do was use our ice axes to level two spots in the snow for our sleeping pads. We knew the sky would stay clear and weren't planning on sleeping for long, so we opted not to pitch a tent and just sleep under the stars. That turned out to be a mistake. It was my first time sleeping under the stars, without a tent, and when I cinched the mummy sleeping bag tight around my face, all I could see was a pitch black sky with thousands of stars glowing against it. I even saw a shooting star. When I rolled to my right side, I could see the lights of the city glowing in the distance (Hood is by far the tallest mountain around Portland). It was definitely the best view I've ever fallen asleep to.

That was the last time I smiled all night. Despite having a base layer, softshell jacket, down vest, down sweater and hardshell jacket on, and being wrapped in a lofty, winter-weight down sleeping bag, I froze my ass off all night. Shortly after we climbed into our sleeping bags, the wind shifted directions and cut straight across my sleeping bag, easily blowing through the thin fabric of the bag. I estimate the overnight temperature to have been in the low twenties, with a wind chill near zero (I was too cold to reach out of my bag and check the thermometer on my watch).

When we woke up at 3 am and saw a string of lights from the headlamps of other climbers making their way up the mountain, neither Ben nor I had the slightest motivation to leave the relative warmth of our sleeping bags and put on freezing cold boots to get the early start we would need to reach the summit. I just cinched the draw string on the mummy bag tighter and turned my face away from the cold air pouring through the face hole in a vain attempt to get a little sleep.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the sky started to lighten and the miserable night had ended. The prospect of sun gave me the motivation to slide my feet into freezing cold boots and leave the protection of my sleeping bag. Ben cooked breakfast (read: boiled water to heat up freeze dried meals) and by 7.30 am we were packed up and ready to continue our climb up the mountain. Here is our "camp" after the freezing cold night.


Helmets, harnesses, and crampons on and ice axes in hand, we began our trek toward the upper reaches of the mountain. The great weather meant there were dozens of other climbers on the mountain, so finding the route up was not difficult. The good weather and the hot breakfast helped to make our progress quick. By 10am, we'd climbed to over 10,000 feet, just over 1,000 feet below the summit.


We had decided by that time that it was too late in the day for us to attempt the summit. We could already see congestion near the top of the route and the sun had started to noticeably soften the snow (climbing becomes significantly more difficult in soft snow and the dangers of rockfall increase as the temperature increases). Despite knowing we weren't going to make the summit, we decided to climb another 500 hundred vertical feet to see some of the prominent features of the mountain.

We stopped just below the Devil's Kitchen for a rest (named for the hot, bare rock in the foreground, the steam venting from this fumarole lends a strong odor of sulfur to the air).

On the left side of this picture is the Hogsback, (a snow saddle that runs from one rim of the volcano to the other) where climbers gear up for the final summit push. That was our final destination for the day.

From our vantage point on the Hogsback (~10,500 feet), we could see dozens of climbers making their way up the last section before the summit (this congestion is one reason we opted not to push for the summit that late in the day: the large concentration of beginner climbers has caused accidents on Mt. Hood before). In this picture, you can see the route above us with lots of climbers heading toward the old chute.


After relaxing and enjoying our view from the Hogsback, We started to make our way down. When hiking 14ers in Colorado, I truly believe that going down is harder than hiking up. I found the opposite is true when it comes to climbing snowy peaks. Glissading (sitting on your butt and sliding down the mountain, using your ice axe as a brake) made the thousands of vertical feet we had climbed up in the past 13 hours rush by with little effort on the way down.

Despite the long, cold night and not reaching the summit, our climb was very successful in that I learned a lot. It was my first time walking with crampons, sleeping under the stars, and climbing on a glaciated peak. Ben and I also got to scout the route up the mountain and after learning from our mistakes, we'll be more prepared next time and are confident we'll reach the summit. I'm very excited to have a new hobby, as my climbing career is just beginning...

(as usual, the rest of the pictures are on flickr, and these are definitely worth checking out)

Climb School

Since I moved to the west coast, which is full of glaciated mountains, I decided to pursue a long time interest of mine; mountaineering. I signed up for a mountain climbing course several months ago through a local climbing club, the Santiam Alpine Club, and had been looking forward to it ever since. The first weekend of May was the outdoor portion of the climb school and was probably the most fun I've had since moving away from Colorado.

We camped along the Columbia River Friday night and woke up at 5.30 Saturday morning to get ready for the rock portion of the class.


At Horsethief Butte, we learned about rock climbing anchors, practiced belaying other climbers, practiced rappelling, and practiced many other climbing techniques. The day culminated with a 95 foot rappel from the top of Horsethief Butte (I brought my GoPro to film it, but unfortunately, the battery was dead). Here I am about to step off the edge.


And here I am rappelling down it.


We got to "sleep in" til 6.30 Sunday morning and after breakfast set off for Mt. Hood and a day on the snow.


We practiced walking on snow in rope teams, learned about snow anchors (such as a bollard, as seen on the Man vs. Wild episode with Will Ferrell), practiced catching a partner's fall while on a rope team, and at the end of the day, practiced self arresting if you fall and start sliding down a snow field. Here I am at the beginning of the day practicing walking with an ice axe (I'm on the far right).


One of the best things about the class is that I met a lot of people with similar interests. I've already done a practice climb part way up Mt. Hood with one of the people I met (more on that in the next post). The class has also opened up some other opportunities for me. I'm signed up for a glacier travel/crevasse rescue class and an ice climbing class later this year through the club.

Rope Climbing

I took full advantage of the great weather we had this weekend and started preparing for one of my future adventures. If you remember Matt Fuller's visit to Colorado in the summer of 2011 (check this post for a refresher), we spent most of our time exploring abandoned mines and the rest of our time working on an elaborate system to drop into a vertical mine shaft. To summarize, our system was unsuccessful and I only managed to drop about 20 feet down a 100 foot vertical shaft.

 

Ever since I climbed back out of that hole, I've been planning how to go back in it, but this time make it all the way to the bottom. Safely.

I finally started buying some of the equipment we'll need to safely explore the mine. Getting down the shaft is the easy part. It's getting out that requires some work. Here's a video of me practicing climbing up a rope hanging from my back porch. This particular rope climbing method is called the Yo-Yo system and is used by tree climbers and spelunkers (in case you want to Google it).

I still haven't bought all the equipment I want (you can see in the video that I'm using a carabiner and short section of rope, known as a Bachmann knot, instead of the more common mechanical ascender) and have some tweaking to do to the system. This is a first step, though, and a good proof of concept. Here's a close up of my current ascent system, for the curious.


I like it because you are always connected to the Grigri (the blue thing) and you can switch from ascend to descend and vice versa quickly and without any potentially unsafe connections/disconnections. The Grigri is great for descending because it allows you to easily stop mid descent and hang without using your hands or tying off the rope.

I also practiced prusiking, a method of climbing a rope using only two loops of smaller cord. It works pretty well.

Eagle Creek

We've finally started to have some good weather in Portland, and I've taken full advantage of it. Yesterday, I went on a 15 mile hike in the Columbia River Gorge, one of the most impressive areas around Portland. It has the highest concentration of waterfalls in North America. I saw at least a dozen on my hike up Eagle Creek, ranging from several feet high to a couple hundred feet high. I definitely miss living in the Rocky Mountains, but I keep telling myself that the Pacific Northwest has a different kind of beauty. I think this is it. My pictures don't even begin to do these waterfalls justice.

This hike was not for the faint of heart. Many sections of the trail were on narrow cliff ledges like this one, often hundreds of feet above the creek below.

This is Tunnel Falls, a 160 foot high waterfall with a tunnel through the cliff face directly behind it. You can see some people in the picture just to the left of the falls, about to enter the tunnel. 

About to go in the tunnel!

A scramble off of the main trail brought me to this waterfall. Standing at the base of it was like standing behind a jet engine in the rain. The wind created by the waterfall was intense! Hence the poor quality pictures. I was only willing to use my phone to take them, and the lens was constantly getting sprayed with water.

The treat of this waterfall was that I got to walk right behind it, which was the driest spot within 50 yards of it. 

I got soaked by the mist while I was checking this one out, but it was well worth it.

There are many more great pictures in my flickr album. I will definitely be back to this incredible area.

Here's a video taken next to Tunnel Falls.

Visitors to the Far West

It's been a while since I updated my blog, and a lot has happened. I've had several visitors over the past couple months, started with my Mom and Aunt Nancy. Unfortunately for them, their trip was more of a work trip than a vacation. They helped me do a lot of work to make my duplex more homely. We spent a lot of time shopping (lots of time in Ikea) and putting together furniture. They helped transform my apartment from a place that I slept and ate to a place that I enjoy spending time. Here are some pictures my mom took (which explains the blurriness).




We did have some time for fun, though. On Saturday, we visited the Pittock Mansion, a huge estate that was built by one of the first families to strike it rich in Portland. The mansion is a museum now and a very impressive building for its time period. An intercom system, a central vacuum system, and an elevator were part of the home, which was built by 1914. Unfortunately, I didn't know how impressive it was going to be, so I didn't bring a camera.

Just two weeks after they left, Matt Fuller visited for a weekend. It was great to see him and catch up with one of my best friends from college. Matt wanted to see the Pacific Ocean, so we went to the coast for a hike. It was pretty muddy and we got rained on a little, but we accomplished our goals of seeing the ocean and some very big, old trees.

Right after Matt visited, my dad was in town for a week. My dad helped me with some stuff around the apartment, too, but more importantly, he brought me some personal protection: a .45 Hi-Point and a 1911-.22 Chiappa. Both are very inexpensive guns, but are a lot of fun to shoot.

One of the highlights of my Dad's trip was going to the Evergreen Aviation Museum. The Evergreen Aviation Museum is a huge building full of vintage and modern aircraft, the most famous of which is Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose. We paid the extra 25 bucks to get a tour of the cockpit and take some pictures. Well worth it.

This is an incredibly impressive airplane.


Unfortunately, we didn't have near enough time to look around the museum. I look forward to an excuse to go next time I have a visitor interested in aviation. The rest of the pictures I took at the museum are on flickr and a well worth taking a look at.