So there I was, my crampons front pointing into an icy 60-degree slope on what was supposed to be an easy introductory summit of Mt Hood. “How in the hell did I end up here? I mean…I know the easy routes up Hood are still technical, but this is a little much.”
Above me are beautiful ice and rime sculptures welded to the steep crater walls. Below me is Hot Rocks, a lovely fumarole, or volcanic vent, belching a cocktail of toxic gases. To the west of me is the wind-loaded slope which was blocking access to our intended route - the West Crater Rim. To the east is the infamous bergschrund, a gaping headwall crevasse known to eat climbers who fall from above. With the West Crater Rim Route blocked, the bergschrund is now our destination.
Above me are beautiful ice and rime sculptures welded to the steep crater walls. Below me is Hot Rocks, a lovely fumarole, or volcanic vent, belching a cocktail of toxic gases. To the west of me is the wind-loaded slope which was blocking access to our intended route - the West Crater Rim. To the east is the infamous bergschrund, a gaping headwall crevasse known to eat climbers who fall from above. With the West Crater Rim Route blocked, the bergschrund is now our destination.
I had attempted to summit Hood before. My girlfriend and I took a 1 day basic mountaineering class with a local guide company but I was too cheap/broke to spring for the guided trip the next day. My girlfriend went with the guided group and I found a coworker that was down for some adventure. After a couple hours of slogging up the Palmer snowfield, my partner apparently got impatient with my pace and just took off without a word. Ok…so much for a climbing “partner”.
I ended up following the guides (they kicked nice steps!) who agreed that my coworker pulled a dick move. At Hogsback Ridge (~10,000 ft) my girlfriend decided that she was no longer interested in the summit. The final push up the Pearly Gates (an ice chute) above the bergschrund looked pretty intimidating, so I stayed with her. We hung out and marveled at the otherworldly views of the crater walls and ice sculptures. Absolutely amazing.
Although I certainly wanted to summit, another goal was to snowboard down from the Hogsback. So, after my girlfriend’s group rejoined her, I strapped on my snowboard with giddy excitement. It had snowed before we started our ascent and there was a glorious 6-inch layer of fresh smooth snow. It was a little nerve wracking dropping in off the Hogsback straight towards The Devil’s Kitchen (the biggest and smelliest fumarole in the crater), but I was quickly side cutting the slope around Crater Rock. From there it was a mind blowing 5000 vertical foot ride down the south slope of Mt Hood. I was captivated. Between the views, the ice, the solitude, and the powder, I wanted more. However the severity of the high altitude environment and getting ditched by my partner sat pretty heavy with me.
On this current trip, I decided to join a local mountaineering club so I could join people with experience. With the class I originally took from the guides a few years ago, and other previous foray’s on Hood, I was deemed ‘qualified’ to join them for an easy route - the West Crater Rim.
West Crater Rim route is considered on the easy end of the difficulty scale, but it is also known for potential avalanche danger due to wind-loaded snow from westerly storms. When our group got to the west side of Crater Rock just below the West Rim slope, the leader didn’t feel comfortable with it and made the call to skip over to the main South Route and the Pearly Gates. I thought, “not a big deal. You have to roll with the conditions and this happens all the time.”
But now, I find myself front pointing into a 60-degree slope – no longer thinking “not a big deal.” I had already felt like a beginner on this trip and during the initial snowfield slog I gathered that others were even less experienced than I. We hold it together and push on towards and above the bergschrund.
We arrive at the chute above the bergschrund and below the Pearly Gates. The leader stops to let a descending party of three pass. The chute is much lower angle, but we are still front pointing on slick, hard, snow pack with no way to rest. Then another party shows up, needing to descend past us. Small ice chunks whiz past me - my hairs stand up. I knew this wasn’t good:
1) The south-facing chute I’m in the middle of is known to turn into a bowling alley of ice chunks once the morning sun hits it and warms it up. Well, it’s morning and warming up.
2) A lenticular cloud is forming above the summit. From a distance these clouds look like cool spaceships on a mountaintop, but inside them are nasty weather systems, and their elevation tends to fluctuate quickly.
3) We’re above the bergschrund! If a flying chunk of ice hits me or my rope mates, we’ll be launched down the chute and into the schrund. If someone descending (the most dangerous part of a climb) loses their footing and falls into any of us, we all go flying towards the schrund.
I yell down to my rope mates (I was the middle of 5) that we need to move over to a pseudo ridge to get out of the chute. For the first time in 4 or 5 hours I finally get an uncomfortable but glorious seat. I have a quick thought “I’ve been talking with the leader about what was happening and he saw us in the middle of the chute, why the hell didn’t he tell us to get out of the way??”
That gripe was short lived as the lenticular dropped and a thick soupy fog enveloped us. Hmmm. Well, I guess we don’t have to worry about the sun heating up the bowling alley.
I hear a yell from above that we’re bailing and it’s time to head down. I holler to my rope mates below and we start heading down. It feels so good to get around and below the bergschrund. Relief. The clusterfuck is over and we can head towards the lodge, our cars, our home.
The lenticular continues to drop as we descend around Crater Rock. The weather gets very cold, very windy, and visibility drops to around 30 feet. No big deal, though. Descending the south side of Hood is a piece of cake – just aim your compass 200 degrees and go until you hit the ski slopes. Whatever you do, just don’t walk down the fall line (which is the line that a ball would roll down) because that will drop you off at the top of Mississippi Head – a 1000+ ft cliff. Every Mt Hood climber knows that, right? Right?
So, we head off through the soupy cloud, roped up so we don’t wander off, heads down in ripping winds, compass out, thinking of warm drinks ahead. All is good for 30 minutes or so, and then we start veering a little right/west towards the fall line. Not good, but not terrible at this point.
After another 10-15 minutes of this direction I holler out “Hey, what’s the plan? Why are we heading down the fall line?” I am told that the leader is looking for footprints. I spent the next ten minutes contemplating the absurdity of what I just heard. Screaming winds will bury footprints in seconds, but more importantly even if you could see where other people have gone it’s completely irrelevant! They could be lost or going somewhere else!
Finally I stop, bringing the rope taught in front of me. I pull the rope in so we can group up for a quick meeting. “What’s the plan? We’ve been walking at 250 degrees for a while now and we’re heading straight down the fall line. We should have been heading at a bearing of 200 degrees but now we need to head 170 degrees to counter the last 30 minutes.”
Speaking out like this was an epic effort in and of itself for me. My anxiety with social situations, groups, people I don’t know, authority, etc. was exploding. It was so freaking hard to say anything. I found myself thinking - I’m a rank beginner – who the fuck am I? They’re looking at me. They’re judging me. My internal dialog countered that I may not know mountaineering, but I do know maps and directions better than most. It was my passion almost a decade before it was my career. Plus…I’m tired of this shit!
“I don’t care where we go, as long as it’s downhill where it’s warmer” said a rope mate. (Oh crap, we are breaking.) The leader again tells us he’s looking for footprints, but he seems very off and in a tunnel vision mode. I plead that we need to change our direction. He hems and haws and mumbles in vague agreement. We start off in the correct direction but within 20 minutes he starts veering west again.
15 minutes later the veered direction is not only going straight west, but now we are going UPHILL!!??!! That’s it, I fucking snap. I pull everyone together again and yell, “This is fucking wrong! Why the fuck are we going uphill?! I’m done. I’m getting off of this rope and going back to the lodge. You are going the wrong way. I know the bearing you are heading and I will tell Search and Rescue where to find you, but I will not be going there with you!”
I unclip from the rope and everyone erupts “NO! We have to stay together!” I know that’s the way it should be with a rope team, but I can’t do this anymore. I point towards 150 degrees (almost the complete opposite direction we had been going) and say “the only way I’m going to stay connected to this rope is if we all go this direction. I have no interest in camping out tonight. I’m tired. I’m hungry. And I’m ready for this to be over. Will you go in this direction?”
With sheepish agreements from everyone we start off towards 150 degrees. Sure enough, 20 minutes later the leader is veering off again. 160 degrees. 175 degrees. I maintain my heading pulling hard on the rope. That poor person between me and the leader is getting caught in a tug of war. I yell out every once in a while to get the leader back on track and we average 160 degrees for a while. Then we see a tall dark shape up ahead and to the east. We’re still in the alpine so it’s surely not a tree. It’s a tower from the ski lift!!! Oh my god what a great sight!! Of course it’s not the lift house, since we long passed that, but a tower about 5 towers down from the house. The leader’s comment “Oh…I didn’t think we were this far west” lodges in me like a splinter that will irritate me for a long time.
The ski lift can be easy to miss, but usually on the east side - which is not an issue. If we had gone any less than my yanking on the rope, we would have missed the ski lift and then the lodge. Whatever. We’re here. With the lift as reference I finally unclip from the rope and breathe a sigh of relief. Another hour of downhill slogging and I am back at my car where a thermos of hot coffee waits for me!
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As I write this for Common Climber I consider the word ‘common’. I think about how common it is for people to put their trust into others when getting into climbing. How common it is to blindly accept what’s happening around you. How common it is to be scared to speak up. How common it is to be intimidated out of asking questions. How many climbers today are in the “newish” category and may be considered “common” and have all these common experiences awaiting them.
Situations like those in this story are common. Some result in awesome campfire stories that push your boundaries. Others cross that threshold into injury or worse. There are loads of “my epic” stories out there more nail biting than this one. Epics, injuries, and deaths often result not from a single failure, but rather a string of smaller failures that weren’t heeded. My story could have easily turned into a major epic of camping out in a shitty wet whiteout eating gorp scraps, or worse, 5 people strung together walking off of a 1000 foot cliff. I’m far from a hero, but I am very thankful that I found a voice that morning. Push your boundaries, but listen to your voice.
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Local Mountaineering Club disclaimer: This story took place over 20 years ago and things change. The leader’s actions on this day do not represent the mountaineering club as a whole. Having a leader shut down is
unfortunate, but it happens. He was well experienced for this level of a climb, but something happened. I have
been on other climbs with this club and have taken several courses with them – all of which have been great
experiences.