Yes, we were climbing Mt Hood, on the Victoria Day weekend 2009, with a crew of 10. We got to the parking lot of Timberline Lodge 6000'
elevation at 1:20pm, after an hour of gearing up, we headed up and camped at 8300', a very nice flat spot on the mountain with unlimited view of Mt Hood and
Mt Jefferson.
After dinner, Ian, the party animal took out the iPod and off we go having a dance party on Mt Hood. As we approaching 9pm, we were dying to have some sleep
before our climb at 1am. Tyson, Christine, Magus and I started off with ski going up, but I found our skins were not gripping the icy snow. As I wanted to give up
skinning up and leave my ski on the side. Tyson encouraged me to bring up the ski higher (to ski down).
I felt a bit tired carrying the skis up while my right boot was agonizing. I had a hot spot under my arch!! "Well, suck it up and move on". When we are approaching
Hogsback at 10,000 ft. We knew there were just too many people ahead and behind us. We were trying to rope up and decide whether we should continue to go up. At that point,
we can see at least 20 people about 200 ft above us, and then 3 people seemed to be struggling going the gates. They were just standing there, seemed to be waiting for groups
to clear out above them. All of a sudden, we saw a beam of headlight flying down. We thought
it was someone, but no, just the helmet and headlamp. We were there for about 15 min, and more climbers kept coming up through the Hogsback. That was our turning point. We turned
back based on the fact that it was too dangerous to have climb below 40 people, with ice kept falling down, and we were a very big group as well.
Coming down, we saw even more climbers going up, that was a good decision to turn back. Just more unnecessary risk to wait up there at Hogsback with little room to even sit down.
As we got to where we left our ski off, the sky was bright, and air was brisk. However, this good feeling didnt go well with skiing down. We were on a sheet of uneven ice sheet.
Though it wasn't steep, going down is not fun. It was like a jackhammer mounted on the bottom on your ski, bumping continously for 2000 ft.
Reaching camp a little before 7am, we had our breakfast and a wonder nap. We packed up around 10:30 and skiied down to the parking lot. We noticed that there was a rescue team on the mountain
just below Hogsback. And there was a helicopter waiting at the parking lot. We leanred afterwards that a man fell down about 500 ft and became unconscious. We were happy that
we didnt go for it. See the accident reports here
and here.
At the parking lot, ... what was in my mind ? I was happy to get up there and I was happy to be standing at the parking lot. And .... beer. We buried a case of beer under the snowbank before
we left. So digging out means we had cold beer waiting for us...... Cheers!
Photographed by Tyson Brooks
Can you see how much snow above me behind the window ? Photographed by Tyson Brooks
Beginning of our approach to camp. Photographed by Tyson Brooks
Tobe honest, it is too hot ....
Tyson is making the fashion statement about his patented duct-tape nose sun protection device
I just greased my face up with SPF 100 sunscreen. Photographed by Tyson Brooks
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