Mt. Hood and the Devil's Kitchen
Climbed 2024-02-23
Success and defeat on Oregon's high point
Climbed 2024-02-23
Success and defeat on Oregon's high point
My ascent of Mt. Hood turned out to be a mixed bag. So high its highs, and so low its lows; despite reaching the summit, I do not know if I can call it a success.
This climb was in the works for months preceding. Back in October, my Denali team had agreed to go for a winter ascent of a peak in the PNW, to test our skill, training, and teamwork before we went for the big one.
Planning and travelling for a winter climb is almost always a shot in the dark. Weeks or months before one can know the weather and conditions of the climb, they must commit to plane tickets, coordinate meet-up locations, and create back-up plans for the back-up plans. As a group, we committed to a two week stay in Seattle. Within those two weeks, we would await a weather window to go for Rainier, Hood, or Shasta, in that priority.
Being the most pertinent to Denali, I had my hopes and sights set on Rainier. The aim was to get at least 5 days of good weather - 3 spent climbing and making a summit bid, and 2 to train group skills like avalanche and crevasse rescue.
Unfortunately, this fell apart quickly. Most of the team only bought plane tickets for a few days out in Seattle, and we suddenly had a very narrow window in which to climb.
Nonetheless, Rainier seemed more and more possible as we neared the trip. For weeks beforehand, I studied the weather and avalanche conditions:
Snapshot of my weather sheet as of the 18th. We planned to climb the 23rd
A week out from our flights, everything seemed perfect. Low snow totals for three days preceding our start, and at least one clear day on the mountain. Had the stars aligned?/
Nope/
Two days before our flights, disaster struck. A surprise storm hit the mountain, marginally increasing the avy danger just before we could climb. Far worse, a monster storm was moving in for the weekend.
So plans shifted. Could we start Thursday, and make an alpine style bid for the summit? Friday and Sat morning were still clear - if we moved fast, we could still make it.
I made clear the plan and it’s inherit danger to my team, and they all agreed. But this didn’t sit right with me, truth be told. If one thing went wrong - one crevasse fall, one navigation mistake, and we could easily find ourselves trapped on the mountain. Planning for an alpine style climb made matters worse - we would be leaving behind all but the bare minimum of gear, and we would not survive getting snowed into the mountain. I went to bed on Wednesday anxious, and my sleep fraught with nightmares. Was I about to lead my team to their deaths?
On Thursday morning, I checked the weather before I even rolled out of bed:
Saturday morning had been taken from us entirely, and the storm now leaked into Friday. There was no justifying this climb - alpine or expedition style, it mattered not. It could not happen. To my surprise, this brought immediate relief. To have the option entirely taken away made the decision easy, and I began studying our other options in Hood and Shasta.
Unfortunately, this change caused another member of the team to drop out, and only 3 of our original team of 5 would be joining for this training mission. Nevertheless, the Hood looked promising. It had a similar forecast, but was a much shorter and safer climb. We would drive down Thursday, climb Friday, and spend the rest of the week training together - practicing crevasse rescue, rope work, and avalanche skills in the parking lot and at Smith Rock. Everything we needed to make this a successful trip.
Thursday morning, with the car packed to the brim and spirits high, we set off.
Mt. Hood is a well-established and often climbed peak, even in winter. The high point of Oregon, its summit sits at a cool 11,249′. Despite its low elevation, it is no walk in the park. From Portland, one often sees rescues of climbers who find themselves out of their depth.
The Devil’s Kitchen Headwall, the cluster of couloirs and features lining the South face, has seemingly infinite variations. I selected the most well regarded of the lot, variation 1, first sent in 1900 by George and Fred Schwartz. Despite so many attempted climbs and missed summits last year, I went in feeling confident.
According to Mountain Project, this climb includes 4 pitches of AI2-3, interspersed with moderate snow climbing. Towards the top, there were two options.
The easier path went left, and lead directly to the summit.
A right path would take us behind the mountain, traversing a gendarme and ridge for a more exciting finish.
While I had my preference, I withheld my decision until we arrived at the fork.
We got up at 01:45, with varying amounts of sleep across the team. While I slept like a baby, Cedar failed to get even a moment of sleep, and it would be a slow start onto the trail. Nevertheless, we were off at 02:30.
Although Matt charged full speed ahead, Cedar and I moved slow, coaxing our bodies to life after two full days of travelling. The first leg of the climb is an unremarkable and unrelenting slog. The headwall appeared to grow no closer as we climbed the snowcat tracks at an ever constant angle. Step after step, time moved as though in a thick fog, and only the moon seemed to shift.
Eventually, we moved past the snowcat tracks and onto unconsolidated snow, rotating out as each of us broke trail in turn. As the sun began to rise, we roped up for glacier travel. (this was, of course, unnecessary on Hood. But we were there to train, not for speed)
Note the shadows cast only by moonlight. No headlamps needed
With the setting moon to our left and the rising sun on our right, we crested the last hill and emerged into Devil’s Kitchen at 08:30.
Once again, I found myself enraptured by the mountain. As a Colorado climber, I had never before seen snow features of the like. Pillars of ice and flowers of wind-scoured rime lined the cliffs ahead, filtering through the ever steaming (and ever stinking) fumaroles. Behind, the Oregon wilderness spread far and wide.
Yet here was our first sign of bad news. Not for this specific climb, but the larger journey to Denali. Cedar, whether due to lack of sleep or poor spirits, stated that she would not be summitting with us. Heartbroken, I did my best to convince her otherwise. A summit does not feel complete if my team does not make it with me, and I would not forsake that mindset without legitimate cause. Irrational fear and poor spirits should not restrict the mountaineer.
While I did at last convince her to continue on, I do not think her heart was ever truly in it from that moment. Perhaps I would do well to question my decision to push her on.
At the full length of the 70m rope, and finding myself at the aforementioned fork in the road, I began slamming in pickets, and the magic was over. A group behind us had arrived at the belay station, and every couple of minutes, they demanded that Cedar radio me for a progress update, and attempted a fun little game of beta-spray telephone. Fed up and focused on building a solid anchor in mediocre snow, I replied with some choice words for our friends below (which I will not elaborate on in this family-friendly space).
To be fair to them, it did take me some time to build a solid anchor. The surface snow was loose, and every time I tried to plug a screw, it would punch straight through the rime and into the snow underneath. With a deadman, a picket, and a mediocre screw, I equalized and tied off my anchor, knowing I wouldn’t be able to get anything better. I stamped out a platform to arrest on, and dug in my tools as well, essentially creating 3 more backup points for the anchor.
With just Matt, I would have been satisfied with the 95% solid anchor, as the time wasted securing it would have been more valuable than the marginal safety. But with Cedar already feeling nervous, I refused anything less than 99% certainty, and took extra measures.
At last, Cedar and Matt followed up, each on their own rope, and the party behind close on their heels. All of us stressed by this poor etiquette climber, we stopped and allowed him to pass, taking some time to breathe and collect our thoughts. He rushed into the left pass, where he tied off the rope for his team and continue on towards the summit alone. (I have many words for this type of climber, but I will save them for my friends. Each of us must climb our own climb).
Seeing that my party was worn out and ready to finish, I decided that the left path would also be our best bet. Neither Matt nor Cedar had the energy for route finding and uncertainty, and it was time for us to get to safety.
I gave Matt the final lead, although we were disappointed to see that it contained none of the primo climbing that I had sent in the last pitch. Just 35m of WI2- and some deep snow.
A day later, at Smith Rock, in the middle of an arugment over proper glacier rescue procedure, the root of Cedar’s earlier hesitation would come to roost. For reasons that I don’t think any of us fully comprehend, she backed out of the Denali trip. Perhaps she’d discovered on Hood that she no longer needed that art of suffering which is inherit to mountaineering. Perhaps the mountains were no longer worth dying for, as she had found fulfillment in the rest of her life. Or perhaps we had lost her trust in some moment on the mountain.
Whatever the true reasons may be, another member of our expedition team - the progenitor of the climb, and the person who had, in a very real way, set the course of my life by proposing the trip, was gone.
In this, Hood leaves a bittersweet impression. So beautiful a summit, so incredible a climb. Yet at the end of it all, I am faced with a new kind of defeat.
I’ve mentioned this in previous trip reports, but I live by 3 rules on the mountain. Those are, in decreasing priority:
For the first time in my life, I find that the third rule was completed, but not the second. This climb that was supposed to bring our team together and boost our confidence had achieved the exact opposite. We lost a key member of the team, and we will be recouping from that loss even as we step onto Kahiltna.
I hope to never to break that rule again.
It is not all gloom though. Hood was truly is a climb to remember, and I hope for many returns. Matt has become someone that I can trust entirely, and I know that he will be the key to our success on Denali. Success and failure come in many forms, and in each, we are given opportunities to grow and learn.