Looking up the Hogsback shortly after dawn

I’m pretty sure Mt Hood is the first volcano I ever saw in person. When I was 12, I flew into Portland with my family to visit my aunt, and saw Hood from the city. During that trip, we went backpacking in the Three Sisters Wilderness, and I summited South Sister (after an epically long slog). I remember falling in love with the mountains during that trip. So it was great to do the drive down from Seattle and finally get on Mount Hood.

Roundtrip Stats = 7 miles, 5,300’ of gain, 9.5 hrs

The trip was relatively straightforward - Becky and I slept in the parking lot, got up at 3 am and were heading up the mountain at 3:45 am. It was surprisingly gusty (out of the NW), and we slogged up to the top of the Palmer lift, when it finally started getting light. We reached the Hogsback shortly after dawn, and were treated with some beautiful alpenglow. We took a short break on the Hogsback before traversing over to the Old Chute. It was pretty sugary snow, so it was difficult to feel confident with our axe placements, but it wasn’t steep enough to be too troubling.

When we hit the ridge, we got great views of the inversion, with clouds spread out before us to the north and east. The final ridge traverse was pretty icy but wasn’t too sketchy.

For the descent, Becky and I were both happy to each have two tools, and we downclimbed a few hundred feet before turning around and plunge-stepping the rest of the way down to the car!

All in all, a great day out - thanks again to Marc for letting us borrow his car for the trip!