Government Camp, OR - Mt Hood, Palmer Glacier

"...yeah but I would prefer to be down before the semi-final World Cup between Uruguay and the Netherlands, will that work for you?" is how we set the schedule for this climb. Pope had a brief break from putting out fires and wanted to clip another hill in the Cascades that we have purposely ignored for the fact of crowds. However being the day after a holiday weekend we figured it might be quiet enough and would provide us with more training. I picked Chris up at his Mom's house Monday afternoon and we jollied our way down to Sandy where we stopped for some good eats at the Thai House and then on to Timberline Lodge. I was very impressed with the construction of the lodge and although its $220/nt price is a bit steep you definitely get a stay like no other.

After registration we packed up our gear and crawled into the Westy for about 3 hours of rest. Unfortunately those weren't to be had since the wind picked up and howled with 30mph gusts the whole evening. 12:45am came soon and we suited up and began our climb in about 15 minutes. It was quite warm but still windy and forecasts had the freezing level at around 13,000'. We could see the groomers working the ski hills and slowly made our way up to the top of the ski lifts fighting the wind the whole way. The gusts up higher could literally knock you over and we had to lean into the hill to keep from rolling backwards. We did haul a rope and pickets but never pulled them out - training weight I suppose. The fumaroles at the base of the Hogsback made this the stinkiest mountain I have ever climbed. A short steep section was fairly mundane and we met 2 others on their way off the summit here. We made the summit in about 5.5 hrs of climbing.

Once on top we enjoyed the views briefly, took some photos and set off on our way down. The summit was fairly narrow and not like the tops of the WA volcanoes which tend to have large broad summit plateaus. The top was the one place that it actually stopped blowing. The descent took about 3 more hours and found us back at the Westy and packing to go watch the game. Uruguay 2 Netherlands 3

Mt Hood South Side with the approximate route

Mt Hood sunrise shadow forming

Truck'in up around Crator Rock

Team C2 taking in a smelly Mt Hood at the base of the Hogsback

The last steep step to the Pearly Gates

Mr.Summit

Ms.Summit ?!?

Descent on the step - tracks around Crator Rock are visible below

On a side note this is my 14th individual Cascade Volcano mountain - some I have been on multiple times - with a goal to climb them all.