Mt. Hood has been hovering near the top of my list since I moved to Portland in 2019 and every time I brought up climbing it my friend Perry responded with ‘North Face Right Gully.’ Having never summited Hood, and having virtually no experience on ice, it felt somewhat bold to go for one of the steeper, tougher lines on the mountain, on the steepest toughest face.
However, we were both tempted by a perfect weather window, and Perry had managed to both inflate my confidence and whittle down my fears over a few weeks until I finally agreed. Our plan was to skin into the Cooper Spur shelter and either stay inside or bivy nearby, before catching a few hours of sleep and starting for the summit at around 3 a.m.
Neither of us was particularly familiar with the terrain on the north side of Hood and we took the Pollalie Ridge Trail starting around 8 p.m. We’d learn later that this was absolutely not the efficient way to the shelter, but it looked direct on the map, and we both neglected to investigate the Tilly Jane Ski Trail much.
We are both fairly incompetent on the skin track, and the conditions were about as poor as could be, so the night consisted of painful slide backs, negotiating our way through trees, and at one point hunting for Perry’s helmet after it flew off his pack down a steep hill (which was discovered in a tree well by some small miracle.)
Arriving at the shelter, we discovered it was almost completely filled with snow. However, there was a ten-inch gap between the rough stone wall and the rubber mat of a door and we managed to squeeze through and dig out a platform to sleep on.
After a few hours of circling the drain of REM sleep, but never quite plunging in, it was time to go. The wind had been howling all night, but we emerged to find it had relaxed somewhat and the night was cool but not frigid. The approach from the shelter was straightforward and the sun began to emerge just as we reached the bergschrund.
We were fortunate to find a snow bridge that got us easily over the bergschrund, and then it was just a short, steep snow climb to the first pitch of ice. I was admittedly nervous at this point, but Perry seemed confident and the sun was up, so we proceeded quickly.
The ice was in great condition and I had watched just enough ‘Ice Climbing Tips’ videos on Youtube to follow up the first two pitches without getting completely pumped out. Having made it up the first ice step, we decided to simul-climb the steep snow in an effort to save time. Even this early in the climb we were getting nervous about how late it was, and how short a window we had in January.
Even though we made quick work of the steep snow, we were approaching our estimated summit time with still half the route left. Feeling that bailing down the steep snow was going to be more challenging than topping out and dealing with the consequences, we decided to keep going.
Hoping to find an easier route to the summit, Perry made a play to climb up the rockier ridge on the side of the gully, only to find that it didn’t go. At this point, things were looking pretty desperate, and we both knew we needed to get to the summit before dark. After traversing back to the main line, Perry pushed hard and fast up a final stretch of hard icy snow and set a belay just below the final step of ice.
It was clear that the gully wasn’t going to let us finish easily, and this last pitch of ice was steeper and sketchier than everything before it. Still, Perry led the pitch like a champ, and I could hear him call out ‘fuck yeah dude’ from the top, hopefully signaling that we’d made it through the worst. As I reached the top of the ice I could see that all we had left was a couple hundred feet of low-angle climbing.
The snow had a thick icy crust that took tools well so we simuled our way into the nook of one of the large stone blocks near the summit. Perry had tucked the belay against the rock face to try and keep us out of the howling wind. It took virtually all my willpower to push up the last few pitches of steep snow, especially with the wind doing everything it could to blow us off the mountain, but finally, I reached the lip of the summit and pulled up and onto the crystalline top of Hood, lit pink-gold with the setting sun.
Sitting at the top, we knew we had to make it down quickly, and all of the routes that would lead us back to the shelter were likely too sketchy to downclimb in the dark. We made the call to arrange a ride from Timberline and come back for the gear we left at the shelter the next day.
Exhausted, we worked our way down Hogsback. The benefits of Perry's dedicated training regimen were made clear, as I hobbled behind him, doing my best to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Timberline was lit up in the clear night sky and lay at the bottom of the hill, though it barely seemed to get closer. Finally, we stumbled down to the lodge and made our way into the Wy’east Cafe to drink vending machine beverages and be stared at by a family of skiers.
I woke up the next morning to find my legs to be a cocktail of pain and gelatin. However, we managed to bolster ourselves with breakfast burritos and set off to reclaim our gear from the shelter. Again, time was our enemy, and it was getting dark by the time we made it up to the shelter, and an icy, night ski down Tilly Jane awaited us. Fortunately, the side-slipping marathon was short, and we reached the car by 6:30, feeling we’d finally put an end to the trip.
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