Some guys from work and I have been planning a trip to Mt. Hood in Oregon for the last 2 months or so. Mt Hood is 11,000 feet high and has year round snow/glaciers which means full gear (crampons, ice axe, harness, rope, etc). We chose November 18th because of the possible snow that should have fallen on the mountain, the more

snow the easier to summit. A week ago it got its first snowfall, 36 inches. Good for Timberline Ski area which sits right at the base of the mountain. Kristian (a fellow co-worker) and I left Friday night from work. We drove to Timberline parking lot and threw up our tents on a snow bank. We woke around 2:30 am to get ready for the

climb. About 2:45 am the rest of our climbing party arrived. Cory (co-worker) and Jim (his friend from Kansas City that flew in at 10:30 Fri night) drove up to meet us for the 3am departure. We signed in at the lodge and that is when the excitement started. While we were filling out the permit, the paramedics and sheriff were there talking to a guy. What we got from the story was a 17 year old was staying up at the lodge with his dad and they were going to try a summit attempt. His 17 year old son instead woke up at midnight, grabbed all his dad’s gear and started up by himself.

After getting the story we started to head up the hill. The hike was LONG and steep in parts. About an hour into the hike the Mountain Rescue Team passed via snow cat. There was a snow cat trail that takes you about half way up the mountain. We watched the rescue team unload and there headlamps disappear up the hill. We kept trudging up the hill, step after step. The sunrise was amazing and marked the halfway point

for us. When we reached 9500 ft elevation the sun was out and beating down on us. Right about then we saw the rescue team heading down and they had the 17 year old, safe thankfully. It was another 30 minutes of climbing when we ran into another set of climbers heading down who broke the bad news to us. Near 10,500 ft on the

mountain there are two different routes to the summit, through the pearly gates or the old climbers route. As we found out through other climbers is that both routes were vertical 45 foot ice walls and would require technical ice climbing gear,

something we did not have with us. These ice walls will eventually be buried after future snowfalls. Jim and Cory turned around, but Kristian and I kept going for about a half hour before deciding to head down. We made it back to the car by 1pm and are already planning a return.