We originally scheduled the the Mt Hood climb for Sunday, May 12 th, 2013. All 12 of the spots were filled up with Rod Jacobson as our climb leader. Steve Huffman had managed to get us a great deal with Timberline Mountain Guides to provide a steep snow course which 6 of us had signed up for on Saturday May 11 th, the day before the climb. Everything seemed to be set with logistics and all plans solidified. However the weekend before the climb, the forecast started to look more and more grim showing Saturday would be partly cloudy for the snow course and the Sunday climb was going to be rained out. We all watched with heightened anticipation over the next few days. By Wednesday, we realized rain was certain and the climb on Sunday was going to be a wash. So emails started flying around searching for a contingency plan. Only few responded and committed via email. We knew we only had a short window of opportunity to make a bid for the summit on Saturday because of the impending inclement weather. If we did not leave Bend on Friday by 2pm to drive up to Timberline, make camp above the Palmer lift on Friday evening in an effort to summit by Saturday morning, our window opportunity to make the summit would be missed. Bill Strycharz, Brandon Simonds and Marcus Muffley decided we had the time, bags packed and wanted to go for it. We left Bend on Friday at 2pm and headed north to Timberline (5,960ft), arriving around 4:15pm. We filled out our trip permits, donned our packs and started climbing up the slushy cat track at 4:50. Marcus Brandon Bill We finally reached our camp above the Palmer lift at ~8,800ft, had our tents set up and dinner cooking by 7:15. Luckily with still a couple hours of daylight left and nothing to do, we had internet service so we could check our email and Facebook. Rod sent an email saying the weather forecast was going to be even more adverse than the previous report and the Sunday climb was going to be completely called off. It
was then that Bob Bryant had seen that there were a few of us climbing and wanted to join. Within a couple hours he and I (Marcus) figured out that if he arrived at Timberline by 1am, and started climbing he would be up to our camp by 3:30am, the time we were planning on leaving our camp for the summit. Bob coordinated with Humaira Falkenberg who met him at the Timberline lodge as she drove in with no sleep from near Astoria. Bill set the alarm for a 3am wake up. However after a long night of dozing off and on, never really being able to fall into a deep slumber the alarm sounded and the adrenaline started pumping. I turned my phone on at promptly 3am and rec d a text from Bob saying he and Humaira were just above the Palmer lift (400ft below) us and were not too far out. We fumbled around and got our gear together, and by the time we were ready to leave, Bob and Humaira were waiting outside our camp ready to ascend. We all started climbing at 4:05am. There were ~20 climbers above us as we could see their headlamps shining on the mountain. We all followed in the line like marching ants. At one point I looked back below us and counted 30+ headlamps. It was an extremely busy day on the mountain for sure. After climbing for about an hour and a half, the light started to appear on the eastern horizon around 5:45 giving us a spectacular view to the south as we arrived at the the Devils Kitchen. Looking out to the south, Mt Jefferson in the distance Bob Bill Brandon At this point Bill has us don our harnesses and rope up for the rest of the climb to the summit. The pic above left is our view from the Devils Kitchen ridge. Humaira was carrying up her split board and was committed to venturing on another route and boarding down so she broke off from our group at this point.
Humaira (The Animal!!) Looking above Hogsback up to the Old Chute. Headed up Hogsback ridge (the saddle) Pic of us on the Old Chute With so many climbers going up The Old Chute, it was dangerous with all of the ice fall from climbers above us as well as the avalanche danger from the pinnacles above. We quickly and safely made our way up Hogsback ridge and traversed to climbers left to The Old Chute and ascended the last ~900ft to the summit ridge with Bill in the lead. Bill took a few brutal hits from some large ice chunks that were kicked down from the climbers above but after he manned up, he got us to the top.
Once on the top of the ridge we still had about a quarter mile to go. Bill respectfully let Brandon lead us Mt Hood summit first timers the rest of the gut wrenching way to the true summit!! The pic above does not do some of the traverse justice as it was only about 10ft wide at most with over a 1000ft drop on either side for about a 25ft stretch. At exactly 7:30am on May 11, 2013, Cascades Mountaineers members Brandon Simonds, Marcus Muffley, Bob Bryant lead by Bill Strycharz made it to the summit of Mt Hood, the top of Oregon at 11,240ft! Brandon Simonds & Bob Bryant Bill Strycharz
Bob Bryant Marcus Muffley
We spent almost exactly 30 minutes on the summit and headed back down at 8am. We thought we were going to have a fast descent back down and Bob and I would be able to still make it back down in time for the TMG steep snow course, but descending down the Old Chute, roped up with multiple other climbers coming up from below us proved to be quite the challenging trying to avoid their route up as well as single climbers descending faster than us as the four of us were roped up. The majority of the foot holds were worn down making the descent slow and quite dangerous until we reached the top of Hogsback where we were able to final turn around walk safely down the rest of the way. Unfortunately Bob and I had signed up for the steep snow course that was starting at 9am and we suddenly realized we were not making as good of time descending as we had thought and would not be on time to attend. I placed a call to Steve Berry who was also attending the course but my phone was not able to make a call at that point. We eventually were able to make contact and communicate that Bob and I were not going to be able to make it back down in time to attend the course. Once at the bottom of the Hogsback we doffed our rope, harnesses, crampons and hauled foot back to camp at 8,800ft. We made it back to camp at about 10:15, made a quick lunch, changed clothes as the heat was starting to set in under the bright sun and blue skies, repacked our tents and gear and headed back down 2.1 miles of slushy cat track arriving in the Timberline parking lot about 12pm. There are some rumors of a climber who made it down after after the others, but those are just rumors and there is no proof of who arrived back to the Timberline Lodge parking lot last. We loaded up in our vehicles and headed to Mt Hood Brewery for beers and burgers and headed back to Bend to recover. Humaira and another climber she had met below also summited shortly after the four of us. They ventured to Wy east and then to Cathedral Ridge before descending. We passed them on our descent as they were heading up the Old Chute. The amazing Humaira boarded back down Illumination Saddle to Mississippi head all the way back to Timberline. All in all, we all made it up and down safe with true credit going to our climb leader: Bill Strycharz. Great job to all! More 2013 summits to come!