Mount Hood's snow-covered peak rises 11,249 ft (3,429 meters) and is home to twelve glaciers. It is the highest mountain in Oregon and the fourth-highest in the Cascade Range. Mount Hood is considered the Oregon volcano most likely to erupt, though based on its history, an explosive eruption is unlikely. Still, the odds of an eruption in the next 30 years are estimated at between 3 and 7 percent, so the USGS characterizes it as "potentially active". The mountain is sometimes informally described as "dormant".
Dormant my ass! That mountain was wild that cold morning. It would have been cool too see Mt. Hood, but the blizzard/wind storm that rocked us allowed us to only see the ice on our jackets and the ground immediately in front of us. The photo below pretty much explains it all. That's me, and notice the "horizontal snow". The winds probably had gusts around 70mph.
We started at 12:45 am..... yes AM.... to make sure that the mountain stayed cold enough to prevent ice and rockfall higher on the mountain. If it was sunny, that would've been a concern but the weather gods were taking a dump on us big time, so we didn't see much. I thought the sun had burned out at one point as I squinted toward the sky looking for it while ice missiles plastered themselves around my grimaced face and squinting eyes.
We climbed through the weather for about 4 hours and then "flipped a bitch" (a west coast term for "make a U-turn") right below a popular feature on the mountain called the "hogsback". The decent was a navigational nightmare.... crevasses and drop-offs that we hadn't seen on the way up were now becoming apparent and were rather disorienting. With map and GPS, (last resort) we made it back to where were were comfortable hauling ass straight down the mountain.
My buddy Tom Holt and I then ate breakfast at the Huckleberry Inn in Government Camp Oregon (just below the mountain) at 6:00 AM.... but it felt like it was late afternoon to us.
Thanks Tom, for buying breakfast. Always a pleasure.
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