The Tilly Jane snowshoe was tougher than the previous hike, and started much higher as well. Officially, the elevation gain was supposed to be around 1800 feet (550 m) and up to Cloudcap a total of 3200 ft (975 m) - due to all the snow up there we ended up taking a slightly wrong turn, schlepping up a big ridge and getting up at least another 1000 vertical feet (300 m) right up next to Cooper Spur.
The trailhead is at an approximate elevation of 3200 feet (975 m) above sea level and the trail began to slope up pretty much immediately. I had some difficulty during this hike. Not sure what the cause of it was, but I ended up falling behind my comrades in the fast group and ended up joining up with the front of the second group at the suggestion of one of the hike leaders, Daniel (who stuck it out with me for a while.) It was a good slog through the snow and varying terrain to the Tilly Jane cabin. This is an old cabin that is maintained by people on contract from the Forest Service. It was quite a relief as we rolled into the hut, lit the wood stove and warmed up, ate and drank our fill.
As you can see, there was quite a bit of snow, and more had started coming down as we sat inside the cabin. In spite of this, it was decided that we were going to snowshoe an optional leg of the hike. Joe, the leader, assured us that it was a pretty gentle hike and that the views would be beautiful. We packed up and started trudging up the gentle slope and slowly the snow stopped falling and we found ourselves above the clouds. After coming to a fork in the trail and some debate (the snow had covered up many of the trail markers) a path was chosen in the general direction we were planning to go in. Soon, the woods cleared and we were confronted with a steep incline at the end of which was a mean-looking ridge.
"Hey Joe, is this the gentle climb you promised us?" we yelled. Joe responded that we hadn't exactly taken the right trail, but since we were here, this would be very good training as the ridge above us mimicked the Hog's Back, a large ridge near the summit of Mount Hood that we would be crossing during our ascent.
Here's a butt-end view of yours truly as we start our ascent towards the ridge.
In the end, it was a hell of a push, and a testament to how important mental fitness is to climbing. I can't speak for the others, but judging by the sounds some folks were making, they were at a similar point of exhaustion as myself. I had to will myself up this ridge. Playing head games of counting steaps, reciting little mantras and through sheer stubbornness we finally got to the top of the ridge, threw on our down jackets before our sweat turned cold and chilled us, and took a moment to look around and enjoy the view.
And what a view it was. The altimeters didn't all completely agree, but we figured we were around the 7000-7500 ft mark (2133-2286 m) which made for a pretty impressive vertical ascent after we were already tuckered out at the hut. We had a gorgeous view of the terrain below us, and saw an eagle flying up out of the gully below the ridge. Above us was the north face of Mount Hood - this is the tough and technical ascent, and the place where several bodies of unfortunate climbers who succumbed to the mountain still lie, lost to the elements. We will be climbing the south face, but this angle instilled real respect for the mountain onto which we will be making our small incursion.
I looked through some topo maps and pictures online and figured out that this was the exact spot we were standing in (the picture is scanned from a book about the best backwoods skiing in Oregon):
I found some pictures on past climbers' blogs as well as those of my fellow climbers to include as well, so here they are for your viewing pleasure.
Coming down was delightful, in stark contrast to the slog upwards. The deep snow let us plunge-step down in minutes, the running motion exaggerated and almost comical, like we were all John Cleese from Monty Python's "Ministry of Funny Walks" sketch.
Several weeks after the hike (you may notice I've had to post most of these reports retroactively, so it really doesn't matter in the long run) I found a blog by a very nice couple who did Reach the Summit in 2007. They were very organised and published some Google Earth data and looking over this data as well as their screenshots, it seems that they climbed the very same route that we did. This begs the question: was there really a mistake? Or was Joe trying to toughen us up, and rewarded the people who wanted to hike more with a real solid final push that we may have whined our way out of otherwise? It's hard to tell for sure, but I present for your consideration a pretty spectacular Google Earth screen capture as well as a link to someone else's data for you to try out.
Tilly Jane Google Earth link - right click and save the file to your computer.
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