Having taken Friday off, I was up at the crack of dawn in order to make it to the mountain by 7AM so that we could start our snow school; this was essentially a recap of what we had done a few months ago with a few additions. We assembled in the guides' office where we went over equipment, safety procedures and put on our gaiters and boots. It was around this point that everything started to feel real, like it was actually going to happen. We also did a quick round of introductions where both the climbers and the guides introduced themselves. And quickly enough, we all streamed out, back to the gully to practice our footwork, crampon techniques and ropework. In the brutal sun we were at it until mid-afternoon. After roping up, we practiced random falls and self-arresting with the ice axe. We tried a few new variations, like when you find yourself hurtling down the mountain on your back, head down. I pulled off some epic belly flops, which were unfortunately not documented on camera. This is where we ended up breaking up into rope teams and being assigned the guides that would take us up the mountain. Our team consisted of my friend Chris (whom I met in Japan),
Ted (a tall, jolly skier with an enormous laugh that made a mountain locator unit essentially redundant) and Pat, a quiet fellow who in his 40s was in the kind of shape most of weren't in when we were 22. Our guide was John, from Montana. Roping up went smoothly and John told us that he felt pretty confident about how we worked together on the rope and that if the conditions permitted, he'd take us up an optional, more challenging route... based on what I heard from previous climbers, this could involve 60 degree pitches, making it very... exciting!
A quick change into street clothes and we're on the Sno-Cat up to Silcox Hut, a small lodge further up the mountain, where we'll be spending the night. It was originally built in 1939 as the ending point for one of the chairlifts at the ski area. Our host, Steve, whipped up some snacks and a delicious dinner, which we ate in the main hall, family style, before getting our packs and gear ready for the climb and shuffling off to the bunks to try and get a few hours' sleep before the climb. Here I am in the dining hall:
Group shot. We're pumped.
And here is a panorama I stitched together from approximately 8 photos taken from the front entrance to the hut. You can see the Sno-Cat and a view of the mountain. We're at approximately 7000 feet at this point. I like the idea of sleeping up here, since during our last hike up the Palmer snowfield (where the ski area and hut are) I got a little dizzy and was worried about altitude issues.
We tried to sleep, but it didn't happen. I spent three hours tossing and turning, though one of my bunkmates claims she heard me snoring briefly. Thankfully, there was enough adrenaline in my body that when the alarm went off, I bounded out of bed and started getting ready. We were going up in two groups, about half an hour apart. We weren't departing from the hut itself, but from a ridge at the top of Palmer not too far above, putting us above the ski area so that we could climb unimpeded. To better decide our clothing layers, the guides suggested we step outside the hut and if we were comfortable it meant we were overdressed. We were amazed to see that it was quite warm outside and most of us ended up wearing our thinnest underlayer with a thin shell and nothing else. This was surprising, as another guide (Geoff) had told us it was brutally cold the day before and he was climbing with all his layers, including a down jacket. It didn't matter. It was just after midnight. We were off.
The cat dropped us off at the top of Palmer, at the ridge to which we hiked to just a week ago as part of our last training hike. The pitch here was steeper than where the hut was, and the cat was having some trouble in the soft snow. Once we got out of the cat and it slid down the mountain, it was quickly forgotten. We were sitting in silent blackness, with only a few flickering lights below where Timberline Lodge was. Excitedly, we put on our crampons, got out our trekking poles (the snow was too soft for ice axes, and the poles were better for the initial part of the approach before we roped up on the steeps) and quickly, almost nonchalantly, stepped up and started climbing. The guides kept us in a larger group of eight for the time being, and off we went.
Darkness.
Silence.
The training hikes ranged from brisk to gruelling, where in some cases we were barelling up peaks at a pace somewhere on the north side of comfortable. This seemed a bit brutish in comparison to climbing the peak of Mount Hood; the guides had stressed proper footwork in snow class, which we diligently employed, knowing that without ropes and with our axes on our packs, if we fell we'd basically slide down on our asses to the departure point. On the upside, we had less chance of taking others down if this happened, though there was no guarantee of this either. The pace was deliberate, almost zen-like. Kick your foot in to create a step or foothold. Test that your step can hold your weight. Once you know it does, step up. Lock your knee to let your skeletal structure take your body weight for a second or two thus giving your muscle a mini-rest. Transfer weight. Repeat. Slow going, but far less tiring than some of our registration hikes, and a completely different feel. Our confidence mounted as we kept climbing, knowing that all those practice hikes had got us into good enough shape to do this.
We stopped a couple of, always briefly, to hydrate, fuel up with snacks or to adjust layers. The air was warm, the snow was soft, and we noticed that the guide was traversing across the snow several times, guiding us through some rocky sections as well. The snow remained consistently soft and some of our foot plants resulted in the soft snow giving way. The mountain pitched up and after about 1:30 or 2:00 AM I stopped taking photos. Here are a couple of self-portraits from our two breaks at the beginning of the climb as well as a picture of John, our guide.
We were somewhere above 9000 feet and were close to a couple of high rocks when we started to hear sounds. Sharp, cascading sounds, like thin flat rocks tumbling down and breaking up. These would last for up to 45 seconds, unseen in the darkness to our right. Everyone pretended like nothing was happening until someone asked a guide what that was. The guides all seemed a little troubled at this point and preoccupied with something.
"Rock fall," was the answer.
No one else said a thing.
The mountain pitched up and we began to push up a little wall that led up over Crater Rock to the interior of the crater with the sulphur pits and where we'd begin our ascent of Hog's Back - a ridge that traverses the far wall of the crater and places you on the final ascent to the icy summit of Mount Hood. We breathed a little heavier from the extra exertion and felt a little surge of excitement. To our left we could now see the glow of Portland and we were rounding the 10,000 foot mark. The snow felt mealy and mushy under our feet, making the climb a little tricky. Our guides were quietly chatting amongst themselves and asking us about how we were feeling on our feet in the snow a fair bit.
Then we stopped.
Up ahead there were lights. Headlamps. We saw Phil, who was guiding the folks in the group ahead of us, and he had a serious look on his face. "Lightning storm," said Geoff as the guides asked us to hang on for a few moments and chatted amongst each other for a few minutes. I steadied myself and looked back from the side of the mountain just in time to see lightning flickering across a mountaintop some distance away. The city glow and the faintest of glows in the sky showed us the outline of a huge conical thunderhead that mirrored the little peak whose summit was being pounded by lightning.
"I've been watching that for 20 minutes," I heard Geoff say. "It doesn't look good."
I realised the wind was carrying the thunderhead directly towards us.
"We're coming down guys," said the guides. "We have to turn around."
We didn't question or argue with these guides. It's their job to keep us safe and one of the rules on the mountain was to listen to these guys like you'd listen to your captain at sea. But we didn't even get to the phase where arguing would be one of the possible options. We were still in the first stage; denial. We stood there, dumbfounded, catching peeks of the lightning every few minutes, with the occasional whip of wind trying to remind us this was for real.
I spoke to my fellow climbers later, and I know we all thought the same thing. It wasn't happening. The wind will change. We'll wait it out. The guides will tell us to hold off and we'll watch the storm dissipate then climb up to the peak in glory and tell everyone about our near-miss. We stood there, making up excuses until several members of the first group climbed down past us and Phil, one of the more experienced guides said to us, "come on, we need to get off this mountain. Let's make a good pace down!"
Was this really happening? So close to the summit, and we were turning around? Denial faded as we were told to start descending. I turned around and looked up at the mountain. There was a faint glow in the sky, as it was around 3:30 in the morning at this point. The dim glow gave the eye enough light to trace the contour of the summit towering above us. The culmination of five months of burning through tanks of gas at 6AM to slog up a forest path with a backpack full of ballast; of five months of asking people for donations, of learning to use new gear, of filling out our equipment list, talking to people about what we were doing, building friendships around a common goal, and watching our lives slowly converge around this one event, this place, a white hot point glowing on our calendars, and a measly 1200 vertical feet away from this nexus we were turning around on our heels and walking back down the mountain. Reason told us that the guides were making the right choice for safety reasons. The night before, Jennifer, who has been organizing this event for five years got brained by a falling chunk of ice and was hospitalized. There were rocks falling around us in the darkness, the snow has the consistency of butter and a storm was moving towards us. Yes, reason told us that turning around was the sensible thing to do, but damn it. It was as appealing as eating a slug. We all wondered how bad it would be to weather the storm. Who cares if we got hit with a few rocks or some ice? We wanted to get to that summit, damnit! But as Phil's voice and a few wind lashes cleared the clouds of irrationality from our heads, we resignedly turned around and started down the mountain. The soft was slow enough for us to plunge step down withing the necessity of walking single file behind a guide. In a slow, shambling chaos, we silently walked downwards, leapfrogging one another as people stopped to look up at the summit above, shake their heads and continue.
With the darkness and slow, deliberate pace up the mountain, it was hard to chart progress. Consequently, we were amazed at how far we had made it. We descended at what we felt was an almost running pace, for close to 90 minutes, down steep chutes and open snow fields. The hut down below was out of sight for a very long time and we felt like we had walked forever. It seemed to drag on and on, and we slowed down with each step as we reached the Palmer snowfield and the ground levelled off, until most were crawling back to the hut like kicked dogs or a team that just got crushed out on the field.
(The angle, by the way, really downplays the mountain. Pay it no heed.)
People said later that Silcox Hut felt like a morgue that morning. No one said much. I saw John, our guide, with an expression on his face that looked like someone had run over his dog. The guys were obviously unhappy with the tough decision that they had to take. Another guide, Kevin, who had come to Mount Hood this year from another alpine area told us that he tried to summit six times this year, and never made it due to either the people he was guiding not being able to make it or the weather and conditions being dangerous and necessitating a turnaround.
"You guys were gonna be my golden ticket," he joked. Reach the Summit climbers were always prepared due to our conditioning program.
In retrospect, the guides later told us the storm was an easy pretext to use to get off the mountain without freaking anyone out, but they were also very concerned by the snowmass that didn't freeze and the falling rocks. "It felt like the mountain was coming apart," one said, "and we wouldn't have gone on even if there was no storm in all likelihood." This was nice to hear. By the time we made it down, the storm had passed sideways and morphed into bad weather over Portland. The sky was still overcast and the winds substantial, though. I whipped out my cel phone knowing my folks were waiting for the call from the summit. I could barely do it. I had to compose myself for a few minutes before dialing. Likewise, it took me a few days to work up the gumption to write up the climb. Maybe this is going to sound hokey, but I couldn't even look at the mountain at first. I felt relieved when I found out I wasn't the only who got a just a little bleary-eyed looking at that peak on our way back to the post-climb/fundraising gala. Yes, we were good sports about it, but this was about so much more than summiting for most of us. I certainly felt like I was letting people down; an irrational idea, perhaps, but one founded entirely on emotion. We'll all summit eventually, but doing it as part of a team with the people we forged bonds with over months of shared sweating and knowing that we were all in it together for the same reason was a pretty big deal for most of us. So my apologies to some of you getting impatient to hear about the climb, but there is a time and a place for everything, and I had to process all this to come out of this gracefully, instead of boring you all to tears about how crappy not making it to the top of a mountain is.
So here's a hearty thanks to all of you who supported me. Financially, emotionally, logistically, and in any other way besides. Without you I wouldn't have even tried doing this in the first place. Between all of us, we raised over a quarter million dollars for the Lung Association, to allow them to continue their fight against lung disease. We did something fun for a great cause, raised a boatload of money, and missed the cherry on top because the mountain did what all mountains do, and let us know to not take her for granted. We were generously offered a full climb credit for another ascent (July 31st, 2008 in my case!) and have already organised our own training hikes and ascents of other local mountains. New friendships were made, and it really feels like the beginning of something wonderful rather than a failure or unsatisfactory end, though it initially got a little lost at the awards gala as we watched videos from the summit of the other teams that made it.
Your donations, really, were to the cause we were all supporting, and as such the event was successful. We did well. My climb was a way to make this happen; I could have hired a guide on my own much more easily, but the idea was to make some kind of difference, and we did. The mountain dickered with us on that little detail of the summiting, but we're coming back to take care of it.
That said, I'll still punch the next lightning bolt I see right in its stupid nose.
(The location of our summit photoshoot got moved. We apologize for the inconvenience.)
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