A leuthold Couloir Day

The first weekend in December Brian, Nick, Jer, and I decided to explore the West side of Mt. Hood. Not sure what to expect, we set out at around 5am, or maybe it was 6am. Anyway, we loaded up our cumbersome gear and started up the paved path, yep...paved, not that much snow around Timberline lodge. A bit of cloud cover and interesting lenticulars blowing from the summit but mostly clear. We saw a beautiful firey sunrise. The firey part could mean stormy weather a bit later but currently spirits were high and we stayed focused on getting to illumination saddle.

Personally, I was having a difficult time staying focused on the mountain and the task at hand. During this time, I was having interesting chest pains that would come and go randomly and without much purpose except to put me on the defense. My mind wandered all over this issue throughout the morning. But soon I came to understand what Muir meant when saying that lowland problems vanished when sauntering amongst giants. Once we arrived at Illumination Saddle and dropped over the steep approach to the West side, my mind sharpened on the terrain and experiences in front of me. I should also mention that I had some lowland stomach issues up to this point as well, but after finding a nice boulder to rest against with a view of the climbing sun, my stomach shaped up.

Now with the slog up the Palmer behind us and new territory ahead, (new territory for all of us except Brian, who has been on the West side a few times already) we search for our line through this slightly crevassed and snowy land. Two ropes were laid out for us to strap our confidence onto before crossing the Reid Glacier. Fortunately, this time of year reveals the crevasses quite thoroughly, leaving us with little chance of slipping into one of them. I took the sharp end and explored a path a short distance up to the foot of what Brian called out as a possible shortcut we should explore. And that we did moments after removing our safety lines. We then went up a steep, puckery, but short climb to gain a ridge. According to Brian, the typical approach to Leuthold would have caused us to lose much more altitude in order for us to drop beneath this ridge we climbed up. Ha! and there it be, the couloir we have set our hearts on. "Which one?", I ask Brian, "The one with all of the shit raining down it?", Yep was the reply. I then reached up to my helmet strap and pulled the tag end a little harder.

We made a short traverse to the feet of the couloir, and all wondered what those chunks of ice were going to feel like on our knuckles. My mind dug up all of the stories that have been told to me about losing cameras, getting the wind knocked from your lungs, knuckles slowly oozing blood, entire limbs being ripped off and deposited in the Reid below us, etc. I grabbed the helmet strap and pulled one more time while waiting for Brian and Nick to make a run for it. "BRIAN!? DOES THIS MUCH ICE USUALLY RAIN DOWN!?" pause....."YEAH, IT'S FINE." Then, Brian disappears into the chute, then Nick. Now my turn, the adrenaline picks up and I think I might have even cracked a smile. I hear "CLEAR!", from Nick, I think. I swing in with face positioned down and,.....PAUNK!! My head jolted, thank you plastic. Breath in........Breath out.....ok...go.

The climbing was good, solid, perfect crampon ice with a thin coating of rime. Besides the excitement of getting paunked with ice pellets every now and then, the climbing through the couloir went smooth and quick. We sort of zigzagged our way through, keeping close to the sides and staying out of the line of fire as much as possible. There were moments when our faith in the ice proved strong enough that we would remove our ice picks from their respectable homes, stand fully erect, and break out into front point sprinting across the ice funnel.

The exit was grand. A huge field of hard rime ice surface that seemed to fan out for miles appeared. You could still hear the whizzing of ice pellets flying inches, ...no millimeters from our faces. THUNK! Brian takes a chunk to the chest. Still feeling that one today I'm sure. My guard was lowered momentarily as well, probably mostly due to the exhaustive nature of staying alert. I noticed a noble chunk of wintery debris dislodge itself from high on the ridge to our right. Immediately I turned to warn Jer about the excitement about to rain down on him. As my face turned back up mountain I felt a cold and ruthless sucker punch to the center of my chin. My body flung down and forward, opposed to falling back and down, going for a long and painful glissade. I cupped my hands in front of my mouth fearing that most of my teeth were planning on falling out, fortunately they all remained in place. Instead, nothing more than blood fell from my lip and the spot of impact on my chin. I've never been punched by another man, but I can imagine that it would feel like a romantic love touch after experiencing a mountain fist.

Brian rubbing his chest, Nick feeling like a sailor just set to sea, Jer searching for more oxygen, and I, along with needing supplemental oxygen, nursed my newly clicking jaw as we approached the summit rim. And then,.... the wind said hello with a throaty gust. The rim seemed a bit narrow combined with the mighty wind. Nick finishing with a sprint skips along the ridge utilizing the wind to carry him a few extra feet each hop. Brian moved equally strong but stayed a bit crouched down to stabilize himself for impact. And I drunkenly staggered and crawled toward the summit. Jer's large frame swayed like a palm tree in a hurricane across the rim a few moments later.

All smiles, all good, and all tuckered out we started our descent with a rappel through the Pearly Gates off of a bollard and down climbed to the Hogsback. Shared some fuel, tugged on Nick's Santa beard he packed in, and made our way down the South side. The descent was quite slow due to the hard snow which required crampons all the way to the paved sidewalk. Hood was good to us on that day allowing us to witness her West side all the way to her summit.