Mt. Hood
Route Details
Area - Mt. Hood, OR
Route - On this particular outting we followed the standard approach from Timberline Lodge (Illumination Saddle > Palmer Glacier > Crater Rock Ascent > Triangle Moraine) but then finished up "Old Chute" rather than the Pearly Gates which were not so pearly this late in the year.
Access - Extremely easy given road access to Timberline Lodge. Climbers parking is in the parking lot to the right below the trailhead. The trail after the snow melts follows the obvious path towards Palmer (used as a service road to the hut below Palmer once the snow melts). Earlier in the year when there is still snow from the parking lot you can take a slightly more direct route, though be aware of downhill skiers and resort policies.
Ski descent - 5,300 ft (summit to trailhead), 4,100 ft (Crater Rock to trailhead)
Guides
Beacon Guidebooks Link
FATMAP (see below)
Local Beta - Timberline Lodge has historic and comfy lodging to make for a super convenient alpine (early morning) start. There's a historic solid wood ping pong table and shuffle board in the Barlow room just to the right after the main entrance.
Trip Report 6/30/23
I was in Government Camp, OR the last week in June for my son's summer ski camp on Mt. Hood. We brought our bikes with plans to spend most of our free time on the bike trails around the area. I had also been trying to talk my buddy Bert (who's son was at the same camp) into doing more backcountry touring with me. I had a decent chance at getting him on the hill with me this time around. Bert seemed open to the idea of doing some skiing on Mt. Hood, so I brought an extra set of crampons and an ice axe for him, and made sure he had packed his touring gear.
After a couple days of Bert and I both taking work calls in the mornings and biking when we could, we were ready to do some skiing. Given it was almost July at this point I wasn't sure what to expect. I had skied Hood earlier in April, but never this late in the year. It also had been unusually hot and sunny in May and June.
We hiked up the normal route from the parking lot just below Timberline Lodge. At the bottom of the Palmer lift we swapped out our tennis shoes for ski boots and began skinning up the Palmer Glacier. We had gotten an early start but not too early and the sun was already well on its way up by the time we were climbing up the Palmer. It was cool seeing the lanes my son had been skiing on. The Palmer was steeper than it appeared from below at the parking lots. Athletes from around the world come there during the summer to train.
As soon as we were off Palmer we realized just how smooth the groomers had been relative to the rest of the hill. The suncups were some of the biggest I had ever seen, and the snow was hard and slow to soften even in the hot morning sun. We generally followed the Crater Rock Ascent route. There was no well-beaten path, and so we cut back and forth as we climbed to stay more flat footed on our crampons and save our calves.
We gained the ridge that separates the White River Glacier from the Zigzag Glacier and ascended this ridge until we entered the Triangle Moraine zone at around 10,000 ft. This area had changed drastically from early spring. There were stretches of the trail without snow cover, and the portions even with snow didn't look much fun to ski. We continued up with our skis on our backs, hoping that the West Crater Rim side of Crater Rock might hold better snow and be more skiable.
The Pearly Gates looked a lot less pearly than the last time I had seen them and more like a loose rock scramble with overhead hanging ice dagger risk. There was a single visible trail from 10,600 ft that turned west to gain a dusty volcanic bulge of rock before turning uphill and gaining the summit via the "Old Chute". We ditched our skis at this point after looking up and realizing there was no point in carrying them any further.
I had made it to the summit around 11:30am, and with nearly no wind and blue skies I took some time to take in the view. Rainier, St. Helens, and Adams were all visible to the north. There was a steep drop-off onto Eliot and Coe Glaciers to the north, and the skiing didn't look too bad from a distance on the Newton Clark Glacier to the west. I thought about how I'd like to get on that side of the mountain in a future trip sometime.
Pretty soon Bert was at the top and we took a summit photo together before heading down.
I'm not going to lie, the ski down was one of the, um, bumpiest I've maybe ever had. We picked up our skis at the volcanic rock dust hump where we had left them and made our way back down below Crater Rock where there was still some snow. I had hoped the suncups would have softened enough to plow through them by this point in the day, but alas they were still quite hard and bumpy. It made for more slow-going and delicate skiing than I had wished for, but eventually we were back near Palmer Glacier.
Bert made a beeline back to the groomed snow on the Palmer and I stayed skiers right where the snow had finally started softening enough to make the skiing a lot more fun. We met up at the bottom of the Palmer lift where we had cached our hiking boots from earlier in the day, and then finished down the skinny cat track back to the car. Another fun day in the mountains!