Snow and Rain: a night on Mt. Hood

HikingLog 12219 Snow and Rain




On December 12, 26-year-old Luke T. Gullberg, 24-year-old Anthony Vietti, and 29-year-old Katti Nolan died on Reid Glacier. If you look at a picture of Mt. Hood from the South, you might be able to pick out a bowl at the top with a thumb pointing up in the middle. Reid is the Western most snow field reaching up to the summit, just before the large Yokum Ridge gets vertical. It is the steepest approach from the South. We were to start way down at the base of Palmer, the wide snow field to the East. Our hearts are with those climbers.

We left Camp Richland just after two p.m. During the drive south to Oregon and West on I-84, Tami practiced tying a water knot. Its not that easy, and its about time she knew how. "You read all the books - I don't know all these things." Ah, but she is reading more now, from the Old Testament and the New. I called my brother on the way. "You are going to Hood!" he barked. "Oh, what could go wrong?"

"No, its okay," I replied. "We will be prepared."

"Great: you'll be prepared. Do you know how to prevent getting caught in an avalanche?"

"No." No one does - its impossible, I thought smugly.

"Avalanches are caused by being kicked. So don't walk up there." Allan is my hero. If there is only one other person besides Tami that I climb for, it is he. "Hey, bring good tent stakes so you don't have to leave your ice axes behind you as you reach for the summit."

"Oh," I replied. "No problem. I will bring two dead-men anchors."

"Coals to New Castle," he says.

This was going to be a special trip. The yahoos at Yahoo:( made me a map of the best way to go. Only it turns out that their little squiggle brought us past the sleepiest enclave of US homes I have ever seen: Dufur, Oregon. Then their 'brilliant Idea' took us right up to snow line, in Mount Hood National Forest. So we had to back track and we lost about an hour or so, but we made it into a hotel in Government Camp by bedtime. (This is a picture of the hotel we stayed in last time.)

We got ourselves up and out slowly. At eleven o'clock we pulled into the hiker's parking lot at Timberline Lodge. It took us half an hour to get through the conversation we had started in the Denali. But eventually we had all of our gear and all of our insights sorted and stowed in their proper places - a time for everything and everything in its place - and headed up. The snow was wonderful. It was a few degrees above freezing, and the winds were only ten miles an hour. It was misty on the mountain, with a visibility of about fifty meters. If the sky had a color it was dilute gray. My new snow shoes sunk about an inch-and-a-half of heavy but solid snow. Most important they were a cinch to put on.

I lead up an incline parallel to snow fence that marked the Eastern border of the ski area to our left. We were going to get as high as we are comfortable for the rest of the day. Then we will stop and practice self-arrest and snow cave-building. We'll wake up early and leave our tent and packs and hike further and watch the sun rise from some point higher on the mountain. It was looking like there would be no sunrise tomorrow.

Tami lead fifty feet and stopped. Then I went fifty feet and stopped. We continued skipping and swinging leads, but never even with each other - that was not in either Testament, and Tami would have none of it. We were happy with our own experience and during lead changes chatted about how to step on inclining snow and how to change into a second pair of gloves without stopping.

As we progressed on bearing due geographic North, the mist became heavier, the trees more sparse, and the foot- and ski-prints fewer. We added another pattern to our repertoire; Tami went out seventy-five feet (the distance increased as we got into our strides) and I told her left or right till she was on our bearing, and I caught up with her. Then I kept myself fifty paces behind her, bearing North. This was good practice for us, though there seemed to be more ground exposed than when we were here last. Maybe this elevation was due for snow... It was easy for me to see Tami's lime-green shell and sky blue pack, though her legs were white. She at times seemed to float above the snow surface.

We came to a rock we called Rock. We stopped to make some water as it was conveniently low. I kissed Tami on her ruby cheek because she deserved it. We had gotten so far because of our noetic successes though she does not yet think of it as such. It is clear to me as a face of clay would if I had molded it with my own hands.

As the trees thinned out and the mist got thicker, Tami stopped up short in front of me. I trudged next to her and she pointed, "That's the horizontal crevasse we got to last time (I told her I call it an ice-bergschrund)." But I couldn't see it - my glasses were off. I handed her the map and told her to find it but she could not read the details because her glasses were off. My close vision is fine. Its like one of us is half empty and the other is half full. Together we have a cup.

At one of our many stopping points Tami said, "David, having you in front makes it easier for me, aside from the steps being there for me to use. I have the sensation that you pull me when you lead." I feel the same. We are like the positive and negative poles - two bizarrely behaving fields harvesting their drives together. We, an entity unto itself. Lashing one another's desire to climb together, and feeding off the energy we create, we power our progress. Two tiny ants toiling in tandem up the beginning of the Palmer snow field. Out here, we are greater than the sum of our parts. A little entity, self sufficient together but helpless if separated, travailing in a void yet constantly shifting white landscape. We are our own noosphere. We are the two ends of the cordee.

We continued on in this manner as the clouds started getting thicker. We happened to stop at another clay-colored rock. Boy, this place hasn't seen it snow for a while. We took off our packs and snow shoes and started boiling water. I cranked up the GPS. It was 16:15. "Lets quit now. It will be dark in an hour." Tami is good with big times - when the sun rises (she usually wakes at four-thirty), how long its been since lunch, and when it gets dark. By contrast, I am good at estimating short times, like twenty seconds to before my fingers freeze. Together we almost make a clock.

Chop, chop. We set to work and whipped up the orange tent. Now it started to drizzle. I cooked up a tub of Ramen noodles and we ducked into the tent to eat. Tami went in first with the grub. It began to rain, so I disassembled the stove and fuel, placed the backpacks by the (facing lee) door and dove into the tent. For one brief instant I was soaring through the air. First my head, then my shoulders pierced the plane of the door. In this moment I performed the final and most important mission, now that the rain had ruined our climb. My body slowly rotated on its long axis, like a pig on a stake, and as my hips passed the portal, I removed the stove from my red and gray shell and stashed it safely in the corner of the tent. When my knees floated through, my face had turned towards the ceiling and I thought that I should have placed it in the top-right-back pocket of my pack. From that distracted moment on, all I could remember was that I should have placed it in the pack. I landed in a pile on top of Tami, but the noodles were saved.

Thus, we ate in a state of great exuberation. The cancellation of our plan of sliding down the soppy slope just to practice stopping was now a godsend. Our clothes were completely soaked. Tami's shell was water-proof and the only dry outer layer item between us. But now we were dry in our insulation layers, and the food was hot. We rarely get hungry on these trips; more often we have to prod the other to eat. But we bolted down our portions and finished the meal off with chocolate and nuts. The only problem was the rain.

Dribble, dribble, dribble: it was relentless. Small wet sounds drowning out our climb - if it would only drop a couple of degrees the rain would stop! We reclined and relaxed. Tami popped out her favorite lamp (the one I told her - constantly - was the bete noire of fast and light) and once again I was glad she had brought it. It is now a luxury we know the value of in sweat and sometimes tears. We were warm and dry and we allowed ourselves to talk about things in a more relaxed way than even we are used to. Periodically we would bang the back of the tent behind us where slush and water were settling.

Tami lay on her blue bag, and I on my green one. We were metaphorically sipping our mead, our recompense: our hard won leisure. We enjoyed he peace and serenity of making a solid home under wearying conditions. In this state of effortless repose our thoughts flew to home in flatland, to the nonce, and to the next venture out. You see, even at the crest of one trip, we know that the next trip will be challenging and salubrious. Our repose is nested in time - layers of desire and fulfillment in all aspects of our lives.

"You know," Tami had her head in her left hand. "You were more emotive, more expressive when I was talking just now than I have seen. It felt nice to be listened to." And it is true. I am more expressive and (like her) I strive for inflection in my voice and the reason I express more is because I feel more. I feel alive now, and when we are not climbing.

In the event, Tami woke me up at eight. Dribble, patter, drip. It was constant. Foiled! There's no way we will go up in this weather. We'll pack up and go down for certain. Our EV (two person) tent has two small triangular windows, which were the color of a dead sky. We lamented for a bit, and were freezing out of our bags, and our clothes were still as wet as when we took them off and we wanted to make some coffee. "Where's the stove?" Tami asked. I said in my pack. So I was the lucky one to open the door.

First, I pressed on the door covering before unzippering it from the bottom which is where the fob is when the door is closed. There was a mass of snow piled up outside! How long has it been snowing? I wondered. I punched away at the snow and poked my head out. It was seventeen degrees and snow was blowing nearly horizontaly in all directions. I zippered the door back down and turned back towards Tami so I could more clearly hear Tami state that, "there's no way." She clarified, "That we are going back in this with all our stuff. We will leave the tent and the bags and everything we don't need to get off this mountain!"

Arg! Thats not the way Jack does it! I told her that, well, we should at least keep that idea in mind, while we wait and see what actually happens. And with that I put on my sopping clothes and zipped open the door. I stood up. The wind stung my face. The snow seemed to have partially immersed the tent, and the ice axes, picket and snow shoes I used for ancors were nearly all covered. I stumbled a couple of steps and shouted, "My goggles!"

"Your what?" It was then that we realized how loud we have to yell to get heard over the driving wind. Now at this time, the last word on the moving 'question' was that we were leaving everthing in the tent and making a run for it. Ah! I thought. I will practice doing everything as if we were quiting camp and heading up. I heard Tami groan as she put on her wet clothes. I dug out our four snow shoes and two ice axes. Then I shoveled out four corners of the tent and shook the packs into shape and set everything by the door of the tent.Tami opened the tent, and handed me a stuff-sack.

"What's this?" I asked.

"Your sleeping bag." Then she handed me her sack and then the air mattresses, and sure enough she had completely cleaned house. So much for abondoning ship. She handed me everything from inside the tent packed and organized. Everything in it's place, I thought. 'And a place for everything.'

"Is that it?" I yelled above the wind.

"No," she said, handing me the stove. "Dumb ass," she smiled. I didn't need to say a thing.

We then went to town on the tent, grabbing and yanking until the tension was out of the frame and it became a large floppy sail . I jammed the poles into the main compartment of my pack and stuffed the tent and footprint right in next to them.

Now we had to get on our snow shoes and under our packs and we had to do it in short order. Any mistakes or delays cost our fingers precious warmth. Each time I exposed my fingers to the wind I thought that was as much as they could take. They would be fine if I could warm them up for ten minutes in my mits, but we didn't have ten minutes. I did fine with my gear, and then had to whip off the mits a couple of times to help Tami. Last of all, the buckles on the belts of our packs were frozen and off came the mits one last time.

"Check, check (leave nothing behind)." I took a quick bearing and we were off. Oh, the pleasure! We are leaving with all our gear, just like we should. It took gentle words and Zen-like patience on my part to match Tami's will, as though I had hurdled a great wall. Just so, our rope did the right thing and I felt happy. Once again we mustered our courage and and our courage had a quarrel with our bodies. At what cost? None. Accepting what risk? Ask Allan.

We followed our bearing until the fence drifted into view from our right. From then we followed the fence. I was relieved for we were safe for certain and I allowed my mind to run free. Tami was quiet so I asked her how she felt. "I'm on a mission," was all she said. 'Hmmm,' I thought, she must be deep in thought like me.

As after each successful outing the important thing is that we survive so that we may enjoy the next. Saturday or Sunday we will do trad on the Feathers - or sport if it is totally awful and we bag out. And between now and that day we will walk a little straighter and laugh a little more. On this climb we suffered the ups and downs of emotions, enough for a week of day-to-day life. Asking for happiness is too much. Instead, during this week our faces will be more expressive, our cheeks will fill with blood more readily whether we will or no, and our laughs will be a brighter. It turned out that Tami's 'mission' was very concrete: to get to the Denali. We will have to work on enjoying the descent next time.

Somehow it seemed to me that the cone-shape of the ski area is tilted. This, Eastern border travels due North, so the other border must be leaning all the way over. This disturbed me. It was as if the ski area was missing its Eastern flank. I looked around furtively. Something...Yes. We were by a small ridge, maybe ten feet high. And I could not see over it. I felt like I needed to know the view on the other side in order to avoid travel with a lopsided view like the shape of the ski area. I stepped off to my left and said, "I'm going to look over this ridge to our left." Tami was leading at the time. Oh, boy.

"You can't do that. You can't just decide you are going to go there. What book is that in?" she asked, her goggles fogging up.

"Its just a small distance in elevation." I replied. "I'll make a broad sweeping traverse. And its to reconnoiter, not change trajectory. You don't have to come."

"Oh, okay. In that case I'll come." And lo and behold there was our landmark for the parking area.

Before getting to Richland, we stopped in Kennewick. REI. XL mittens: sixty-five dollars. Top of the line water-proof shell: two-hundred dollars. The opportunity to stay drier and climb higher: priceless.

Apogee 04:45 21 Dec 6740 ft N 45*20.415' W 121*24.515'

There are so many things I am not doing, that I feel doomed to perpetual defeat for all I am neglecting, or learning too slowly. I drive myself to vigilance in order to make my way forth, like going uphill.