The mighty Hood : 3rd time lucky скачать в хорошем качестве

The mighty Hood : 3rd time lucky

Third time lucky : The Mount Hood climb 7th June 2025 With my friend and mentor Craig Westwood Sharing memorable hike of 2025 and some previous experiences which made this one possible. 1st attempt: The mighty hood 11249ft - adventure on memorial Day 27th May 2024 I was ready for the final ascent of remaining 800ft, already I could see the sun was up on the chute and heard the falling snow, as I climbed up and up snow falling was getting faster and faster, and I was continuously dodging the snow shelling from above, until there were too many came and one large chunk of ice sneaked through and hit my lower left leg, I shouted in pain, was in shock, took couple of more steps and halted there to contemplate the situation. Luckily the climbing community has great people one climber immediately rushed towards me and asked if I need help to climb down, was able to see to top of chute in front 200ft away but replied yes. Another day will be there for me.... 2nd attempt: June 10th 2024 You must have a good sleep before night hikes, no sleep will bring risks, like lack of focus, entanglement of crampons, in my case it caused only tearing the pants. There were a lot of rockfalls and icefall and I couldn't focus enough I was feeling fatigued due to no sleep, so decided to return from 0.1 mile remaining. Sun rays hitting the chute and still the temperatures were high and started snow fall from the top. Will wait for another time. I enjoyed this one thoroughly as I was the first one to start on the trail and all alone for a couple of hours, enjoying the scare and excitement of the lonely path. 3rd time lucky: 11304 ft , 7 miles , 5300 ft gain This was very special for my friend Craig as he did it one more time after 30 years or so, and I could feel it by his emotions flowing out at the end of the hike. Craig and I trained together, in every new outing he would choose hikes that increase 500 to 1000 elevation gain or 1-2 miles in distance or both. Gradually we ended with mount defiance in the last training hike and were ready for the mountains. We started around 11:30 pm on a beautiful clear night, the path was visible under the moon light. We galloped towards the hot rocks crossing the palmer, White River , and zigzag glaciers, and the devils kitchen. You also see shadow of the hood and two beautiful landmarks the illumination rock and the crater rock on the way up to the foothill of the coalman glacier. And now I was again, one more time in front of the last remaining 800 feet ready to take the old chute path (6:30am). I was first time going up using two ice axes, and was making sure to have solid 4 points on the mountain, and was only moving one point at a time keeping 3 points of contact solid on the mountain. The experienced hikers were kind enough to pass me from sides without having me change my direction at all and were also passing me words of encouragement. Craig already summited by then and was up on top waiting for me and captured some moments for me when I was climbing up the steep narrow chute trail. We met on top of the chute and the moment was ecstatic for me. We exchanged greetings and he started the descent and I started to walk the remaining path to the summit which was a 100feet horizontal cat walk and then a simple walk to the summit. Enjoyed the lone time on the summit (8am). Heading back was more challenging as the sun was out and the foot holds were not so obvious coming down. I observed and learned from the fellow climbers, sometimes you may have to move parallel in the horizontal direction to get a better vertical downward footings. In the middle of the descent a big ice chunk started falling towards me, and I heard Craig's voice "Turtle look for it move move". He was a guardian angel always looking after me. Luckily the big chunk split in two halves and passed from my left and right sides. We met at hot rocks again and continued our descent. While crossing a crevasse to reach the devil's kitchen one of my legs did not get a solid base and went pretty deep, used my axe to lock and pull out and then used a different location with a stretched out leg to reach the other side safely. I was passing through the devils kitchen when I saw some one sleeping on the snow, thought there must be some kid, but realized It was Craig relaxing , as I saw the happy man coming towards me, said " Turtle we did it !". As we both were sharing the moment of joy a huge rock was tumbling down towards us just passed by our side, we both were like "let's get out of here as fast as possible and enjoy at the parking lot" and started the remaining descent which was tiring but pretty safe. This climb will always be special for both of us a newbie and a return of a master, synced with one question "should we do it again?!..." #climbing #hiking #snow #crampons #iceaxe #mountains #hood #shadow #nature #love #life #portland #oregon #trails #mountainboots #mounthoodnationalforest #mounthood