Mt. Hood

Due to the late snow lingering on the slopes of the high peaks here in Oregon, Bryan and I were able to sneak in a late season run up the southside ofMt. Hood this past weekend.  The weather forecast was nice and settled for the entire weekend so we opted to head out of town on Friday afternoon, and begin out climb in the early evening. The alpenglow was fantastic on the mountain as we headed up to about 9,500.  At around 11:00 PM we found a nice flat spot and settled into our bivy sacs for a short nap.

Around 3:00 AM we woke up and continued our climb to the top. One of the advantages of sleeping on the mountain is that it put us above of all of the other parties that left the parking lot at Timberline Lodge at midnight (which is what most people do when climbing the southside).

The final pitch to the summit is pretty steep and exposed but the faint light preceding dawn was inspiring us to get to the top in order to catch the sunrise from the summit.

We were not disappointed either! The views from the summit ridge of the rising sun were incredible.

And the views down to the Elliot Glacier weren't so bad either!! The cracks on the glacier are really big, and the low angle light made them look even more impressive!

We spent about twenty minutes on the summit by oursleves and then began our descent just as another party was making their way up. I'm glad we were first on top that morning.  The two black dots on the snow below us are the other folks coming up.

And one last look at the mountain after we made it back to the truck. Round trip with a nap on the mountain of about 14 hours. Great trip for sure!!