Mt. Hood & Mt. Adams Climbing Trip

After a successful climb of Mt. Rainier in 2006, I've been itching to get back to the Cascade Volcanoes. The terrain is spectacular. For this trip, I went with the Serac Club to climb Mt. Hood, Oregon, and Mt. Adams, Washington. (See my website for more photos)

Mt. Hood--that is a fine mountain.

We camped on the south face of Mt. Hood.

A brilliant sunset.

Climbing in the morning.

The shadow of Mt. Hood cast in the distance.

Reaching the summit ridge.

Another picture of the shadow

On the summit (Me, Glenn, Tyler)

After Mt. Hood, we drove to Mt. Adams, just north in Washington.

The road was still snowed-in 3.5 miles from the trailhead. We ended up digging out the road and driving all the way to the trailhead. Although it was a ton of work, we felt motivated and had a blast doing it.

When we got to the trailhead, a youth group had a young adult who had fell in a tree well with a 70-pound pack and blown out his knee. They had no idea how to get him down the mountain other than carrying him 3.5 miles. They were preparing to carry him when we showed up at 8pm. They were emotional and stunned at the same time. We put the boy in the back of the car and drove him down our newly opened road. It was a wonderful experience to help someone in such desperate need. In addition, when we met the group, they were dumbfounded that we had cleared the road of snow and trees. They kept asking "How did you do it?" I was still wearing flip-flops and one of the boys said, "And look, he's wearing flip-flops." Another boy responded, "Wow, he's a mountaineer." No joke. It was the best ego-trip of my life. Yeah, that's right boys.

Mt. Adams in the morning. This climb was a beast. Nearly 6,700 vertical feet and 14 miles round trip.

A storm nearly overtook us, but is passed us to the west. We considered it some divine help for our good deed yesterday.

Climbing the upper mountain.

The summit. Great trip!