Modular Stories

My Mountaineers group hiked up to about 8,156 feet on Mount Hood on Saturday, May 29. The plan was to wake up at 2 a.m. to attempt the summit. The main purpose of the trip was to finish out our training for the year with a snow-camping overnighter.

We arrived at our campsite at about 5 p.m. on Saturday and spent the next two hours building snow walls to protect our sleeping and cooking areas, erecting tents, melting snow for the next days water, and eating dinner. I skipped the hassle of a hot meal and at my chocolate coated pemmican instead (I’m really starting to get this recipe perfected).

I learned a lot about working effeciently in teams so that we could maximize our sleep time before the summit. We turned in around 7 p.m.

The wind picked up in the night, and while I was warm, I still had the tent flapping against my head for most of the night. Oddly this didn’t seem to affect my ability to sleep–I imagine it was because 7 years of sleeping through 50mph dust storms at Burning Man was good training.

Our leader made a round at about 2:30 a.m., telling everyone that it was a white out and to stay in our tents–we wouldn’t be making the summit attempt. (For those who are not already alpinists, the typical alpine start is sometime in the early morning between midnight and 3 a.m., when the ground is hardest. The goal is to get up and down the mountain before snow bridges soften and rocks start to loosen).

Shortly after Steve woke us up the first time, I left the tent to relieve my bladder. Freezing rain and huge gusts made it pretty miserable outside, and I was soaked when I went back to the tent. I warmed up quickly though–I’m pretty happy with my insulation system.

I slept off and on for the next four hours. When the sun came, Steve told us we were packing it in and heading down. We put on our rain gear and packed our bags inside our tents, then left our tents to tear down. We worked in teams of four on each tent, and packed everything in and demolished our snow walls pretty quickly. Once off the morraine, the wind wasn’t nearly as intense, and we had a nice leisurely stroll out.

We didn’t make the summit, but we achieved our first objective of learning about camping on a glacier. We achieved our second one too: “The first objective is always coming home safe. The summit is just a bonus.” No bonus this time, but we avoided injuries and gained a lot of knowledge.

Mt. Hood attempt