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After spending the day at the County fair with my family and watching my son go on a bunch of fun rides, I left the southern Willamette Valley and headed north to Mt Hood to do some fun riding of my own. I arrived at the Cloud Cap trail head around 8:45pm, where I found my buddy Todd sitting by a cozy fire sipping on vodka. I pitched my bivy sack and made camp in short order, had a brew from Deschutes Brewery, then hit the sack. The next morning we awoke at 4:30am, broke camp, ate breakfast, and were hiking up the hill in time to catch the sun rising and casting an nice orange glow over the horizon and Mt Adams to the north...



We descended onto the Eliot Glacier around 6:45am and the snow pack appeared to be holding up well. Usually I ride the Eliot in early July, and conditions looked to be similar today. We put on the crampons and booted up to the first series or crevasses,finding one large crack that allowed us to cross on the far west side of the glacier, near a rocky cliff. A thin snow bridge with a 30 foot drop on either side allowed a somewhat sketchy passage, and then we hiked up a snow finger to the base of the Snowdome (a prominent snowfield separating the Eliot and Coe glaciers on Hood's north side). Here's the view of the Eliot from above the first set of crevasses....



The weather was perfect, and the snow was softening nicely as we approached the top of Snowdome. Someday I want to go to the top via this route, but today was not the day. Monster crevasses and bergschrunds block the passage of the Sunshine route right now. By 9:00 we started our descent, which would consist of a couple thousand vertical of pleasant corn. Here's a shot of me riding with some icefall in the background....



Todd made some nice turns on his tele's with Mt Rainier & Mt Adams in the background....



In no time we were back down to the base of the dome, and thought about descending into the Langille Bowls. Peering down into the main bowl, we elected against dropping in given the warm temps and long hot slog required to get back up the hill now that the Timberline Trail is washed out (it actually washed out in 2006). Instead, we traversed back to the Eliot, where another thousand vertical feet of corn remained. On the way down, I stopped to snap a few photos of the crevasses and seracs in the area and kind of liked the below picture. Wouldn't want to fall in one of these holes though...



When we got back down to the lower set of crevasses, we had to take off the boards and negotiate the snow bridge with the crampons again. The turns on the lower glaicer were excellent.



We passed a group of climbers doing some crevasse rescue practice and were back at the base of the glacier by about 9:45. Here's a shot of our route from the base of the glacier. The top of the Snowdome is in the upper right of the photo just below a visible rock outcrop and large crevasse.



The hike to Cloud Cap from the bottom of the glacier only takes about 45 minutes, but always seems to take longer going down than going up



Back at the truck by 10:30, it was getting warm. I loaded up my gear, bid Todd farewell and started the long drive down the bumpy gravel road to Parkdale, heading home via Hood River and Portland. Conditions are still good on Hood and should be for another couple of weeks. Here's a parting shot of the mountain from Parkdale, with our route in plain view in the middle of the photo.

Dude,

That's an awesome TR and awesome pics!

Thanks so much for the invitation to join you..but life got in the way and I was unable to take you up on it. Also..I've just been slammed, so sorry I didn't respond to your PM.



I was touring with Swanny and Fullers2oh this spring, walking out down a dirt road and we were making the same observation! Just yesterday I did a 40 mile mtb ride on steep fire road. In doing my research I figured the first 10 miles would be all up hill, then the next ten would be rolling.

Well..rolling turned out to be 1k' drops and climbs over and over again for 10 continuous miles-with a hairpin, sandy turn to punctuate the bottom of each decent (read...no milking the decent for vertical on the next hill!). On the way out I decided I'd just ridden the worlds only mtb ride that is all uphill all the way in both directions!

Anyway..great TR and stoke! Tell Todd I said 'sup!

[quote="jbaysurfer"]Thanks so much for the invitation to join you..but life got in the way and I was unable to take you up on it. Also..I've just been slammed, so sorry I didn't respond to your PM.
[quote]

Thanks Josh! We'll hook up sooner or later for some more turns! I'll say hi to Todd for ya'

Nice. Jealous of the year round options up there.

yeah man thats my home turf...lots of goodness there.