Not certain, but not deterred either. While I risk being labelled a schizophrenic, I believe it is really Mt. Hood that deserves such a title. In fact, I wonder whether Hood harbors the hysteria of a multiple-personality disorder.
Mt. Hood (elev. 11,245), is the most climbed glaciated peak on the continent and, worldwide, second only to Fuji. Women in high heels have jumped from their cars at Timberline Lodge (5900 feet) and spiked their way to the summit. But this white pyramid, so innocent in sunshine, also has the highest body count of any peak in the country. Nine years ago the worst mountaineering accident in Oregon history claimed the lives of seven high school students and two teachers. On that day, one of the frequent blizzards blowing off the Pacific had transformed Hood into an uninhabitable freezer.
Besides its mercurial weather, there's the schizophrenic element of development on Hood. The mountain is home to more ski areas than any other peak in the country, with Timberline dominating the south side, Mt. Hood Meadows occupying the steeper eastern flanks, and Cooper Spur holding the remote northern frontier. Meanwhile, two lodges, the humble Cloud Cap Inn to the north and the castle of Timberline Lodge to the south, command a tree line presence on the mountain. The sum of all this development leads many to the conclusion that man has shackled Hood's spirit.
Shackled, perhaps, but not castrated. Like the movie The Shining, which was filmed at Timberline, mysterious currents can lead those leaving the realm of development to a heart of darkness. Each year several skiers who duck the boundary ropes at Timberline and Hood Meadows find themselves descending primordial drainages where crevasses, rock fall, avalanches, and hypothermia conspire to bag new trophies for the mountain.
Add to this the variable of exposure. Hood may be composed of uniform igneous magma, but the south side harbors gentle slopes and sunlight while the north face--with its icefalls and shaded rock walls--rises from the forest like an incisor. I've come to Hood with the intent of skiing three of its faces and with the hope of truly grasping its nature. I can't help wondering, however, whether anyone can understand a mountain of fire and ice whose moods modulate between the melodious and the murderous.
Hood is among the most notable ski mountains in the country--it possesses the most ski areas, boasts the longest season, was home to the nation's second chairlift, and introduced Americans to summer skiing. Furthermore, 3000 vertical feet of off-piste terrain extend above the mountain's uppermost lift.
Little of this is apparent on this May morning as dozens of climbers, who want to be off the mountain once its snow bridges and rime-coated cliffs have softened in the sun, are already descending the mountain that we, the hedonists of sliding, are only halfway up. Hank (who is piqued that we walked 2500 vertical feet up Timberline's Palmer Lift just in time to see the first skier of the day reach the top), John Tremann, and I are the only skiers who have climbed above the lifts to expose bodies and edges to the awakening hours of the thaw.
Two days ago the thaw came early and the summit slopes were white sludge by noon. Today a cold wind blows while we lunch on top and the southern slopes chatter under our edges as we lay our tentative first turns above the gaping maw of a bergschrund. The wind vanishes as we drop and the afternoon sun transforms the crater around us into a reflector oven. Snow alchemizes from concrete to corn and the anxiety of sliding into an ice crack is replaced by the euphoria of slicing smooth sinuous lines.
With a cumulus ocean of valley clouds forming one backdrop and feathery cliffs of rime some 40-stories high forming another, Fujichrome flies through Hank's Nikon like movie film. John is equally engrossed by the setting and is volunteering suggestions for spectacular shots. "I'll start under the cornice that looks like an overhanging house, jump that block of ice resembling a levitating anvil, then link tight turns to the sphincter of that fumarole."
Odds are the mountain will not flatten John with its fist of ice, but I am squeamish about witnessing the tragedy should the murderous face of Hood surface. I leave Hank and John to their work and link turns to the headwall of the White River Canyon. The spot is within hearing distance of the climbing route, but as I steer the skis over the steep, convex roll and enter the shadow of Steel Cliff, a wall notorious for the igneous artillery it randomly drops, I know a great day could turn ugly between the curves of two turns. I chisel a solitary line, monitoring both the black wall of uncertainty overhead and the white highway of desire below.
I reenter the ski resort after threading crevasses on the flanks of the Palmer Glacier. Several lift skiers who watched my descent ask what it's like out there. I wax poetic over the skiing, then in midsentence, as I remember the randomness of the mountain's demeanor, I warn them about Hood's sinister side. They stare at me as though I'm suffering from oxygen deficiency.
Hank and John debate whether it's oxygen deficiency or stupidity that has me rousing them at 6:30 a.m. When I bribe them with a breakfast of granola and condensed milk, they know it's stupidity. After a crack-of-noon brunch of croissants and lattes, they tell me, they'll wring more photos from the mountain. They go back to sleep. I slam down a bowl of the cereal and rush to meet Jim and Renee Tripp.
Locals call the Tripps 'Team Timberline' because they met at Timberline, were married at Timberline, and work on the professional ski patrol at Timberline. Today, the duo are Timberline defectors. From the upper boundary of their turf we hike east, with skis on back, aiming for the massive pyramidal slopes of Wy'east which loom over the Mt. Hood Meadows Ski Resort like Eden's fruit of good and evil. Good, because the treeless 4000-vertical foot slopes curve ever steeper to a maximum incline of 40 degrees. Evil, because if that square mile of turf slides when you're skiing it, you can kiss your assets goodbye.
Both Renee and I are Wy'east virgins and by the time we reach the top of the crater rim, we lust the incline below. When we shed our purity and finally launch, a fragile crust coats the upper steeps. Under our weight, that crust disintegrates into white marbles which accelerate past our wipering skis. My eyes can't decide whether to focus on the skis or follow the beautiful flight of the pearls.
Soon we've descended into the zone of white velvet where the snow cleaves effortlessly. I unholster the camera to photograph Jim and Renee. They blast by my side on the diagonal line where slope and sky meet. Then, in a run where scenery, slope, and snow unite to etch one of those climactic memories of the season, I carve turns until my thighs sweat lactic acid.
We regroup at the top of a cat track connecting the upper lift at Hood Meadows to an entrance into Heather Canyon. We're looking down a steep, wide basin known as Superbowl. For the past two years Hood Meadows, the largest ski resort on the mountain, has stationed a snowcat at the top of the Cascade Express. Money-ladened skiers can pay an extra $15, ride the cat skyward 1000 vertical feet, then hop into the 3900-vertical-foot abyss leading to the resort's lower parking lot. The cat operation gives Meadows, Hood's area of choice among serious skiers, even more bragging rights--Superbowl is steep and sweet.
In practice, however, the mountain seldom allows the cat to run. The winter winds and snow that pound this treeless domain create twin troubles: they continually drift in the cat track, and they increase avalanche hazard, making Superbowl a synonym for suicide. It's not until April or May, when golf and gardening have shut down the area, that weather conditions favor the cat operation. Now the fruits are ripe and we, the skiers of spring, gloat over these deserted slopes coated with corn.
While we load the lone pickup sitting in a vast parking lot, I'm again reminded of the mountain's many faces. When I visited Meadows in February, a Pineapple Express blowing off the Pacific had created a lake in this parking lot. Winds drove the rain horizontally and, in the several minutes it took to sprint from car to lodge, even skiers with the latest $700 LeakTex suits were drenched. The mountain that sent me home with moss in the crotch that day has branded my lips with sun blisters today.
Mushrooms and beer--those two disparate items have sparked another then-versus-now flashback. I'm sitting in a massive wrought-iron chair beside a cavernous fireplace massaging my throat with basidiomycetes and micro brews. The location: Silcox Hut, located at the base of Timberline's Palmer Lift (elev. 6900 feet).
When completed in 1939 as part of the Works Progress Administration Project that gave birth to Timberline Lodge, Silcox Hut was the upper terminus of the Magic Mile Lift, then the second chair lift in the country. The bullwheel on the ground floor helped haul the rich and famous up here while the three-foot-thick rock walls and the bar upstairs kept visitors happy when Hood's temper turned sour. But the hut fell into disrepair in 1962 when the Magic Mile was relocated a few hundred yards to the west. For 30 years only climbers and skiers like myself, who needed low-rent refuge from the weather, winter camped inside.
Several years ago, the drones of comfort and class restored the hut to its old glory and, because it was no longer necessary to house the bullwheel, built bunk rooms to house climbers and skiers. I'm still undecided as to whether I prefer the gusto experience of yesteryear or the Gucci one of today, but as we leave the hut in the morning with light packs on our backs and pancakes in our bellies, Hank and John can't relate to my indecision.
For the third day in a row, I'm headed for the summit. John is well out in front and the descending climbers who question him learn we intend to ski the north side. As these climbers pass Hank and me, they give us the look of condemned men.
"You with the guy skiing the north face?" they ask tensely.
It starts troubling Hank. "What's going on here, Dappen?"
"The North Face," I emphasize. "Think about what those words connote--steep walls of ice, gaping crevasses, isolation, sinister rock walls." Then I sing about the Fifty Ways to Kill Your Partner, "Take a rock on the head, Fred; have a long slide, Clyde; fall from the flanks, Hank; and set yourself free."
Hank turns uncharacteristically silent. A faraway look that seems to contemplate orphaned kids and life-insurance policies clouds his face.
Once again we lunch on top, waiting for the sun to soften our line. Finally we traverse across the exposed summit ridge and steer the skis down the northwest ridge. The snow changes consistency with every turn--from cold winter snow, to breakable crust, to blue ice, to styrofoam... Below the Queens Chair, a prominent platform on the ridge, we traverse onto the Coe Glacier. A slip on the firn will result in a slide over a Niagara of ice. I pass Hank chanting,"Drop in a crack, Jack; take a long fall, Paul; let gravity yank, Hank; and get yourself dead."
Hank's eye, mesmerized by the photographic potential of the broken ice and steep walls, overrides any brain dread. Thinking about images rather than mortality, he skis the traverse easily, plots deft turns down a short pitch ending in a crevasse, and shoots across a snow bridge. We wait as he works with John to create those images. And wait. And...
Hours before he's ready to leave, I force Hank to cap the camera by abandoning him. I traverse off the Coe Glacier and, for 3000 vertical feet of nearly perfect corn, follow the undulating course of the Eliot Glacier. Forty-degree rolls passing prows of rock are followed by gentle slopes fringed with crevasses. For the second day in a row, I feast on the best spring conditions of the season.
Far below in the evergreen base of these slopes, the cut runs of the Cooper Spur Ski Area blemish the forests. It's a tiny operation catering to locals who value the intimacy of this wild side of the mountain. The irony that this is the wild side of Hood does not escape me. During the early 1900s before Timberline Lodge was built, Cloud Cap Inn, whose buildings are visible beside the moraine of the Eliot Glacier, was the hub of Hood. Now the few who visit Cloud Cap relate to the mountain one on one.
This historical irony seems befitting of a mountain of fire and ice, of starlight and storm, of gentleness and savagery. I stop near timberline to ponder what the past days have divulged. I will not be checking into the schizophrenic's ward: the mountain has not spoken. Ultimately, I never believed it would. Ultimately, I believe in the African proverb stating, "A riddle made by God is not solved." Ultimately, I believe in physicist Friedrich Durenmatt's assessment that "He who confronts the paradoxical exposes himself to reality."
I ski forward into the cover of forest, the white enigma of Hood at my back.
Details, Details
For information about skiing Mt. Hood, contact Timberline (503-272-3311), Mt. Hood Meadows (503-337-2222), or Cooper Spur (503-352-7803). Reservations at Timberline Lodge and Silcox Hut are made by calling 800-547-1406. For inexpensive packages to ski Mt. Hood Meadows and lodge at Hood River, call 800-366-3530.
