Cooper Spur

Tilly Jane TH was nearly empty when we pulled into the parking lot. We grabbed our packs and started hiking up the trail, getting to the Tilly Jane shelter in just over an hour. We hoped to find snow sooner rather than later since the skis and boots on our backs were doing nothing other than add training weight. By the time we reached the Cooper Spur shelter, we found ourselves in a sea of suncupped snow. Optimistic, we switched to skis and skins and began making our way up toward the ridge. Sadly, the snow was NOT very skinnable and our skins gripped the snow with hardly anymore security than our boots had. Once we gained the ridge, we ditched our skis and switched over to crampons.

Looking up at the route, it didn’t look that bad. The first section of snow was relatively low-angled and our biggest objective hazard was rockfall. After the first man-killer came screaming down the chute in front of us, we decided to climb in shifts: one person climbing at a time and the other person with eyes-up, looking for tumbling rocks. Our strategy worked and, despite the quickly-warming (and, in places, very rotten) snow, we were eventually able to gain the upper section of the ridge and get out of the line of fire.

Once we were in the "safer-zone," we took a quick lunch break. The rotten snow had required more throws with my tools than I had anticipated and my shoulders and arms were feeling pretty worked. We quickly ate food while leaning against a tiny platform we dug out and watched as clouds started rolling in. We had maybe a hundred feet of good visibility in all directions which obscured the entirety of the lower part of the route.

Luckily from here, we were faced with lower-grade climbing that was on mostly good snow so the shrinking visibility wasn't much of an issue. The summit cornice was not in place so pulling up and over the edge was cake. We drank it in. 

With visibility getting worse and worse, we decided to bail on our planned descent- the sunshine route. Instead, we down-climbed the Pearly Gates and found ourselves face to face with a budding crevasse that was beginning to block direct traffic to the gates and which was also stretching its way across the old chute. Good luck, late season Hood climbers....

Together, we skied down from the kitchen and had 4,000′ of perfect, prime, amazing corn. Both of us were pretty worked at this point but we managed to enjoy some sweet turns. We managed to snag a ride back to the Cooper Spur turn off on hwy 35 and another up the road to where we were parked.

http://www.mountainrefugees.com/#!Mount-Hood-via-Cooper-Spur/cu6k/575712360cf24c9615a40d94

Oh and here's a video: