Redemption 3-19-06

For the three day Presidents Day weekend plans changed quite a bit. The initial plan was to head to Shasta but a front was moving through the area. Next was to climb Rainier. The weather was perfectly clear for our climbing period but an arctic front came down from the north and temperatures including windchill would have be around -30 degrees. Needless to say was not happy about the cold but crystal clear conditions since I did not have the gear for anything remotely that cold. The plan changed to climbing Middle Sister, and Thayer Headwall on North. At this point really did not want to carry all the heavy cold weather gear for an over nighter, ok I was getting lazy. Fortunately my climbing partner Josh was on the same page, thank god. I found out two days before the weekend that my buddy Chuck was going to go back and climb Leuthold after we had figured out what gully not go up in our previous attempt. Since the artic front was in full effect bringing high winds on Friday night/Saturday the climb was set for Sunday. The team of 6 (3 skiers, and 3 booters) left Timberline at the late hour of 7 am (cold temps + no wind = no ice fall). I decided to boot up since the slops had received no new snow for many days and the slopes were very icy. We made great time to illumination Saddle, 2.5 hours. Conditions were perfect for cramponing. Rested and geared up Josh and I left the saddle first followed shortly by the rest of the climbers. Heading up the slope to the Hour Glass the snow was perfect Styrofoam. These were dream climbing conditions. The Hour Glass was about two pitches of about 40 degree snow that went fast. Now we were on route for sure. Josh and I headed up to Queens Chair for a break to let the rest of the climbing party catch up. Josh and I reached the Chair and were greeted with a spectacular view of St. Hellens, Mt Adams, and Rainier. From here you can look over the upper portion of Sandy Headwall and that looks like a lot of fun. That climb would be a very long day but a lot of fun. After Chuck and Larry joined us at the Chair the four of us left for the summit. The last two in the party were roped up and placing pro most of the way for practice on steeper climbs, so they were taking a lot longer to climb the route. The rest of the climb went fairly quickly as we trudged up. At this point I was getting a headache from the altitude. The traverse of the North Ridge was easy and safe. We made the summit in about 3 hours from illumination saddle. A good time considering the long brakes we took. Booting down to the car was torture to say the least, a good reminder of why I like to skin up and ski down. My knees and ankles were killing me by the time I made it to the car. What a great trip!!! It was cold all day very little wind and perfect snow. I was happy to do the full route and will be happy to never do it again if I can avoid it. Great route with some steepness, but nothing that interesting. However I would love to do this route again if I can get some good ski conditions for a ski decent!!!!! The next climb on hood will be steel cliffs to help prepare for an attempt on the North Face. Will hope to post some pics as soon as chuck gets them on the web. What a great day!!! Hope to have more of these soon.