I was fortunate enough to have the company of young Rhys Dubin on my first Mt Hood climb of the year. We had excellent conditions for our summit attempt consisting of perfect neve crust all the way to the base of Crater Rock. After assessing the snow conditions and the weather we decided to spice things up a touch and have a go at the Devil's Kitchen Headwall. We found great moderate ice climbing in two pitches up to the East Crater Rim where we were greeted by very high winds from the west. We then began climbing the final portion of the Wy'East route weaving through the numerous gendarmes and gullys.
The view was completely unobstructed by cloud and was fantastic. We summited around 8 am completing TMG's first successful summit bid of 2009. We descended the Pearly Gates to find 10' vertical step of ice which we carefully negotiated down to the hogs back and then downward through the cloud layer to the Lodge. All in all I had a great start to my season with an aspiring young alpinist.
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