Mt Hood MLK weekend

So since the University was closed over MLK weekend, i decided that i needed to take advantage of this 3 day weekend. Leading up to the weekend there had been very high avalanche levels and the weather looked iffy. But the week leading up to the break was nice and calm, so the snow pack settled out, we had constant temperatures, and the weather was looking nice for an attempt. On Thursday before the weekend, there were high winds predicted for the weekend, and some snow precipitation (1-3 inches). This was slightly worrisome, because we knew that if there were high winds, then we would have a very very hard time above treeline. The weather was looking alright on friday night, overcast and the majority of the precipitation occurring on saturday, our hike in day, sunday looked to be clearing and monday looked very nice; so we decided to go ahead and leave early saturday morning. 6am roles around and we are filling up Nathan's car with all of the gear that would be needed. We drove through Portland around 830am, and was parking at the Snow-park around 10am. The hike in was a short 3 miles to a group of cabins (Tilly Jane area), and the trail was fully covered with snow. Normally this hike in is quite easy, but within a little bit, i felt some hot spots developing on the balls of my feet. So i stopped and patched up my feet with a generous amount of Ducktape. But....it was too late, i had already developed a quarter sized blister on my right foot, and it was looking like the same thing would happen on the left foot....NOOOO..... We got to the cabin about an hour and a half after we left the car, and we were faced with the choice of moving on to try and find the stone shelter that is at treeline, or to set up out tent around treeline. To recap out plan: Hike in to either the cabins or to treeline on saturday, wake up at midnight and see what the weather is doing; if the weather is nice, it is a go for the summit, if the weather isn't too nice sleep until 6am and then move as high as possible, and spend the night (sunday night) in a snow cave, and go for the summit on monday.
So midnight roles around, and it was windy enough to warrant us going back to sleep, also since we were in a group cabin, there were many people there, and nobody (besides out group) wanted to go to sleep at 530pm, so we were all awake until 10 or 1030pm listening to them chit-chat, So we also were looking forward to another 5 hours of sleep. We got everything prepared for the next day or two days and were out hiking by 730am or a little before 8am. The hike up to treeline was amazing, we were breaking trail (through only a few inches of snow) so it seemed like it was only the three of us in the middle of a winter wonderland. Once we broke through the trees, it was quite evident that this was going to be an interesting, and possibly a slow day. The visibility was very low (averaged 200m), there was a steady, but light snow fall, and surprisingly there was no wind. Since our goal of the day was just to get as high as possible, we kept moving up, and every once in a while (actually only happened twice the entire day), the clouds would break, and we would be able to see the whole mountain. I should note that somebody at the cabin gave me some blister patches, which worked very very well, my feet were not bothering me at all.
Once we reached an elevation around 7,000ft, it was time to descend down onto the Eliot Glacier , travel across a flat, crevasse free section and onto the other side. We descended down, and then hiked up to this horizontal section, and then we talked about the rest of the day. By that point the visibility was fluctuating between 50 and 150m, and the snow had increased slightly. Also the weather for MLK day had changed, there were now reports of high winds for that day. After a little food and water break, it soon became evident that it would not be a) safe and b)really worth it to dig a snow cave, spend the night, and awake to high winds; so we decided to call it a day and we started our decent. But the day would not be over, we decided that it would probably be a smart idea to take out the rope (which i had carried the entire way up to 7500ft) and practice our crevasse rescue, and how to travel on snow with a rope. We spent a few good hours messing around with it, and playing in the snow, then we made our way back to the cabin. We arrived at 4pm, so we donned our headlamps since the sun would be setting soon, and we hiked out. We were back at the car after dark, and eating a very satisfying Subway sandwich an hour or so later. We were back in Eugene by 10pm on sunday night. Overall this trip has just added another notch into my belt, and has exposed me to different conditions, so it wasn't completely worthless.

Some pictures:











The last picture is from Thanksgiving last year, it is trying to show what the weather was like, but it doesnt really show the correct visibility....