Mt. Hood: Cooper Spur
This is definitely one of my most favorite hikes on Mt. Hood. I
think my latest journey up Cooper Spur was my 4th. The views of
the mountain are awesome. All along the Spur you can look right
into the crevasses on Elliot Glassier. Off to the north you can
see Mt. Adams and Mt. St. Helens. Once atop Cooper Spur,
looking to the south you can see Mt. Jefferson, and The
Three Sisters.
As you all know (if you hike in the Northwest), we had a long
winter so it took a while for trails to open. Though we were
still surprised when we were driving up the dirt road to Cloud
Cap that at the T where the road splits (one going to Tilly Jane,
the other to Cloud Cap) there was snow blocking the road. We
parked there and walked the rest of the way to the trail head.
Oh yes... a note about the road. For the first year the forest
service has charged us to park at Cloud Cap (either $3 a day or
you can get a $25 yearly pass for most areas in Oregon and
Washington). If you're going to charge me to hike there, please,
at least maintain the road! I have never seen it this bad. This
road is suppose to be gravel, but in many stretches the gravel
is completely washed away, revealing dirt underneath. Dirt isn't
too bad, right? Well.. there are also huge pot holes (if things
so large can even be called pot holes), many over 6 inches deep,
all along the road. If you're driving in some macho SUV you
probably won't have a problem. However, if you're in a Toyota
Supra as we were, it gets horrible. In fact, I bet it's those
stupid macho SUV owners that made the road this way, tearing up
there at 40mph. Anyway... unless you drive something with
two feet of ground clearance, I'd watch it on this road...
So, on with the hike! It starts out very briefly in a forest,
but you quickly get out of that and onto the bare ridge. There is
actually a trail that switch backs up the side of the ridge,
but I much rather walk straight up the ridge, as I'm sure
everyone else does. Of course the switch backs won't be as
steep as the top of the ridge, but they will also probably
turn this 6.5 mile hike into a 9 mile hike.
The whole way up the Spur the mountain was completely covered in
clouds above 9,000 feet. There were a few times when the clouds
would break for a moment revealing a brief view of the mountain.
During one of these times I took this "insurance" shot on the
left. This was the first time I had been up there when it was
cloudy.
Again, if you really want to enjoy hikes on Hood, you really
should bring a nice pair of binoculars. Looking into the
crevasses on Elliot Glacier is just incredible. Some of them,
like the ones to the right, are almost 100 feet deep!
The picture is deceiving; they don't look that large, but they
truly are massive. Here's the trick... look at the large
version of the picture to the right... see those two oblong
dots in the upper right hand corner, on the snow dome? Those are
two hikers. You wouldn't want to fall in one of those crevasses.
As I continued up the ridge I kept on looking back into these
crevasses. When I was parallel to one of them, I took the picture
at the left. You can still see the clouds directly above the
crevasses. Once we got to about the 7,700 foot mark we had
entered the clouds and we really couldn't see the
mountain. Since I couldn't see anything anyway, I took off to see
how fast I could get to 8,500 feet. Huffing and puffing away,
I got up there in 25 minutes. 800 feet in 25 minutes at 8,000
feet... not bad.
Every other time I've been up Cooper Spur I've stopped at the
8,500 foot mark, where the Spur levels out. I'm not really
sure why though... that's always been my destination so I've
never second guessed it. This time though, I figured I mine as
well keep on going, so I went all the way up until I hit snow,
right below 9,000 feet. It's amazing how much of a difference
500 feet makes when you're that high! Standing at this point
seems so much higher than standing at the 8,500 point of the
Spur. The top of the mountain is only about a mile away... though
2,300 feet up...
I said you could see Mt. Jefferson from up here, and here's the
proof of it. Well... you can't really see it in the small
version, so click on the image to see. Just to the left of
Jefferson you can see hints of The Three Sisters. They were
so hazy I didn't even notice them at the time, and as a result
they were cropped out of my view finder. That large set of
crevasses sticking out on the right side of the picture are
on the Newton Clark Glacier. One of the times I climbed up
Cooper Spur we shot down the side of the Spur from 8,500 feet,
down onto the Newton Clark Glacier, and glissaded down it
until we hit the Timberline Trail, and took that back to
Cloud Cap. If you're comfortable sliding down gravel this can be
a fun alternative to coming back the way you came.
Finally, after standing at 9,000 feet for about
20 minutes, the mountain began to clear off. It didn't completely
clear off until we were a ways back down the Spur, but most
of the mountain was clear. Unfortunately by this time the sun
was behind the mountain, leaving most of it in a shadow. The
sun star still makes this image nice though. I took about 8
similar pictures while up top here, but I think this was the
only one where there were no clouds directly in front of the
mountain. Unfortunately, it is also the only one I
shot at f22, and is the only one where there is any hint
of flare... and here it's quite a bit more than a hint. Oh well,
try and ignore the flare.
One of the things I always look forward to doing on this hike
is glissading down the snow field, as outlined on the
map. If you're going to do this,
you should probably have on some Gortex pants or you're going
to totally freeze. Also, an ice axe is a MUST. It's your only
safety line in case you get going too fast. You can always
perform a self arrest. Also, the ice axe is what you use to steer
with, and slow down. It's a lot of fun. This year though, the
snow field was rougher than normal, with more ups and downs, so
it was hard to get going fast. Once I got down to about 7,000
feet, I cut across to the Spur and went back the way I came
up.
This is a great hike; as I said, one of my favorite, if not
my very favorite, hike on Mt. Hood. It also gives you good
high elevation training, in case you want to take on something
more formidable, like South Sister (which I plan on doing
in September). If you can handle a 3,000 foot climb in 3 miles
at high elevation, definitely go here.
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