ASH: Hood / Wy’east

“It’s supposed to be tough. Otherwise everyone would do it.”

Stephen Schieberl
Jul 21, 2017 · 19 min read
The GPS track. My watch died around mile 40. The rest is appended from my SPOT data.

On Wednesday, July 19, 2017, I summited Mt. Hood (Wy’east) with my friend Scotty Strain, then continued onto circumnavigate it solo. It was the first mountain in my ASH project. I was one minute shy of the twenty-one hour mark when I visited the Timberline Lodge for the third time that day. The trip was about fifty-two miles with over 15,500' of elevation gain and loss. However, the statistics, the photos, and even this report can’t possibly capture the experience.

Before I set out, I sent Richard Kresser, who pioneered the RASH and inspired this mission, an email with my SPOT share page so he could follow along in real time. He said in his reply, “Get it man, and remember, it’s supposed to be tough. Otherwise everyone would do it.” I’ve heard variations on this before, but this turned into a mantra which stuck with me.

Mountain shadow from the Old Chute.

Sleep is an underappreciated discipline in ultra running. It’s hard to get before an effort like this, so I put in some serious hours Monday night. I worked from home the next day, napping at lunch and turning in early. I woke up at 11:30pm feeling like I could conquer the world. Scotty Strain met me at home shortly after and we were on our way up to the mountain just after midnight.

We wasted no time checking in and getting moving before 1:30am. Filling out the climb form and getting my wilderness permit was when it first truly dawned on me what I was undertaking. Destination on the climb form: “summit”. On my wilderness permit — start: “lodge”, destination: “lodge”, nights: ”0”. Both forms shared the same date.

Moonrise.

To save energy, I wanted us to make the summit trip a proper one. We’d hike the whole thing to keep my legs fresh for the forty-plus miles which remained after we returned, and for the shorter yet still impressive run Scotty was executing afterwards. It was a moonless night. As expected in planning to do this on a Wednesday, the mountain had essentially no climbing traffic. We worked our way around the recently built, gargantuan, ski and snowboard training park. We stayed on rock, then got onto the groomed snow. The grade increased and we donned our crampons.

Approaching Devil’s Kitchen just before dawn.

Above the snow park, the ground returned to bare rock. I was wearing my Salomon XA Alpines with Camp XLC 490 aluminum crampons. It is a killer ultralight configuration, but it meant no dry tooling. The crampons had to come off on the rock. Scotty was in heavier boots with steel crampons, but he was able to keep them on the whole way up. We met up with and passed two guys from Chicago who were going for their first Hood summit. Upon reaching the Devil’s Kitchen, we swapped our poles for axes and aimed for the Old Chute route.

On the Hot Rocks.

Above the kitchen was crevasse city. The bergschrund below the Pearly Gates route was massive, and the surrounding glacier was laden with deep, wide cracks. They were obvious and it was easy to establish a route without them in our fall line. We hopped over a couple of them on the way to the Hot Rocks, but they weren’t anything we wouldn’t be able to climb out of easily. The fumaroles were running hot and active, so we booked it to escape the foul, toxic gases.

Scotty ascending the Hot Rocks.

The boot trail up the Old Chute, which had been established over the season, had lost its definition. It was steep, lumpy, and the ice was too hard to get good purchase from our tools. The standard axe-step-step wasn’t going to work here. We had to swing our picks in hard, then get what we could with front points unless there was a good bowl in the lumps to plunge our crampons. It was tedious. We passed near a large crevasse. The standard route which went straight up and over the catwalk, a foot-wide ridge with a 2,000' drop on one side, wasn’t looking great. The 1-o’clock chute, which was steeper, but curved off towards the summit, bypassed the catwalk and looked more promising.

The Old Chute was a ladder of hard, rounded lumpy ice.
A large crevasse near the Old Chute.

The final ascent was even steeper and less defined than what we’d been climbing. It was coated in loose rime ice. Planting the pick deep was critical here, and often took a few tries. The last two steps were onto dry ground. A large wall of ice stood between us and the top. We proceeded carefully to verify we weren’t walking out onto a cornice, then made a straight line to the true summit, which was bare rock that day. Before the trip and the whole way up, we kept reminding ourselves that we were good with just getting as high up on the mountain as possible; turning back if the summit was too risky. I was willing to accept it going in, so I was beyond elated to be standing there.

Summit!
The true summit was bare rock.
Scotty and the mountain shadow from summit.
The obligatory summit selfie.

We watched the sun rise as it cast a hard mountain shadow out to the ocean. We snapped some photos. The guys from Chicago caught up. Some calories, water, and a crampon check and we started the descent.

Looking down the north side.

I wasn’t fully celebrating the summit yet, because I knew this was going to be the toughest part. And it was. I went first. Lacking experience and technique for this type of descent, I was pretty pegged out. I think Scotty picked up on it and gave me some advice. It took putting it into practice for a few dozen yards before I got a rhythm and was able to calm my nerves while staying focused on my movement and surroundings. I stayed low and slow facing in until I passed the big crevasse. The ice was still too hard for good purchase, but I felt comfortable enough with the decreasing grade to turn out and plunge step it back down to the Hot Rocks.

Descending the Old Chute.

We encountered a few more climbers waiting for us to descend. We chatted a bit and then worked our way back down to the kitchen. Once past all the crevasses and back under 10,000’, I finally started to celebrate in my mind. The rest of the summit was just hiking out from there. The first major hurdle had been cleared.

We met a couple climbers heading up after we cleared the path.
The fumaroles were hot and active.

I wanted to jog down, but my crampons were rubbing abrasions into my ankle bones and Scotty’s boots were tearing up his heels. We hiked at a decent clip, slogging our way back to the lodge with an elapsed time of 7:48. I had originally estimated we could have made the summit round trip in six hours. The conditions just weren’t going to allow that.

The sun’s first peek over the mountain.

The thing about summiting and circumnavigating Mt. Hood on the same day is that the conditions for each have to be in their more challenging states. When the summit is perfect, the Timberline Trail is buried in snow and ice. When the trail is clear, the summit is too dangerous for a novice like me to attempt. Six hours was an ignorant prediction to make. I started to realize that my eleven hour goal for the circumnavigation was probably going to be short, too.

In the clear! Just a hike down from here.

We checked out. I changed clothes and gear while slamming a burrito and a Red Bull. Scotty crewed me and we each set off on our respective post-summit runs. I was at 100%. The summit hadn’t taken a single ounce of energy out of me. I felt like I was going to absolutely crush this thing. I picked up Timberline Trail #600 and headed counterclockwise around the mountain at a solid pace. I started this run with poles and would carry them the entire time. Something I’ve never done, but I guessed — correctly — was the right move after the summit effort.

A beautiful start to the circumnavigation.

The Timberline Trail has world class scenery. The beauty is pervasive and more impressive at every turn. It was difficult not to take photos every five minutes, but the stops were cutting into my pace; and I’d had a later than expected start. The first ten miles flew by. Aside from a minor false cairn snafu in the White River which I quickly corrected, I was making up time and moving well. The first descent was smooth. I was wearing my heart rate monitor and noticed I was running hot. I chalked it up to altitude and heat and figured I could move my usual target up a few points. I climbed up past Meadows. Still running pretty hot, but thought I could maintain it.

Infinite views from the south side’s meadows.

Newton Creek was rushing. I knew that the late start meant I was going to have tough river crossings right up front. I wore my new Hoka One One Speedgoat 2s for the circumnavigation. I selected these for this run specifically for their grip on wet logs and rocks. They did not disappoint. I was confidently rock hopping on smooth, wet, slimy rocks and branches all day without slipping a millimeter.

Climbing up to Lamberson Butte, I started to slow down a bit and decided to lower my target heart rate considerably. Near the end of the climb before the snowfields, I was bonking hard. I shuffled across the snow, stopping to refill my water from the melting snow and rest for a few minutes to reset. The previous year, I flew down the next section of trail. I tried to make up time on the descent, but the energy just wasn’t there. My calorie intake was consistent, as it would be for this entire run right to the end, but I just wore myself out.

Forest meets extraterrestrial terrain as the trail winds east.

By the time I had reached Cooper Spur, I had formulated a plan to bail out there and hitchhike back to the lodge. This was my first time to incite the mantra, “It’s supposed to be tough. Otherwise everyone would do it.” This is why I’m doing this. To slam into a wall and find a way to break through it. I paused for a map check and moved on. After crossing Tillie Jane Creek, I knew the infamous Eliot washout was next.

The Timberline Trail boasts world class scenery.

I noticed a cairn on the ridge. I remembered from my map check that my next turn was northeast, which the matched the direction of the ridge. However, I failed to note the topographic lines, which would have told me to turn in the canyon, not on top of the ridge. Alas, I headed up to the cairn and followed the ridge — and more cairns — until any sign of a trail dissolved.

None of this looked familiar. I’ve done this crossing before and remembered how low the the ridge was to the river before descending the scree. I was up way too high. Allegedly, there was a new bridge downriver. I assumed I could just bushwhack my way down to it. I went for it, only to find the ridge was too steep and the undergrowth was too thick to proceed. I opened Gaia on my phone to see where I was in relation to the trail and headed east to pick it back up and do it right this time.

In retrospect, I believe the cairns I followed were meant to lead lost hikers out of the washout onto the trail, not those on the trail into the washout. And the spot where I picked the #600 back up? It was about a quarter mile from the bridge. I didn’t have a map with the new route or I would have made the detour. I just followed the map I had closely this time to the old washout route.

This time, everything looked familiar. I met up with a hiker who was trying to figure out how to cross. We stood on the ridge for a few minutes developing a strategy. The Eliot was flowing fast and deep. There was nowhere to cross where you could have each foot planted on separate rocks. Jumping and landing without slipping was required. On the other side, recent landslides buried the boulders and ropes which made climbing out trivial. I picked out one spot to jump across, another to scramble up to the shelf, and another downriver to switchback up the least amount of kitty litter.

The grip on my shoes did its job again as my feet landed solidly and stuck to a large wet boulder. One step and a big jump landed me on the far shore. The first scramble was quick and easy. I ran across the shelf to my switchback line. It was the best of what was available, but it took careful testing of torso-sized stones nested in sand over the next ten or fifteen minutes before I finally climbed out of the nefarious canyon. I hollered and clapped my poles over my head in triumph. That was a hard fought victory. I looked back to see how my new buddy was progressing. He was on top of the opposite ridge — back turned — having surrendered to the Eliot. This win was the boost I needed. I was pumped. I tore down the ridge and onto the north side of the route.

The higher elevation northeast section of the trail was more snow than dirt. Refilled my water straight off the glacier for the desert-like stretch ahead.

My heart was there, but my body didn’t catch up for a few miles. I took it easy and just nursed myself back to health. Lots of calories and water. The first signs of cramping appeared, which I aggressively quashed with chew tabs. I never had any serious cramping on the entire run. After clearing mile 25 — about the halfway point of the entire journey — my body came back. I was consistently running from there all the way out to Bald Mountain.

Snow, blowdown, and fast flowing rivers were frequent in the northeast quadrant.

I felt my union with nature growing stronger. I could just appreciate the scenery. The air. The rivers. The forest and meadows. After tackling the Eliot, I felt less like I was fighting with the environment and more like I was part of its way. We spend so much of our lives shielding ourselves from nature and the order of the universe. That when we are fully exposed to it, it has become something hostile to us. There is magic in crossing that line. From then until the finish, I would become more part of this infinitely ancient world and less a part of the one constructed by man.

The rolling north side meadows brought back my energy.

At Bald Mountain, I took the cutoff instead of going around Top Spur, as I’d done in the past. The trail to the west side of Hood was buried in tea roses and berry bushes. Although easy on elevation change in here, it was slow going since I couldn’t see the ground for long stretches. Despite the occasional thorn, there was a sort of thrill to charging through the thick green vines. A little more climbing and a quick descent past Yocum Ridge to Ramona Falls. I paused for some calories. Twelve tough miles to go.

I wish this picture could capture the scale of this view.

Heading out from the falls, I lost some of my energy. I left the #600 and got onto the Pacific Crest Trail #2000. Exhaustion came over me as I approached the Sandy River. This late into a warm day and it was moving dangerously fast. I walked up and down the river looking for places to rock hop or cross on logs. Nothing. I didn’t want to set foot in the fast moving opaque water for the legitimate fear of being swept away. There was a small island in the river that had a large log between it and the opposite bank where I could cross, but I had to get onto that island.

The sun starts to get low as I make it to the west side.

There was a large rock on this bank just across from another large rock on this side of the island. I remembered seeing some blowdown upriver. I went back and grabbed a stripped branch that was a few inches in diameter and long enough to span those two rocks. I dropped it into the river behind the rocks to create a rail. I stepped into the icy water, keeping one hand on the rail and using the other to test the depth with my poles. I only went in as far as knee deep, but relied on that rail in my exhausted state to fight the current. I was on the island. A few scoots across the big tree and my final technical obstacle, the Sandy River, was cleared.

I filled my water bladder to the top and took my feet out of my shoes to get out the grit and thaw a bit. When I packed back up and set out on the final 3,000+' climb to the lodge, I was pretty wiped.

Made it high up on the west side in time to catch a glorious sunset.

“It’s supposed to be tough. Otherwise everyone would do it.”

One foot in front of the other. Two miles of slogging. Mostly hiking with sporadic shuffling. I stopped to load a fresh battery into my headlamp and put it on early so I wouldn’t have to be dealing with it in the dark. My watch died. I knew my wife was watching my SPOT page to know when to come pick me up, but I tried texting her anyway. No signal. I just had a moment of wanting to connect to her. My phone had plenty of battery life left, so I kept it out of airplane mode, knowing it would work as soon as I climbed up the west side.

Alpenglow and waterfalls.

My watch’s battery death was something of a blessing. I could only be in this moment; the next few steps. No more tracking or monitoring. This little conversation started in my head:

“I really wish I could just magically be at 100% right now.”

“What’s stopping you?”

“Um… nothing I guess. It’s all just mind over matter, right?”

Red beams firing through the trees near the Zigzag Canyon.

And that was that. The pain and exhaustion evaporated. I was running. Full stop. Minutes dropped from my pace. I thought for sure I would be hiking these last, brutal climbs. But I was flying. I walked or shuffled only up the steepest sections, but maintained a quality run up the grades. The sunset began. The mountain turned pink and the sky changed. It was glorious. The mix of shocking beauty and my mental and emotional state triggered something. This was it. This moment is the reward. I felt like I had exited into a parallel universe. This is the thing that those few who tough it out get to experience. It’s this moment that is the most difficult to communicate, and I feel can only be understood by getting there yourself.

Just shut up with this sunset.

I encountered blowdown like I’d never seen before. Behemoth trees six-to-ten feet in diameter had not only fallen across the trail, but along it. In one segment, I was running on top of tree trunks toppled on each other for about fifty yards. When I reached the tree tops, I was high above the trail and had to descend the branches like some sort of wooden jungle gym to reach the earth. It was less an obstacle and more like a playground. Which is really how I treat most blowdown.

I turned on my headlamp. My phone had signal and I had a short exchange with my wife on pick-up logistics. Then it was fully night. The darkness dropped my mood down a notch. I received a perfectly-timed text from my friend and fellow ultra runner, Denzil Jennings, who’d been watching my progress live.

“You’ve got this man!!!! Bring it home!!”

Wy’east puts on its reds and purples before nightfall.

That set me off. I was maybe four miles out and just hit the gas hard. Down into the last canyon and a mad dash up the 1,000’+ of switchbacks. I couldn’t believe how well that climb was going. I made it onto the final, exposed ridge leading to the lodge. Just over two miles to go. All climbing, and then getting blasted by ice crystals, sand, and ash as I entered into the mountain’s nocturnal weather system.

Night night. In about an hour, I’ll have my first summit-circumnavigation under my belt.

My wife and son were waiting for me at the lodge. The ridge is covered in steep, slick snow mounds, tacking a few minutes onto my pace for each mile. My mind has stayed intact, but some minor hallucinations which cropped up earlier were becoming more convincing. I kept mistaking fallen trees for large elk and confusing lighter user paths for the more obvious trail; even having to backtrack a hundred yards at one point. The lodge came into view. I made a B-line for it off trail. I was getting cold even with my faster pace. I just wanted to get in there. I wound up behind the lodge, unable to enter, and had to go all the way around it.

I ran in. That is, I was still literally running — poles in hand — inside the lodge up to the second floor where my wife and son were patiently waiting for me. I wished I could have arrived earlier to allow some time for celebration and a bite at the lodge, but I was just happy to be with my family.

When I first climbed Hood, I told my two and half year old son about it; which he kind of understood. “Daddy’s mountain” he says when he sees Hood. Until that moment, I had replied, “No, that isn’t Daddy’s mountain. Daddy just climbed up the easy way one time.” That night when he said, “Daddy’s mountain!”, I replied, “When you go up, down, and all the way around a mountain, it’s yours for a little bit. Yes. Right now, this is Daddy’s mountain.”


There is so much to process from this day, and it will take awhile to fully absorb it all. There is something incredible and overwhelming about compressing this into such a tiny sliver in time.

One thing I’ve taken away is the ambivalence of nature. Nature is stronger than you. Stronger than all of us. It’s on its own way. The way its always gone and will continue to go. Humanity has grown away from nature. And nature is indifferent about our way. Think of how many people don’t like camping. Who don’t want to get their feet wet in a cold stream. Who won’t let the branches brush on their skin. We treat nature as inconvenient. As an obstacle. Stepping onto the other side — away from my humanity and into nature — I find more joy than anything man has ever invented or offered.

I’ve been thinking lately about what our fundamental needs are. We all essentially have the same needs. We have needs not just for survival, but for adventure, growth, beauty, purpose… What makes us human — what makes us each an individual —are the creative ways we find to fill those needs. And filling those needs is what makes us feel alive. If our basic human needs were check boxes, this adventure would have filled them all in dark and then continued to scribble outside the lines.

People often ask me why I do this stuff. Isn’t it scary? Why don’t you break it up into a few days? The answers are because it’s what I need to feel truly alive. Nature is nothing to fear when you’re on its side. And doing it in the shortest time my body and mind will allow is the hard way. Difficult things reap the greatest rewards. It’s supposed to be tough. Otherwise everyone would do it.


Huge thanks to Scotty Strain. This wouldn’t be possible without him keeping me safeish up the mountain. To Richard Kresser, who executed the RASH, inspired this effort, and has been a great source of encouragement and advice. Thanks to Denzil Jennings for the magic text that spurred a boost at the end, and to my family for being there at the lodge to celebrate.

And to the late, great Michael Leming, who took me up my first mountain. Mt. Hood was his church. I hope I made you proud today, buddy.

)

Stephen Schieberl

Written by

Wilderness athlete, technologist, and family man.

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