Keevin, Matt and I went up on Hood to do the Luthold Couloir. We made awesome time to the top of the Palmer lift and then headed over towards Illumination Rock. From here on the snow was pretty loose and we postholed everywhere. We cramponed up at Illumination where Keevin lost his blue butt pad. We went over the saddle and took the wrong way over to the route we wanted. We ended up going up the Reid Glacier Headwall. We got in a cool section of mixed climbing that was pretty thin in parts. This was last fun part of the climb. I promptly took off my helmet to remove my hat and dropped my headlamp down the glacier. Keevin said it was gettable, but it had taken 30 minutes to get from where the lamp now was. So I called it an expensive lesson.
We moved up from the mixed climbing into more soft snow made for postholing. This prompted us to bonk which we didn't remedy by eating extra food but instead complained we were tired. I entered a section of deep sugar snow on a steep section that seemed like it was ready to slough off and turn into an avalance. This is at least what I told myself as I wigged out standing in waist deep shitty snow. Keevin threw down a rope and belayed me to firmer snow.
Keevin took a different route up to the summit ridge than Matt and I. I just followed Matt as I was too tired to make my own plan. We saw Keevin off to the north taking a route in the sun. I was a little concerned about avalanches as the sun was on the already warm snow. We could hear him swearing as he slowly made his way up. Once on the ridge I hung out and saw Keevin lying down on his ridge. I radioed for him to meet me up higher on the next ridge so we could split some gatorade and M&Ms.
It took us a good 2 hours from the M&Ms to get to the summit. Matt was ahead telling us that we were no where close to the West Crater Rim, which sucked. Keevin and I would rest every few steps. I fell asleep resting on my axe once and realized this wasn't the place to be screwing around and took my time going across the final ridge to summit.
We stayed on the summit for about 2 minutes before heading down the Pearly Gates. Keevin got hit on the head twice with ice in the Gates. I followed last and went the wrong way around the Bergshrund before doubling back. As I followed the boot pack across below the Bergshrund my left leg broke through the snow and was in the air. I was up to my waist and fumbled around for a while until I could fan out on the snow and get myself out. I made it over to Keevin who was passed out on the Hogsback and shared the last of my water and I threw on sunscreen - about 4 hours too late.
I took my time going down as I was so exhausted and thirsty. I put snow in my nalgene and got a bit of water out of it on the way down. We saw a few people going up and adviced them not to try and summit as there was so much rockfall and crappy snow. There was even a snowfall and avalanche to the west of the Hogsback. We all got down safely and booked for home and some rest.
