Michael and Fred, hiking up Pilchuck.
Fred is a friend I've known and climbed with for years, and who actually got me started climbing. Michael is his twelve-year-old son, who's interested in climbing. We talking about climbing Mt. Hood, and this outing was intended to see how he actually felt about hiking in snow with ice axes, etc.
It was a beautiful day. We gathered up Maisie and the others, swung by to pick up Max (Michael sounded pretty pleased that Max was coming) and headed up to Pilchuck.
Michael was a bit put out to have to ride with Max, int he back seat. Maisie, of course, rode in my lap the whole way. She's a Westie, after all, and apparently that's how they do it in Scotland.
Every time I forget how bumpy the road is up there. With all the trail pass parking permits that get used up there, why can’t they fill the pot holes once a year?
There was enough snow on the road that we couldn’t get to the parking area (which was snow free.) There were a dozen or more cars parked along the road. We headed out, and up the hill, around 1:00 or so.
Michael did very well. I worried that he’d get tired or bored by it, but he pushed pretty hard. I expect he was trying a bit harder because we were there. We did a lot of coaching and warning and that sort of thing before we got there, probably unnecessary.
Below the summit, Michael slipped into a moat by a rock, and got wedged into there pretty well. Fred reached his ice axe down, but was unable to haul him up. I went down around to where he was, and couldn’t pull him out by his hands either, so I bent over, had him grab around my neck, and pulled him out like a crane. Worked pretty well; crisis averted. I don't think I read about that rescue method in Freedom of the Hills.
We got to the summit a bit after 3:00, for a fairly quick trip up there, around two hours. Much quicker than I’d expected. It was a struggle to get Maisie up into the hut; I had to lure her over to me with a bit of bagel, then hoist her up and onto the porch.
Max went around the other side and came up the ladder, which is fairly steep, at least 60 degrees. That dog surprises me pretty regularly.
We hung around the hut for fifteen or twenty minutes, eating and resting. Unfortunately the view wasn’t good; everything was hazy, and the mountains to the north and east were shrouded. We could see Baker and Shuksan, however. But Three Fingers, Glacier Peak, all them, were obscured.
The descent went quickly. We enjoyed some nice long glissades; I tried to get Michael to practice self-arrest but he wasn’t that focused on it. It’s hard to take it too seriously, I guess, when the snow is so soft and it’s easy to stop while doing it wrong.
I didn’t bother to put on my gaiters on the climb up, and my feet were just soaked on the descent, with loads of snow into it. Michael’s shirt and pants were soaked as well, so he put on my spare shorts that I'd brought sent along (Fred had climbed in jeans, and just wore them.)
A very successful outing, and it was followed a few weeks later by our Mt. Hood climb
My fourth time up Pilchuck, Max's third, Maisie's second, and Michael's first. Fred's second too, I think.