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Mt. Hood: Cooper Spur (click
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Cooper Spur
Mt. Hood’s appearance and
surrounding views are different depending on which face you climb, so we did
multiple hikes around it’s circumference to experience it all. Our first Mt.
Hood hike was Cooper Spur and it ended up being Li’s favorite one. Fortunately,
we had good weather with plenty of sunshine and just a little wind because the
next day it rained rather hard and was still quite cloudy and gray even the day
after that. These photos taken near the beginning of the hike show Mt. Hood and
Elliot Glacier in the distance along with a hut just above tree line used by
climbers as an overnight shelter during the winter.
The spine is what made this Li’s
favorite hike because it provided the closest access to the top of Mt. Hood and
excellent views of Elliot Glacier.
The clouds rolled in and out
quickly, but occasionally we got an unobscured view of the top. The trail
leveled out at a flat area around 8500 feet before continuing along a very
narrow spine to the snowfield in the background.
Although the summit at 11, 253
feet was still about 2500 feet higher, we went as far as we possibly could -
any further would have required climbing skills and equipment.
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