8 miles of hiking • 5500' elevation gain •
It was frigid cold at about 2am as Kevin, Jon and I left the parking lot, wind gusts blasting us with sand and snow at ~30-35 miles per hour. Riding on 2 hours of sleep, hiking by headlamp in the dark and platypus hose frozen solid (despite blowing the water out of it each time) you wonder for a moment if you're making the right choice. We were. The sun started to rise soon after we passed the the end of the Palmer lift around ~9,000 ft. There was almost no Moon, nor clouds, so the Sun was a welcome sight. Luckily, the sun brought with it a calming presence on much of the wind. We reached the caldera, and were greeted by the wicked stench of sulphur being emitted by the fumeroles in Crater Rock. That was not fun, but it was fun to see how close we were to reaching the goal. At this point we donned our helmets, and joined the processional across the Hogsback and up the Old Chute to the summit. There were a dozen and a half or so people climbing this route today, some roped up, others not. The summit was sunny but windy, which made the Knife's edge ridge a little nervous. It was a great place to hang out for awhile. There were only intermittent clouds in the area, and you could see everything clearly, from beyond the Sisters to Rainier and beyond. The trip down was uneventful, aside from discovering that my celebratory beer had frozen and exploded in my backpack. We were back at the car about noon.
