A run up Hood

Its that time of year again. Climbing season is upon us. Forrest and I went up the old Pearly Gates route on the south side of Mt Hood last weekend (after I snowboarded all the day before...).
We went up sunday morning early looking to climb Leutholds, and made great time up to Illumination Rock, but once there determined that Leutholds was out due to new snow and me being a whiny bitch about the logistics of carrying our board/skiis all the way up knee deep postholing (doable, but not fun). After resting in the avy pit we had dug and killing way too much time debating which route to go to, we decided to head up to Pearly Gates or Devils Kitchen Headwall (inspired by the earlier trip report on cascadeclimbers.com).
We decided to skin up the west side of Crater Rock, and in doing so, realized why everyone typically goes to the east side of crater rock. We picked our way through steep muddy steam vents, slipping and sliding all over, which probably was the most harrowing, sketchy part of the trip. After collapsing a few snow bridges over small vents we made it up to the hogsback in time for sunrise. While gearing up, I remembered that I had carried several roman candles up in my pack. I pulled them out, stuck them in the snow, and fired off a few. Forrest wanted to play too, so I gave him the last one which he lit, held, and promptly had blow up in his face (mom, you didn't read that, k?). After checking for both eyes, ears and a nose, we decided fireworks would no longer be held in the hand...
We chugged our way up through deep, but consolidated fresh snow to the west Pearly Gates chute. 150 ft of clawing up 40-50 degree sugar snow led us to a fun, clean, 30 ft step of BOMBER blue water ice at about WI2. From there it was a quick run up to the top. We downclimbed the same line back to our packs. From there, we both agreed, was one of the best ski/board descents either of us had ever experienced. I got to rip on my new splitboard and Forrest rocked his ATs the whole way down on five inches of 99% virgin powder. We rode the 5,000+ vertical feet all the way back to the car, and enjoyed some cold beers while waiting for Forrest's ride. A good day!
Forrest's video:


Oh, and I had an interesting experience with Patagonia. I was very close to writing a quite negative post about them several days ago though. You see, I have a giant down jacket for mountaineering that recently had a baffle in the sleeve collapse(its about 1.5 yrs old), effectively deflating part of the sleeve of all down. I sent it in to get fixed, but Patagonia called back saying it was unfixable. When I pressed him, the guy said that actually the repair division was just really swamped and only taking care of the easy fixes at the time and the baffle was too time consuming to bother with. Instead they were prepared to offer me a 160$ gift certificate; ...for a 320$ jacket! Bull Sh**!!!!
I just said to send the jacket back and I would take it to the gear repair in town to get fixed. At that point I was very unhappy because this went against every guarantee I have ever heard from Patagonia. Well, the guy called back about a half hour later and said that he had talked to his manager and he had approved a full refund for the jacket. :) So now, I must say, that they are on thin ice, but still holding up to their end of the bargain. I am still questioning where Patagonia's quality is headed as they grow...