Mount Hood

A 3,429-metre stratovolcano in the Cascade Range of Oregon, the highest peak in Oregon and the second-most-climbed glaciated peak in the world after Mount Fuji. Hood sits 80 kilometres east of Portland and dominates the city's eastern skyline. The mountain is technically active, with documented gas emissions and seismic activity in the summit crater. The most recent confirmed eruption was in the 1860s, though geological evidence suggests the volcano remains capable of significant activity.

The first ascent came in 1857 by an American expedition led by Henry Pittock, the publisher of The Oregonian newspaper. Pittock and three companions reached the summit on July 11, 1857, via the southern flank — the route now known as the South Side. The standard route has remained essentially unchanged. The climb takes typically a single long day from Timberline Lodge at 1,830 metres, with most parties starting between midnight and 2 a.m. to reach the summit before the daily warming destabilizes the upper snowfields.

The technical difficulty of the South Side route is moderate, but the upper mountain holds objective hazards that have produced notable casualty incidents. The Hogsback ridge below the summit is a corniced snow feature that has collapsed under climbers' weight on multiple occasions. The Bergschrund, a horizontal crevasse separating the upper snowfields from the summit pitch, requires careful routing in conditions of poor visibility. In 1986, a guided high school expedition was caught in a sudden storm on the upper mountain; nine climbers died in what remains the worst single-incident mountaineering disaster in Oregon history.

Hood receives approximately 10,000 summit attempts per year. The combination of accessibility, altitude, and the scope for genuinely dangerous conditions has made the mountain a primary training ground for climbers in the Pacific Northwest. The peak is climbed year-round, though the established climbing season runs from May through July.