I was looking to get some October turn in, so when my wife, son and I headed to Gresham to visit family, I threw in my board anticipating some Fall snowboarding. I awoke early on Saturday morning and headed up to Timberline, after a stop at Safeway in Sandy. I had driven through a bit of rain lower down along the highway, but when I arrived int he parking lot the whole mountian was visible (and fairly devoid of snow as compared to the week before on the webcam). I met my buddy Todd and we opted to ride the lifts as opposed to climbing based on conditions (guess I shouldn’t have waited until now to get my October turns in……
I made a run before Todd got there, and the Palmer was nice and icy as expected. I rode down all the way to within about 300 yards of the lodge, met Todd, and we worked our way back up to the top of the Palmer. The snow didn’t really soften above 7500 feet all day, but was nice below that. I love unloading on the Palmer Chair when it’s pure ice, however, the view from up top is worth it. I did notice throughout the day however that several people had some good wrecks due to the conditions. Here’s a shot of Todd riding below the mid-station on the Palmer….
We spun laps on the Palmer until about 1:00 and had the place nearly to ourselves by the end of the day. I didn’t keep track, but we got several thousand vertical in for the day. After the long ride back down to the car, we loaded our gear and headed down to Govy for a stop at the Rat for the obligatory Ice Axe IPA and some college football. All in all, it was another excellent Fall day to make turns in Oregon and it won’t be long until the snow flies and another Winter season starts in earnest!
Here’s a parting shot from the day……
