After thoroughly enjoying a two week vacation with the family in the Hawaiian islands, I was eager to get November turns in the books, which would mark a milestone Turns-All-Year month for me at 240. Joe was game to ski as well, so we made plans to head to Mt Hood to get get what little snow there was on the mountain. We met early at the cop shop and made the drive up I5, arriving at the climber’s lot to find the mountain pretty bare but plenty skiable.
We started off in trail shoes given the lack of snow down low, and before we departed the climbers lot I snapped a photo of my truck beer for later in the day – a smooth tasting Xplorado IPA from Xicha Brewing. A few minutes later, we shouldered packs and headed up the road towards Silcox.
A few minutes and a thousand feet later, we were up at Silcox and enjoying a quick break along with the view before we continued up towards the Palmer. The firm snow made for easy traveling, and our hopes were that it would turn to corn a few hours later.
The coverage became a bit better as we worked our way up to the top of the Palmer, and from there we made the decision to head up to the White River to check out the snowfield, which held the smoothest looking snow that we could see on the mountain.
As we worked our way up towards Beer Rock, something didn’t look quite right with the snowfield. The snowfield looked more like a valley rather than the traditional level field of snow we were accustomed to, and it was then we realized just how much residual snow had melted over the previous summer.
At any rate, we skinned almost to Beer Rock, and then switched to booting for the final section where we decided we’d climbed high enough for the day and would call it. The snow higher up looked more wind effected and firm, so we enjoyed the views and a beverage while removing skins and getting ready to ride. My beer of choice for the ski was a easy drinking Living Daylights IPA from Scuttlebutt Brewing that I’d picked up back in late summer while in Everett, WA to attend the pacific northwest ski patrol convention. It hit the spot and after finishing our beers we were ready to ride.
As we readied to drop in, Joe offered to take the camera and shoot some pictures of me as we descended, which was awesome, so I handed it over and once he was a few hundred yards down slope I started down while he fired off some shots, including the three pictures below…
I skied down to him, enjoying some really excellent November snow, and headed further down slope before stopping. The turns were great, and by the time Joe made it down to me we were both pretty stoked on the conditions. From there, we continued on down the snowfield, enjoying the nearly perfect snow and taking some more pictures along the way.
We enjoyed every skiable foot of the White River snowfield before traversing over and liking up with the Palmer for some more skiing. The upper Palmer was holding in quite nicely, and although not as smooth as the White River, still afforded some quality turns.
We worked our way down into the Palmer Canyon, and continued enjoying the smooth turns until we ended up back at Silcox. From there, we elected to ski the Mile Canyon. Conditions in the Mile weren’t the best, but it beat walking and we were able to slide to within a few hundred vertical feet of the lodge before running out of snow.
Once the snow ran out, it was time to throw the skis on the packs and head for the truck. While packing up, we met Lucas and Mallory who had also been up skiing. Turns out Lucas knew a few friends of mine from Bend, and we enjoyed some chitchat on the hike back to the parking lot together. A few minutes later, we were back at the truck, and it felt good to get out of ski and snowboard boots, and into some more comfortable clothes. Neither Joe nor I were in the mood for brats (even though we packed ’em), so decided to get a jump start on the drive home and hit the road. All things considered, it was a pretty great day on the mountain, and I was more than happy to have my November turns and my 240th month in the books. Below are a couple of parting shots from the day.
