Andy and I left the southern Willamette Valley early in the morning and headed north to Meadows hopeful to get in some powder riding. The weather was pretty nice when we pulled in the parking lot, and the mountain had received a pretty good dump of snow the night before. As usual, there were hoards of people running around, but we found pretty good solitude off of the Hood River Express Chair on Private Reserve. We made laps in the trees around Elk and Yoda bowls for most of the day, and found plenty of face shots and deep powder. We took some video, and I pulled this still from one of the videos. Gotta love late March in the PNW!
Mt Hood was the destination for Todd and I as we looked to get August turns in for 2007. We didn’t really feel like hiking that much, especially after the massive snow melt off which has occurred recently so we opted to head to T-Line. Plus, my wife and I had our first child (Shaun – whom I’m hoping will become a member of the TAY club some day) on Sunday the 5th.
The snow was surprisingly good for most of the day, and the place was vacant after about 12:00. There were several public “lanes” open and the lift lines weren’t bad. We made so many laps I lost count. It was nice to get tons of lift served turns in, as opposed to the usual summer slog of hiking with only the return trip down.
Tele turns on Hood, August 2007
At the end of the day, we were able to ride down to about 300 yards from the lodge. There was a long finger of snow out towards the Zigzag glaicer that was still skiable for anyone interested in getting some “non-lift accessed” turns in on the south side of Hood. It’ll probably be good for a few more weeks.
August boarding on the Palmer
To complete the day, we stopped at the Ice Axe Grill (Mt Hood Brew Pub) in Govy and had a few beers on our way home. Their summer Hefewizen was excellent! I will likely be stopping there in the future!
I met Todd at 7:30 in the Timberline parking lot and we headed up for some lift served turns. Given all the hiking we’d been doing lately, it was nice to get some lift riding in. It had snowed down to about 6500 feet overnight, and there was a little wind sift on the east side of the Palmer that measured several inches in places. By doing a power slide, I could actually get the fresh stuff up in my face. The cold smoke hitting my warm face was like a dream.
Riding a bit of September fresh!
The snow corned by about 10:00 and fog drifted in about 11:30. Here’s a shot looking down towards the lodge at about 9:00……..
Looking south from the Palmer Snowfield
We climbed out towards the White River Glacier for a rest and some GU, and admired the large ice field complex. It looks good for some climbing, but the seracs are big and most likely unstable. Several more runs followed, and we got several thousand vertical feet of riding in for the day.
September tele turns….
We quit riding around noon, and headed down to the Ratskellar in Government Camp, where the Monkey Face Porter hit the spot. You can ride down to within about 200 yards of the lodge. I’m amazed at the coverage up there still. The Zigzag Glacier looks decent, and might be worth the hike. Get out and enjoy it while it’s good. It won’t be too long now until winter returns!
Since the majority of October was blown away studying for my professional engineering exam (which was Friday the 27th), and there was only a few days to get turns in, Todd and I decided to head up to the Palmer Glacier on Hood for our turns, given that I can’t think of any other place in Oregon that would be worth riding due to the snow conditions. There was some pretty serious lack of snow on the Palmer, but it was still plenty rideable. The weather was perfect with sunshine all day. At first, I wished I had brought my long board as the snow was rock hard ice and I was having to speed check constantly. Fortunately, by about 10:00am it softened up nicely and we made several runs (so many I lost count). Hero snow followed until about 2:00pm when we gave up. There was even a nice little tabletop jump we played on in the afternoon.
October turns on the Palmer
We finished the day down at Govy with a round of well earned Ice Axe IPA’s which always hit the spot. The weather forecast for the next week is pretty dry; I’m hoping we get some snow soon and have a good winter, because right now it’s really, really thin! Here’s a parting shot of Todd making a tele-turn down the snowfield….
Original plans of attending a glacier travel and crevasse rescue class with the Santiam Alpine Club and getting August turns on the Elliot Glacier were thwarted by forest fires and the closure of Hwy 35. Good thing there was plenty of snow left for riding on the Palmer snowfield. After thinking it over, we decided on buying lift tickets to ride as much as possible for most of the day with the possibility of heading out to the Zigzag glacier in the afternoon. The snow was rock hard in the morning, but softened up nicely by about 9:30am. We never did get over to the Zigzag, as the lure of steady continuous vertical kept us on the Palmer. A few people were climbing to the summit, but we didn’t see anybody with skis descending from the Crater Rock area. The mountain pretty much cleared out by 12:00 and the last hour and a half we had it to ourselves. Lots and lots of vertical was had. I saw a high school friend splitting up the Magic Mile and Palmer – Kelly it was good to see you.
