Category: Mt Hood

My family and I already had plans to head to Gresham to visit family for the weekend,, so heading to Mt Hood for a Saturday outing to get October turns in seemed logical. The weather forecast was looking decent, with the sun scheduled to make a brief appearance in between early fall rain storms. I pulled into the Timberline parking lot with the mountain enshrouded in clouds, but the sun soon popped out.

Todd showed up after a few minutes, and we set out towards the Magic Mile chairlift. We spun several laps on the Palmer chair riding nice groomers while waiting for the snow to soften. Our objective for the day was to ride the Zigzag Glacier via Illumination Saddle. The snow quality on upper mountain was nice, with about a foot of fresh under a sastrugi crust. By 11:15, we abandoned the lifts in favor of the untracked snow and headed west towards Illumination Saddle. After hiking for about 5 minutes, I realized I’d made a crucial error in leaving the splitboard at home. I ended up post-holing all the way to the saddle while Todd skinned with relative ease. After about an hour (which was twice as long as it should have been), I joined Todd at the saddle and enjoyed the views down onto the Reid Glacier.

Within a few minutes, a solo skier named Jarko joined us at the saddle. We chatted for a few minutes and enjoyed the views while the sastrugi crust corned. Looking back to the south, Jefferson and the Sisters were in plain view…

The turns off the saddle were very enjoyable in the new snow. It’s amazing what a difference a month makes – in September I was riding off the saddle on monster sized suncups and now the ride was as smooth as could be! I snapped a few photos on the descent, and managed to get this picture of Jarko making turns off the saddle…

We angled skier’s left onto the middle of the Zigzag Glacier where the snow was the most consistent and made turn after turn on the untracked glacier. The consistency of the warmed crust with the foot of fresh below made for some very enjoyable turns that were similar to carving on corn. The backdrop of the upper mountain and the Old Crater Route covered in the first snow of the year made for a picturesque scene…

More turns followed, as we descended directly down the Zigzag. Near the bottom middle of the glacier, we opted to head left and into the Little Zigzag canyon in lieu of riding to the bottom of the Zigzag Glacier and booting back up to cross over. The snow in the Little Zigzag was as good as the upper mountain. I dropped in after Todd and Jarko left their tracks in the canyon…

The turns seemed to continue forever in the Little Zigzag. I followed Todd and Jarko with my camera and snapped a few photos along the way down. The riding in the canyon was pretty much on the residual snow left over from last year, as the amount of new snow wasn’t quite yet sufficient enough to support venturing outside the canyon. Near 7000 feet, Todd and I stopped to exit the canyon and head back over to the ski area while Jarko continued down for more turns. Here’s a shot of our turns looking back up the Little Zigzag Canyon…

After a short hike back to the ski area, we were back down to the parking lot in no time. I made it back to Gresham by 3:00 pm, after a requested stop at Joe’s Donut’s in Sandy by my wife. Overall, it was another excellent day of October riding in Oregon. Here’s a parting shot of Mt Hood (showing the route we skied) taken from Highway 26 on the drive home…

Since I had a busy September planned,, I headed up to Mt Hood on the first day of month to get some turns in. I’d wanted to check out the Collier Glacier on the Middle Sister, but the time requirement for that trip didn’t pencil out. Since I took the day off work, I was solo, but not to worry I found plenty of fun to keep me busy. I arrived in the Timberline Parking lot around 8:30 after a long drive from the southern Willamette Valley. The sun was shining and I could tell it was going to be a gorgeous day. Since I hadn’t paid for a lift ticket at any resort since last September, I splurged and bought a day pass to maximize my riding. After riding the Mile and Palmer Chairs to 8500 feet, I made my first turns on the groomed slopes which were a bit icy. By the next run, the snow had softened nicely on the eastern half of the Palmer snowfield, and I was able to rip turns. I continued to spin laps until about 10:15, at which point I put the board on my back and started hiking out towards Illumination Saddle to check things out. The coverage on the Zigzag still looked really good from Highway 35, and after I climbed a few hundred feet, I got my first views of the snowfield and it confirmed what I had seen from the highway below. Crossing the Zigzag, you get a nice view up the Old Crater Route…

Within about 40 minutes or so of leaving the top of the Palmer, I was standing at Illumination Saddle and looking down onto the Reid Glacier to the west. Riding down onto the Reid looked inviting, but being solo I didn’t venture past the saddle.

I hung out at the saddle for about 20 minutes or so, soaking in the views in all directions and admiring the substantial snowpack for this late in the year. Looking to the north, there still appeared to be some snow in the Leuthold’s Couloir. That area looks beautiful and would make for a great ski descent, but is always somewhat dangerous. Maybe someday I’ll ride it when the conditions are right!

I snapped a few photos, including the one below looking down on the Zigzag Glacier and out towards Mt Jefferson to the south. The haze in the background was from a large wildfire burning near Madras.

I climbed up the snowy ridge to the high point near the base of Illumination Rock, strapped on my board and proceeded to make some sketch turns down the steeper portion of the slope. The snow was firm and pretty cupped directly off Illumination Rock, but fairly smooth and enjoyable down on the Zigzag Glacier.

The ski down the Zigzag Glacier was fun. I pretty much repeated our descent line from the previous year, with the exception of riding down to the toe of the glacier near the start of the canyon. I had to hike back up a bit to link up with the snow finger that descends down to near 6500 feet. I didn’t find any noticeable crevasses on the Zigzag, though for the first time I did see some odd cracks that resembled crevasses (but they were only about 6 inches wide?).

I continued to make turns following the large snow finger down to near 7000 feet, stopping a few hundred feet above where the snow ended so I could hike back to the ski area and make a few more laps before the day was over. The snow finger had an amazing amount of snow for the first of September! Below is a shot from where I unstrapped from my board…

After packing my board and gear up, I was back at the ski area within 15 minutes and hopped back on the lift for another 7 or 8 laps on the Palmer before heading down 3000 feet to the parking lot. Riding down in the Mile Canyon, I was able to make turns to within a couple hundred yards of the parking lot!

Back at the parking lot, I made a quick change of clothes before making the long drive home, quite satisfied with another September in the books and several thousand vertical feet of turns under my belt! I’m looking forward to what October brings!

Looking back through some old photos, I came across some pictures from a day trip with a good friend to the Zigzag snowfield on Mt Hood on Memorial Day in 2002…..

Andrew and I had made the journey from Corvallis north to Mt Hood for some spring time riding, and spent some time in the morning spinning laps on the Palmer Snowfield. As the day progressed, we decided to head out of bounds and check out the conditions on the Zigzag snowfield. Traversing out from the top of the lift, we encountered good conditions. Here’s a shot of the Zigzag canyon…

Andrew ventured out further than I did since he was on skis and was able to traverse higher without losing as much elevation. We saw one guy who said we’d be screwed with where we were at if we didn’t have skins. Evidently he hadn’t heard of hiking? Anyway, here’s a shot of Andrew with the Mississippi Cliffs in the background…

One of the first things I noticed was a rather large kicker someone had built directly over the steep entry to the Zigzag canyon. Hitting that would have probably resulted in a 100 foot flight and then landing on a steep transition. I imagine the person who built it must have had some skills. Nevertheless, we dropped into the canyon and enjoyed the excellent corn snow on the steep slopes.

We rode down through the canyon and were able to traverse our way out to the flatter snow slopes below and eventually connect back to the Magic Mile inside the ski area. Given how good the snow was, we headed back up and made a few more laps out to the Zigzag from the Palmer making for a really enjoyable day. As the day wore on, the snow became mushy and it was time to head back to the car. Overall, the day was really fun, and one I doubt I’ll ever forget.