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Protected: December 18, 2020 – Willamette Pass
12/12/20 – Willamette Pass Season Opener
Word came on Thursday morning that opening day at the Pass would be on Saturday, and since Patrol 2 was on the schedule, I was eager to head up. Since I was hill chiefing for the day, I left the valley early to get a head start on the day’s activities, which would also be challenged by the new protocols in place to deal with COVID-19 precautions. I pulled into the parking lot around 7:30 am and soon after a few others pulled in as well.
After booting up at the car, a change from year’s past where we were able to gear up in the warm patrol room, I talked with Hutch about the needs for the day, and then headed over to chat with Tim about his thoughts for the day. As it turns out, he was hoping to have all the lifts spinning as soon as possible, so we had some work cut out for us. P4 had been up earlier in the week and taken care of most of the lower mountain, so that left us to take care of gear and tower pads on EPA and Peak 2.
The morning was a frenzy of loading tower pads, sleds and medical gear onto EPA and taking it to the top. We got the runs off EPA open, and the coverage on the hill was looking great. A short time later, we deployed a crew back to Peak 2 to get it setup, and help get tower pads on. I pulled out the camera to take a few shots of Dan and Joe checking out the new bump shack at the top of EPA, placed there so we wouldn’t have to bump in the actual lift shack with the lifties, as well as Joe and Anna demonstrating the proper space for social distancing…
I took a few runs off of EPA while some of the crew worked behind the scenes on Peak 2, and spent quite a bit of time setting up fencing as well as being on the radio directing traffic.
Sometime around 11:30 am, the crew on Peak 2 was ready to go, and it opened to the public. I was at the top of EPA at the time, so I decided it was worth a hike up to the top instead of riding down and then taking an 8 minute chair ride up. At the top, I arrived about the same time that Dan was getting off the chair. Looking down the lift line, I could quite a few public loaded on the chairs, ready to tear it up. Dan and I wasted little time at the top, and headed over to make some turns down June’s Run, which was covered with about 8-10 inches of fresh, dry snow.
June’s was awesome, and we ripped turns down to the bottom, and skied the roomer out under the lift to the base of Peak 2. As will be the norm for this season on patrol, we rode the chair individually on the way back up, and were soon ready for another lap.
After a couple of more runs on Peak 2, we headed back over to the front to set up the last of the fencing at the Sleepy headwall, and since it was nearing 2:00 pm and I was getting hungry, we took a break for lunch.
Lunch breezed by, and I headed back on the hill for some more work. All of the runs except RTS and Success were open, but some of the public was poaching into Success, so we needed to get the last few tower pads put on the upper towers. I had a blast making turns down Success with the heavy pad that acted like a sail, and after that final bit of work, it was time to head back to Peak 2 for closing.
Peak 2 sweep went off without a hitch, and then it was time to head over to EPA for closing. Dan was running upper mountain sweep, and since we had enough folks, I stayed up with him at the top. My intentions were obvious — I wanted to exit via RTS — and being hill chief has it’s privileges. Plus, I wanted to check out a couple of large trees that had fallen across the run a few weeks earlier, and see what level of effort might be needed with the saw to take care of them. Once all of the upper mountain runs were called in clear, we stepped into our bindings and headed down…
RTS skied really well, and we enjoyed turns down the steep slope. The two large fallen trees were still well out of the snow, or rather at least their branches were, and I made a note to pass that info along to Patrol 4 for some possible saw work later the next week. We skied out the rest of the run in the waning light, and it reminded me of good times from dusk patrols in seasons gone by. At the bottom, we skied out Louis Lane, and then down Swoosh to the base. A quick evening meeting outside the patrol room ensued, and then it was time to call it a day.
At the car, after changing out of my boots, I joined Dan for a beer at the fire ring with a few of the motor home crowd. It was nice to shoot the breeze after a fun day of work and turns, and I thoroughly enjoyed my Fresh Haze IPA from Deschutes Brewery. Since it was dark, I did the logical thing and snapped a photo of the can during my lunch break earlier in the day, although I suppose I could have resorted to a tripod and flash, but that seemed like too much work:)
After a half hour of enjoying the company around the fire, it was time to hit the road and head for home. I was pretty stoked on the day, happy to be riding lifts again, and looking forward to another good season of patrolling at the Pass. Until the next time, here’s a parting shot from the day…
December 4, 2020 – White River Canyon
High pressure was in the forecast, so Joe, Jack and I made plans to head up to Mt Hood for a day of turns. The plan was to tour out of the White River area and head up from there. Joe and I met at the cop shop in Albany early and headed up I-5 and then highway 26, making our way to the White River Snowpark around 7:45 am. While waiting for Jack to arrive, I walked a few few from the truck and snapped a few photos of Hood in the early morning light.
Jack pulled in around 8:00 am, and a few minutes later we shouldered packs and headed out. Although we didn’t have a specific objective in mind other than “up,” it was pretty obvious where to head — one could just look at the mountain and walk towards it, or follow the thousands of boot prints made by day hikers in the last few days.
The snow conditions were firm, which made travel easy and fast, and soon we started gaining some elevation. After a few creek crossings, we determined it would be better to approach via the easterly fork of the creek, and started up. Along the way, we traversed a couple of slopes that looked like they would be fun skiing a little later in the day.
We worked our way up the canyon, to a point where we needed put the skis on the back for a short carry across a melted out steep pitch. It looked like it probably went a week or so back, but at this point in time there was a gap between the snow of about a hundred feet. Adding to the challenge, there was quite a bit of rockfall coming down the slope. It looked like we could climb downward at a 45 degree angle, and cross at a narrow spot to minimize the risk. Our plan worked perfectly, and soon we were headed back up the hill…
Once we navigated through the steeper section, it was back to skinning. As we ascended, the weather was staying really nice, and it became clear that our objective was what I call the “finger.” The finger has a south aspect, which was what we were looking for in hopes of scoring some corn, and also is a feature that I’ve been looking at on Hood for over 20 years but for one reason or another hadn’t yet skied.
We skinned up to the base of the finger, then took a quick break to eat lunch and get re-hydrated. It was a well-timed break, and we were feeling refreshed as we headed back out. Joe and I elected to boot up the finger, while Jack opted to skin. The booting was pretty easy, and to top it off the snow was corned up pretty nicely. Our only worry now was to get to the top of the finger in time to turn around and ski it before it firmed up.
About an hour after we started booting, more or less, we topped out on the finger, and decided to head on up for another few hundred vertical. The snow here was lower angle, and a mix of wind buff and firm crust. Continuing on, we made it to about 9000 feet before calling it. From this point, it looked like it would be an easy traverse over to the Wy’East face, but given the hour, the conditions and our tired legs, we decided to call it.
We transitioned to ski mode, and took a few minutes to enjoy the view. It was quite windy at 9000 feet, but otherwise sunny and beautiful. I brought out my beverage of choice for the day, a tasty winter Ill-Tempered Gnome from Oakshire Brewing, and snapped a few photos. After that, I put it back in my pack to drink at the bottom of the finger, and we stepped into our bindings and started off.
The first few turns were a bit scratchy as we suspected they would be, but were still fun. Things really got fun however when we crested the rollover onto the finger proper and were able to rip the perfect corn…
I set up to shoot some pictures of the skiers as they headed down, and continued shooting as they skied by me. The snow was so good, both of them kept going, and skied for what seemed like forever before stopping about halfway down the slope. Once they were stopped, I rode some of the best (if not the best) December corn I’ve ever had on my way down to them…
The finger is much bigger and longer than it looks from below, and I headed down another several hundred feet and snapped some more pics of the skiers as they headed down. Everyone was thoroughly enjoying the turns, and really ripping the slope…
Towards the bottom of the finger, Joe offered to take the camera and snap a few shots of me, so I handed it off and he captured a few shots of me enjoying the action…
We skied the finger out to the bottom and then back down to our lunch spot, and stopped to regroup and admire our tracks. Looking back up, we were all stoked on the run, and staring at our tracks standing out in the corn reminded me of good days making turns in the cascades earlier in the spring…
Our lunch spot also turned out to be a great spot to drink those beers we were packing around, as well as toast Jeff (inside joke). Having not eaten a whole lot and then downing a 16 oz beer that was over 7% alcohol content left me feeling pretty good. Once the beers were gone and our break was over, we headed back down, retracing our uptrack on the slope below…
We skied down to the sketchy snow-free rockfall crossing from earlier in the morning and decided instead of skiing back down the way we came, we’d drop into the main canyon proper to milk the best turns in the afternoon sun. Doing so would require a longer traverse back out at the bottom, but proved to be worth it as the turns in the sun were soft and nice…
The turns down the canyon wall were excellent, and the pitch and the setting reminded me of an earlier trip several years ago to Mt St Helens, and I made a mental note to head back to St Helens this winter if the opportunity presents itself.
At the bottom of the canyon, we started the long traverse back out downstream. We were able to slide for the better part of a mile or so, before getting pinched out between the canyon wall and the open creek. After looking unsuccessfully for a snow bridge to cross, we elected to climb back up the canyon wall for about a hundred feet and them make a short traverse back to our original skin track…
Once back on our skin track, we made some fun turns down to the flat part of the canyon below, and then were able to slide the rest of the way out to the car, sans the one mandatory creek crossing.
There were quite a few folks out and about a few hundred yards from the snow park, but we were able to ski by them and slide right to the car door, always a treat. At the cars, we changed out of ski boots, and celebrated with a well earned Mike’s Hard Lemonade — thanks Jack, I owe you one!
All in all, with low expectations to start the day, everyone agreed the day exceeded expectations, and we were pretty stoked to get a rare December corn day. A bit later, Joe and I bid Jack farewell, and headed back down the highway to the southern Willamette Valley, already looking forward to another adventure.