Sept.: South side of Mount
Hood from Timberline lodge | 
Sept.: Final turns on early fall
snow before Timberline lodge | 
Sept.: Looking up the Palmer
snowfield to Crater Rock |
Sept.: Summit of Mount Hood,
Crater Rock & Devil's Kitchen | 
Sept.: Nice snow for turning
below Crater Rock | 
Oct.: Early October and most
of the new snow is gone |
Oct.: Ron and Jeanette
skiing the Palmer snowfield | 
Oct.: Ben carves into the
smooth Palmer snowfield | 
Oct.: Ben skiing on Mount
Hood's Palmer snowfield |
Oct.: Stefan snowboarding
on the Palmer snowfield | 
Nov.: South side of Mount
Hood from the Timberline road | 
Nov.: Skinning near 7000ft, up
toward Palmer snowfield |
Nov.: Palmer snowfield
speckled with lift skiers | 
Nov.: Illumination Rock on the
southwest side of Mount Hood | 
Nov.: Another view of
Illumination Rock |
Nov.: The crater rim
of Mount Hood | 
Nov.: Jason skiing new snow
above the Palmer snowfield | 
Nov.: Jason carves into new
snow above Palmer snowfield |
Nov.: Jason carves into new
snow above Palmer snowfield | 
Nov.: Looking down
the Palmer snowfield | 
Nov.: More turns on new snow
on the Palmer snowfield |
Nov.: Jason takes a jump -
but his skis paid the price | 
Nov.: Aaron skiing new snow,
south side of Mount Hood | 
Nov.: The price of early
season fun: blown out ski edge |
Photos by Jeff Huber
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Backcountry skiing trip reports:
Fall skiing, Palmer snowfield, Illumination Saddle, south side of Mount Hood, Oregon, September, October, and November, 2004
September 21, 2004, Mount Hood, south side: Intent on enjoying the outcome of last week's rare weather event I evaded all moral, social and employment conventions to ski today. I was initially planning to do Muir until Markharf shattered my heart into millions of little pieces by responding to my "Planned trips" thread with, "Sorry but Muir is utterly and completely tracked out". I was crushed akin to a teenage girl stood up on her prom date.
Wallowing in freshiez despair I started to hit rock bottom. If Muir will not put out for me then maybe a life of drugs and violence will. As I drove to the shady area of Burnside to begin a life of self destruction I spotted off in the distance a large white volcano. Could I be hallucinating? Are there really any other volcanoes in the Pacific Northwest besides the mighty Mount Rainier? Oh wait, indeed there are, and there just happens to be one 90 minutes from my house! I headed back home and set my alarm for 6am.
Arriving at the base of Mount Hood my deep dark depression induced from Markharf's post began to lift. The sky was perfectly blue and Mount Hood was perfectly white. I skinned from a few hundred vertical feet above the lodge to a bit below Crater Rock. The snow was perfect with plenty pockets of fresh. I de-skinned then made fun turns all the way down. I was now at peace with my shattered dreams of Camp Muir.
November 6, 2004, Mount Hood, Illumination Saddle: The freshiez from last weekend are long gone, but the sunny weather made for optimal time for an above treeline tour. In the Timberline parking lot there was a light breeze but hardly any clouds. Aaron remarked how spring-like it seemed. Skinning up the side of the Palmer snowfield the snow was firm but not super slick. As we began the rising traverse toward Illumination Saddle it became slicker, like water ice slick. Plenty of patches of "blue, bubbly ice" (to quote andyski), and once past these a very slick raincrust lightly covered with snow. Carla turned around waiting for us at the top of the Palmer lift. I installed ski crampons (took quite a bit to find a good spot to do so), this made life much easier.
As expected the descent from Illumination Saddle to the top of the Palmer snowfield was lackluster but did give an excellent foot massage. However once in the ski area the snow was most excellent - creamy and cornish. Aaron and Jason hucked all sorts of features. Unforunately the hucks came with a penalty as Jason blew out an edge landing on a rock.
Jeff |
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