August 12, 2006, Timberline, Mt Hood

Todd and I headed to Timberline on Saturday after original plans of a glacier travel/crevasse rescue class and August turns on the Elliot Glacier on Mt Hood's north side were thwarted by forest fires and the closure of Hwy 35.

There's still plenty of snow left for anyone interested in paying for a lift ticket or hiking up to the Palmer snowfield. After thinking it over, we decided on getting lift tickets to ride as much as possible for most of the day with the possibliity 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, but that may very well be where some September turns come from. A few people were climbing to the summit, but we didn't see anybody with skis decending 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. I saw a high school friend splitting up the Magic Mile and Palmer. Didn't recognize him at first, as I haven't seen him for 10 years and he said he lives in Utah. Kelly, not sure if you ever use this website, but it was good seein' ya

Attahed are a couple of photos of what the mountain and skiing look like...