August 28th, 2006 Timberline, Wy'east.

Stopped off at Timberline on our way back from a friends wedding in Oregon. From the parking lot the Palmer snowfield looked really bumpy and dirty. But once up higher I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was groomed wall-to-wall in perfect corduroy smooth snow. In addition, there were a couple of hundred, or more, ravens riding the winds on the upper mtn.! (I had also heard that there were thousands of butterflies recently). We skied on Monday, and I have only skied Timberline one other time with less people on the slopes. There were only two "lanes" used by camps, and the rest had fresh corduroy lasting till 11:30 (although the "public" lane got tracked pretty quick). From top of Palmer to mid-way serves up 700' vert. and can be lapped in under 10 minutes easily with no lift lines, making it easy to rack up thousands of vertical feet. There is one comfortably wide ribbon of snow continuing to the lower loading station of the Palmer lift. This, combined with the upper snowfield is 1400' vert. And heading down towards parking lot, there remains a continuing comfortably wide ribbon of snow in a gully to 6300' elevation. This run, from the top, was 2200' vert. The walk from the end of the snow to the truck was pretty close to the distance of the walk if one was to download the Magic Mile and walk from the lift. Amazingly, none of the lower snow on our last run was sticky! (we left at 11:30) Timberline is open through Sept. 4th from 7-1:30. Go on a weekday! There must of been only 25 cars in the lot. P.S.- For the aging men out there, I recommend wearing a supportive device for the extremely bumpy/slappy lift ride at two specific towers. Or be prepared to grab 'em!