FREE Mt Hood Backcountry Guide.

Friends, after being approached by both a guidebook company and an app maker last year, both of whom wanted to recruit local expertise to create a paid guide to Mt Hood's backcountry terrain, I decided that it was in the public interest to make that information available for free. After significant personal investment, a free guide to Mt Hood Backcountry is now available:



Of course there will be griping from some about giving up 'secret' spots or facilitating beginner access to the backcountry, but in this age of GPS and 4G, both of these things are inevitable. I would rather that users discover the backcountry as I did-- using moderately imperfect information from a trusted source as a basis for personal exploration and learning. All of the information that I've provided is available elsewhere, but it's inconvenient, poorly written, or hard to find. By compiling this guide, I'm hoping to follow in the tradition of similar websites like Run the Volcanoes (RIP) that served as a touchstone for those entering this sport and the Mt Hood Backcountry with fresh eyes.

Features:

- The Map : Based on Caltopo and marked with common routes, features, and roads, so you can change layers, zoom, pan, print, and apply slope gradient maps.

- The Short Guide : A primer to the peculiarities of skiing in the Hood.

-Weather/Forecast Links: Easy access to NOAA, NWAC, and more.

- Backcountry Ski Routes : A detailed guide to common Mt Hood backcountry routes with photos, printable maps, and notes from personal experience.

Please share this guide with friends, email me through the Contact link if you have corrections/contributions, and get out there to enjoy the 2017-18 season, which is already off to a good start.

-Patrick Fink

Wow...thank you for the tremendous effort and the willingness to share! Although I have not toured Mt Hood and, being from Seattle, may only 'visit' the area a few times, I certainly appreciate what you've done and the spirit in which it was done.... Good Karma to you!

I was checking your post history to see who you are and why you thought you should try your hand at guide book crafting, and I came across a few gems! See: www.turns-all-year.com/skiing_snowboardi....msg145650#msg145650

Take a wild guess at who is being quoted here.

"Too many posts like this and the Meadows area crowds will be here too."

"This discussion really took off while I was away.

I wasn't saying that we should be greedy and hide our ski spots. I was suggesting that posting a road map to them on the internet is not how that information should be shared. I have the guidebook in question next to me, and I think you'd be hard pressed to use the information in it to find your way to the main clearing. To those who have, bravo, but you'd probably have gotten there without the book.

Point is, there's not a lot of good sub-treeline skiing on Mt Hood, and there are two distinct user groups vying for it. One group has experience, understands backcountry etiquette, is educated about avalanches, etc. The other is lower on the learning curve, and you're calling them the Meadows crowd. The first group will find Pocket Creek on their own. They'll find plenty of places to ski in relative solitude, though likely not with the convenience of that place. The second group needs a roadmap, and that's what I don't want to give them.

I learned about Pocket Creek from a friend, who showed me how to get to the spot and encouraged me to keep the place on the DL. I've since taken two competent friends there over several years. They're the kind of people you wouldn't mind skiing next to. In my own media I've never called it Pocket Creek, I remove the location tags from the photos, and call it something vague, like Gunsight ridge (which is 7 miles long). Sure, if you want to you can piece it together from what I've published, but you'd have to work for it.

It makes me sad to go there now and see the place with six different skin tracks straight up the meadow and 7-person-plus-dog parties freeriding the snot out of the place. With farmed tracks, you can put 20-some fresh runs down the meadow, but a group of 3 with no sense of courtesy can screw it up in one lap.

I was wrong to poke fun at you for naming the place. Name away and post GPS tracks if you want. We can each decide our own comfort with sharing spots. That said, I'm going looking for more solitude and better turns, and when I find them, I won't be posting them here."

It didn't take too long for your opinion to change on this issue, eh? Just one short year ago, you were complaining that someone posted a trip report from Gunsight...and now this.

You wanted to make a guidebook, didn't want to get paid by an app maker, but did want to solicit donations from "Meadows area crowds."

There goes the neighborhood...too many figure 11s down the hill as well as across..lots of chugach videos probably.. irresistable urge to want to be?

Too bad turning is not in vogue...

Hey river59,

I get your confusion, though I'm surprised that you get so much glee out of a gotcha on this.

As I mentioned, there are strong signals that this information is going to be available soon in a variety of forms, so I decided to make it available for free and in a format that fits my values. My view on providing this information has clearly changed in light of apps and books entering the space. In a perfect world, it would all be wilderness and word of mouth, but that's not where we are.

I put a donations tab at the bottom because web hosting is expensive, and I pay it all myself out of pocket. I could have gotten paid to give this information to a paid app. I don't NEED anyone's money, but the appreciation of strangers, like 'Blizz Mountain' here, is a strong motivator, and crowd funding is becoming a way of funding worthwhile efforts on the internet. So it's there. You, clearly, are not going to click it soon.

I urge you to make something useful with your time. It's rewarding. If you want to write one of the pages that has yet to be written, I'd welcome you to do so, and I'll credit you for it. The world is changing, and we can shape it how we want or get run over by those who are creating their own image of things.

Cheers. -Patrick Fink

@rlsg

That makes no sense.