2/18/2012, Barlow Butte, Mt Hood national forest
2/18/12
OR Mt Hood
2478
0
Met up with Aaron (Oldhouseman) and his friend Jacob for an exploration of Barlow Butte via the snowpark. A rather short approach, a bearing straight to the summit made an easy approach where we then traversed out the ridge to ski the SW aspect.
There is just not enough snowpack to ski this slope in full, the slope has lots of exposed underbrush, and anything below boxing you in thick timber too tight for any turns.
This aspect is mostly wind scoured, but held patches of powder between ice making both the ski and skin sketchy and whiteout winds punished us in full force on this aspect. Just not enough vertical to make it worth it we skinned back up the ridge to look for opportunities on the east aspects in the trees.
Dropping straight down the opposite aspect proved better wind loading over a firm thick rain crust made for mediocre turns but manageable. We dropped down onto FR3560 (Mineral Jane ski trail?) and toured up the road a bit finding a small glade on the next NE aspect which we skied as far as we could until boxed in. After this we called it a day and had an easy ski out the road to finish a loop back to the snowpark.
oldhouseman:
Overall, there is some interesting terrain in here to explore with just enough spacing to ski trees. This area just needs a deeper snowpack to make it worth while, the trees are tight, but manageable enough above 4000 elev to ski. With another ~3 feet of snowpack to cover all the blowdown etc. this place might offer good tree terrain to ski and explore, right now its manageable but could be better... There are other glades to consider further out the ridge but suffer the same or similar aspect as the first one.... but I think I'll save this area for another season with a deeper snowpack.
Hillmap link
There is just not enough snowpack to ski this slope in full, the slope has lots of exposed underbrush, and anything below boxing you in thick timber too tight for any turns.
This aspect is mostly wind scoured, but held patches of powder between ice making both the ski and skin sketchy and whiteout winds punished us in full force on this aspect. Just not enough vertical to make it worth it we skinned back up the ridge to look for opportunities on the east aspects in the trees.
Dropping straight down the opposite aspect proved better wind loading over a firm thick rain crust made for mediocre turns but manageable. We dropped down onto FR3560 (Mineral Jane ski trail?) and toured up the road a bit finding a small glade on the next NE aspect which we skied as far as we could until boxed in. After this we called it a day and had an easy ski out the road to finish a loop back to the snowpark.
oldhouseman:
Overall, there is some interesting terrain in here to explore with just enough spacing to ski trees. This area just needs a deeper snowpack to make it worth while, the trees are tight, but manageable enough above 4000 elev to ski. With another ~3 feet of snowpack to cover all the blowdown etc. this place might offer good tree terrain to ski and explore, right now its manageable but could be better... There are other glades to consider further out the ridge but suffer the same or similar aspect as the first one.... but I think I'll save this area for another season with a deeper snowpack.
Hillmap link
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