April 19, 2006, Mt Hood Southside
4/19/06
OR Mt Hood
3471
3
Jonathan S. from Amherst Mass. is visiting me this week coordinating a business trip with some skiing. Wednesday we headed to Timberline to enjoy the first fully sunny day I can remember being on Mt Hood since November.
We choose to head to Timberline given the perfect weather and to avoid steep slopes given the avy forecast. We skinned up to the Hogsback. There were a handful of other skiers and climbers out, but no major Mazama expeditions in progress. There were tracks above the Hogsback that looked nice. Climbers were going to the submit via the chute to the left of the Pearly Gates. From the Hogsback we headed down. Snow immediately below Hogsback and Crater Rock was gloppy and funky, but a ways down we encountered very nice wind-compacted softened winterish snow.
A lot of the snow was like this, with it getting heavier and cornier (corny in the snow sense, not corny as in a bad joke) the further down we proceeded. We skied the slopes immediately below Illumination Rock:
We then traversed left to get above big Zig Zag canyon. We did the traverse just right so we schussed over the top of the canyon w/o necessitating any skinning. We continued on down the non-resort slopes right of the magic mile. We wanted to get in a 5000 continuous descent so we skied all the way to the base of Stormin Normin (one of Tlines lifts below the lodge), then even skied a short ways down the Alpine trail. When we felt satisfied we had skied enough, we hiked back to Stormin Normin and the friendly lifty let us poach a ride back to Tline.
Its wonderful Spring is finally here!
We choose to head to Timberline given the perfect weather and to avoid steep slopes given the avy forecast. We skinned up to the Hogsback. There were a handful of other skiers and climbers out, but no major Mazama expeditions in progress. There were tracks above the Hogsback that looked nice. Climbers were going to the submit via the chute to the left of the Pearly Gates. From the Hogsback we headed down. Snow immediately below Hogsback and Crater Rock was gloppy and funky, but a ways down we encountered very nice wind-compacted softened winterish snow.
A lot of the snow was like this, with it getting heavier and cornier (corny in the snow sense, not corny as in a bad joke) the further down we proceeded. We skied the slopes immediately below Illumination Rock:
We then traversed left to get above big Zig Zag canyon. We did the traverse just right so we schussed over the top of the canyon w/o necessitating any skinning. We continued on down the non-resort slopes right of the magic mile. We wanted to get in a 5000 continuous descent so we skied all the way to the base of Stormin Normin (one of Tlines lifts below the lodge), then even skied a short ways down the Alpine trail. When we felt satisfied we had skied enough, we hiked back to Stormin Normin and the friendly lifty let us poach a ride back to Tline.
Its wonderful Spring is finally here!
Wow, you got a great day indeed, and nice photos! Good looking snowpack as well. Thanks for the report Jeff.
Yeah, way to hit it on a stellar day, Jeffey.
It looks like the Silcox is almost completely buried if that's it peeking out just past the road cut on the left. If it is, I'm hoping it will still be buried when we're there in about 3 wks; I'd like to ski over the top of it :D
It looks like the Silcox is almost completely buried if that's it peeking out just past the road cut on the left. If it is, I'm hoping it will still be buried when we're there in about 3 wks; I'd like to ski over the top of it :D
Some more pics here:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/jonathanshefftz/album?.dir=/dedb&.src=ph&.tok=ph_oavEBnQL_LU0k
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/jonathanshefftz/album?.dir=/dedb&.src=ph&.tok=ph_oavEBnQL_LU0k
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