June 22, 2013, Mt Hood SuperBowl, Clark / Heather
6/22/13
OR Mt Hood
2445
0
Parked at Meadows gate round 5:45 and hiked the access road to top of Easy Rider
Leisurely hike in leathers to base of Cascade, where I switched to skinning on a hard surface where ski crampons were nice. Stopped for water and nourishment just above Cascade top shack. Dropped my pack and took one lap on the little snow field between treeline and top shack. Nice and smooth with few runnels or cups. Could have made a couple more, but pressed to keep going. Hindsight - could have just lapped that field half dozen times and gone home.
Switched back to leathers and climbed the ridge line to the apex of Heather / Clark and White River drainages, top of SuperBowl, base of Wy'East. Summit was right there, but I was running out of water, legs, and food.
Top half skied great. Little over-ripe, but very slashable. Bottom third was rock-fall slalom, but still fun. Last bit was heavy sludge.
Then came the traverse out of Heather, which just sucked. Snow became too unsupportive to boot - knee deep post holes. My skins became saturated and would not stick, resulting in skin-removing side slips. Took ski crampons and very careful stepping. Arrived at the top of Star, traversed over and rode out Canyon to end of snow, which extends about half was down MHX.
Snow is slim and going fast. This trip is likely past it's prime, but was a better trip than slogging up the southwest side with half the world.
Don't know why few of this pics keep rotating...done playing with them, sorry.
June. 56 Months TAY.
Cheers.
Leisurely hike in leathers to base of Cascade, where I switched to skinning on a hard surface where ski crampons were nice. Stopped for water and nourishment just above Cascade top shack. Dropped my pack and took one lap on the little snow field between treeline and top shack. Nice and smooth with few runnels or cups. Could have made a couple more, but pressed to keep going. Hindsight - could have just lapped that field half dozen times and gone home.
Switched back to leathers and climbed the ridge line to the apex of Heather / Clark and White River drainages, top of SuperBowl, base of Wy'East. Summit was right there, but I was running out of water, legs, and food.
Top half skied great. Little over-ripe, but very slashable. Bottom third was rock-fall slalom, but still fun. Last bit was heavy sludge.
Then came the traverse out of Heather, which just sucked. Snow became too unsupportive to boot - knee deep post holes. My skins became saturated and would not stick, resulting in skin-removing side slips. Took ski crampons and very careful stepping. Arrived at the top of Star, traversed over and rode out Canyon to end of snow, which extends about half was down MHX.
Snow is slim and going fast. This trip is likely past it's prime, but was a better trip than slogging up the southwest side with half the world.
Don't know why few of this pics keep rotating...done playing with them, sorry.
June. 56 Months TAY.
Cheers.
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