May 14, 2006, WyEast face, Mt Hood

This TR is a week late; hopefully it's still of some use. The WyEast face is one of the most prominent ski routes on Mt Hood. The broad face towers above Mt Hood Meadows ski resort; on a sunny day, skiing at MHM is an act of planning a descent of the WyEast.

Sunday, the day of our outing, was forecasted to be one of the hottest days of the year, so we wanted to get an early start. We set a plan to meet in Portland at 4am. We started from the HRM lot. Andy was back from Utah for the weekend but was feeling ill, leaving just Aaron and I. Last time I was at HRM was two weeks before this trip, and I was surprised how significantly the snow had receded since. We were able to skin right from the parking lot, but the snow was heavily pitted and runneled until we got above the Shooting Star lift. We skinned underneath the lifts to the top of Cascade, then up the cat track to the base of the face. It was very early and I was very tired from having not slept the previous night (I left my house at 3:15am, and since I normally don't go to bed till 2, I figured there was no point in getting an hour of sleep; this was a mistake). At the base of the face we stopped at the top of the V shaped rocks and took a nap. We then stowed our skis on our packs and booted up the face. We found a nice bootpack with secure steps.

Me reaching the top of the face:


The descent from the top consisted of softened corn. It was nice snow, but being so tired it was hard for me to fully enjoy it. We continued all the way down Superbowl (where the snow was excellent), then down upper Heather (where the snow was sticky and bumpy) and out the Heather runout back to HRM for vert of 6000'.

Aaron in Superbowl: