September Snowdome

Having opted for enjoyable but not exactly adventurous turns on the Palmer snowfield in both July and August, I set my sights on Snowdome for September with my good friend and TAY-er Max Silverman. After I finished watching the queen stage of the Vuelta Espana and we had stopped for additional provisions at the Pine Street Bakery in Hood River, we set off from the Cooper Spur trailhead around noon. The moraine trail up from Cooper Spur gives a really incredible view of the Eliot Glacier, especially given its proximity to the trailhead, and we eyed our prize in the distance, looking both skiable and far away. 

Descending onto the moraine we began weaving our way through and over all the different varieties of volcanic choss and contoured up the looker's left side of the Eliot, finding bits of a use trail that would then disappear. Crossing the lower bench of the Eliot ended up being quite straightforward, with enough rock peppering the ice that we were both able to keep our trail runners on the whole time. After gaining the weakness on the west ridge we hopped over a couple hundred more feet of rocks and scree before making it to the bottom tongue of snow and beginning to boot up. The clouds streaming over the summit ridge and catching the late afternoon sun were quite stunning and travel was easy, though we both threw crampons on since we'd carried them anyways.

We made it to the top of the most fall-line section of snow around 9000', and decided to start skiing instead of navigating the cracks further above. After a quick side quest to admire the apartment-sized seracs of the upper Eliot we enjoyed about a thousand feet of delightful skiing down to the end of the snow, a few inches of slightly softened summer snow over a firm base. After managing to lose and then recover a few bits of important gear during the transition we walked back across the Eliot and back down to the car, just barely avoiding headlamp time. I would have been happy with simply taking the skis for a walk and making a few scratchy turns given how cool traveling on the north side of Hood is, but getting such a fun run in such impressive surroundings made this one special and a definite season highlight.