After enduring a long, hot summer, I was happy to see the calendar approaching October, which is one of my favorite months of the year. The transition to fall is something I look forward to each year, along with getting October turns in early in the month. This year was no exception, and Dan and I made plans to head up to Mt Hood and ski on what was left of the Palmer patch. I’d been watching the Timberline webcam for the past couple of weeks, and the snow was going fast, but it looked like it would hold out for turns in the first few days of the month.
We met early along the freeway at the Harrisburg exit, and made good time to Sandy, where we got a quick charge for the Tesla and a coffee for ourselves before heading up to the mountain. Pulling into the parking lot revealed a much different scene than a month prior, and there were only a few other cars around. After getting our gear organized and packs loaded, we headed up, and made good time up to Silcox.
Just above the Silcox, we found snow in the Palmer canyon, which allowed for some easy hiking, but the quality of the snow was just a notch below hideous. Neither of us were too stoked on the extremely bumpy and filthy snow, but held higher hopes for the Palmer above.
We worked our way up to the mid-station, and after negotiating a mix of scree, glacial till and dirt, we were able to don skins a couple hundred feet higher and skin the to within about 50 feet from the Palmer top shack. Once at the top, it was time to get a my beer on ice (after the obligatory photo). My first offering for the day was a tasty Big Juicy IPA from No-Li Brewery that I’d picked up in Washington a bit earlier in the summer on a trip with the family to Mt Rainier.
We sat around up top for awhile, enjoying the views while the snow softened some. A bit later, we got ready to head down for a first lap, and Dan snapped a “sponsor shot” picture of me before we clicked and strapped into our bindings and headed down.
I headed down first, and setup to shoot a few pictures of Dan as he came down, before he grabbed the camera to return the favor for me. The first hundred feet or so was “ok” snow, but after that both of us were surprised by how smooth and fun the turns were. Several pics are below…
We skied down a finger of snow on skier’s left, milking it until it ran out, and then donned skins to head back up for a second lap.
A short stint on the skins brought us back up to the top, and we ran into a fellow turns-all-year enthusiast and ski patroller from Utah named Darrell. As it turned out, Darrell had a one-month longer streak than Dan, at 349 months. The three of us chatted for awhile, and then Dan and I headed down for a second ski.
The snow on the second run was nice enough to warrant heading back up one more time, so we decided to make one more climb. As we were getting ready, Darrell came down and I snapped a few pics of him enjoying the turns, including the shot below.
Before we headed out, I pulled out my second (and final) beer of the day and snapped a picture of it, before placing it into a snow hole to make sure it would be chilled and ready when we returned after skiing a third lap. I’m generally not a big fan of pilsner’s, but I have to say the Phil’s Pilsner from Wild Ride Brewing was a beer that I would go for again.
For our third climb, we elected to forgo packs and skins, and booted up to a couple hundred feet below the top of the Palmer with the intent of enjoying the smoothest snow on the patch. A few minutes later, we did just that…
We skied back down to our packs and gear, and after loading our gear and approach shoes, made a couple of final turns down to the end of the snow. I caught a picture of Dan making the final slide on the Palmer patch, as well as a picture looking to the south towards Mt Jefferson. The Bingham fire, which had blown up in the last few hours, created an all-too familiar scene
At the bottom of the Palmer, we elected to head down and ski some of the smoother looking snow in the canyon below us, rather than returning immediately to the Palmer Canyon with it’s rough and dirty snow. A long carry through scree and till brought us to a couple of dirty but smooth patches of snow, and we made some enjoyable turns.
At the second, longer patch, we found some really dirty snow. A short section of it proved to be too difficult to slide on, so we booted across it. Dan snapped a couple of pictures of me showing just how filthy it was…
Below our dirty snow, we managed to eek out another hundred feet of turns before calling it and making the traverse across the scree to the Palmer canyon. We both agreed that the final couple hundred feet of snow in the Palmer canyon was some of the most unenjoyable turns we ever made in our lives, but we managed to get down without injury or wipe out.
A short hike brought us out to the Silcox, and from there it was an easy stroll back down the road to the parking lot. As usual, it felt good to get the packs off our backs, and get the brats on the grill. While we waited for the meat to cook, I pulled out some of the season’s offerings from my garden, including some hot salsa as well as a new batch of tomatillo sauce made fresh a few days earlier. Both were great, but the tomatillo sauce was excellent and might become a new staple on the menu for fall ski trips.
A bit later the brats were ready, and we enjoyed them after a fun day of burning calories and making turns, before packing up and making the long drive back home to the southern Willamette Valley. All in all, it was another great day on Mt Hood, and it felt good to have October turns in the books. Below are a couple of parting shots from the day…
