Category: Hoodoo

I had a weekend off from ski patrol and training, so Andy and I headed up to Hoodoo since we had a pair of lift tickets to use up. It had snowed some during the night, and there weren’t too many cars in the lot when we arrived. We spent most of the day riding off the east side of the mountain, making lap after lap in the fresh stuff. We found a few fun features to play on, and it was good to just get out and make turns with nobody around.

As usual, the wind sift kept the tracks filled in all day long, and each run was filled with light powder turns and face shots. I couldn’t think of a better way to spend a day…..

Andy and I headed to Hoodoo for a little lift serviced riding, knowing that the backcountry would be unstable given all the recent snowfall in the past few days. It was snowing as we left the valley (elevation 400 feet), so we knew conditions on the hill would be good. We arrived in the parking lot and there was over a foot of fresh stuff.  Most of our day was spent riding the east face of the mountain, where the snow was super light and deep.  Very few people were at the hill, in part because an avalanche on Highway 20 closed the road for the better part of the day. The result was fresh runs all day long…..

The nice thing about Hoodoo’s east face is that when it’s windy, the tracks fill in by the time you head back and it’s like riding untracked lines all over again!  This happened to us for most of the day – every time we went back for more, our previous tracks were gone and fresh powder was waiting!

We finished our day making runs off of Chuck’s Backside. By the end of the day, my legs were pretty tired, but this day went down as one of the best lift-served powder days I’ve ever had!!!!

During the month of December in 2009, I didn’t have many chances to get much free riding in due to low snow depths at the local backcountry spots and numerous days at Willamette Pass for ski patrol training. So I headed out to Hoodoo to check out the fresh snow that had fallen and to ride Buell’s K2 Gyrator. The Gyrator features powder rocker, and it rides powder like a dream. I spent most of my time riding the 8-10 inches of fresh snow in the summit bowl and east face. The Gyrator handled the fresh snow superbly, and wasn’t a problem on the soft groomers. I spent most of the day riding solo, and it was good to get some nice turns in to end the year. I snapped a photo of the board at the bottom of the east face with Hayrick Butte in the background…..

I made turns until about 2:00, when I decided to call it a day and head for home. It was still snowing when I left, but the mountain was pretty tracked out and I felt good about my day. Overall, it was a great way to end the year.