Category: Mt Hood

I headed to Meadows on Sunday with Andy, and the plan was to use our free lift tickets courtesy of the Warren Miller flick from earlier in the year.  We arrived to about 6 inches of fresh powder with all the lifts running.  After some initial avy work by the ski patrol, Heather Canyon opened up.  Patrol was successful in getting some slopes to slide earlier in the day higher up.  There was some early sun, but it yielded to fog and snow for the remainder of the day.  Upon entering the canyon, one could hear much hooping and hollering in the distance. Here’s a shot in the upper canyon of Andy skiing with my tracks from a cornice drop in the background…..

The lines throughout the day were endless, deep and fast.  We traversed over to Clark Canyon for some more fresh lines….

Towards the afternoon it warmed up some, and we decided to head into the in the lower canyon, on runs like Jacks Woods and Absolute Magnitude.  The day ended with clouds moving in and more snow falling.  We snapped this shot at the top of the Shooting Star Express right before closing…..

Back at the car, we gulped some food and hot coffee and headed for home after another fun day of Spring pow in the Oregon Cascades!

Mt Hood was calling our names for August turns, so Todd and I headed up and the conditions didn’t disappoint. 2008 has been an epic year- we even got some lift served riding at Willamette Pass in June! The weather was iffy early in the morning, but by the time we loaded the first chairlift, I knew we would have a good day. The clouds burned off and the sun came out to play. We spun several laps on the Palmer chair before taking a break out on the White River snowfield for lunch. By 11:00, most of the people had left the hill with the exception of the campers far below.

We kept making turns until shortly after the noon hour before heading down to the truck.

The ride down the Mile canyon was superb and fun as always. We were able to ride to within a few hundred yards of the lodge, leaving only a short boot out to the parking lot. Here’s a shot of the mountain in the afternoon sun from the parking lot.

After loading our gear in the truck, we headed down to Govy to enjoy an Ice Axe IPA from Mt Hood Brewing Co. at the Ratskellar along with a tasty burger. August in Oregon really is pretty sweet! Here’s a parting shot of Todd enjoying a break up top from earlier in the day…

Dropping in above Memorial Bowl, April 2009……..

Andy and I made several weekend trips to Mt Hood Meadows during April 2009, and had a variety of conditions and weather. Most of our time was spent in Heather & Clark Canyons, accessed from the Cascade Lift. In April, there are generally less people at Meadows, but the riding is still excellent. Here’s a shot of me ripping through some wind packed powder in the Silver Bowl in upper Heather Canyon….

Later in the month, conditions were sunny, and a few inches of snow had fallen the night before. Upper Heather Canyon was in good shape, and there were some large cornices which were begging to be dropped. This one in the Diamond Bowl was especially fun…

Following each ski day, we either had a beer in Govy, or better yet, listened to the live band on the deck at the Meadows base while enjoying a frosty cold one in the sunshine. For lift served in April, it’s hard to beat Mt Hood Meadows!

Andy and I left the southern Willamette Valley early in the morning and headed north to Meadows hopeful to get in some powder riding. The weather was pretty nice when we pulled in the parking lot, and the mountain had received a pretty good dump of snow the night before. As usual, there were hoards of people running around, but we found pretty good solitude off of the Hood River Express Chair on Private Reserve. We made laps in the trees around Elk and Yoda bowls for most of the day, and found plenty of face shots and deep powder. We took some video, and I pulled this still from one of the videos. Gotta love late March in the PNW!

Mt Hood was the destination for Todd and I as we looked to get August turns in for 2007. We didn’t really feel like hiking that much, especially after the massive snow melt off which has occurred recently so we opted to head to T-Line. Plus, my wife and I had our first child (Shaun – whom I’m hoping will become a member of the TAY club some day) on Sunday the 5th.

The snow was surprisingly good for most of the day, and the place was vacant after about 12:00. There were several public “lanes” open and the lift lines weren’t bad. We made so many laps I lost count. It was nice to get tons of lift served turns in, as opposed to the usual summer slog of hiking with only the return trip down.

At the end of the day, we were able to ride down to about 300 yards from the lodge. There was a long finger of snow out towards the Zigzag glaicer that was still skiable for anyone interested in getting some “non-lift accessed” turns in on the south side of Hood. It’ll probably be good for a few more weeks.

To complete the day, we stopped at the Ice Axe Grill (Mt Hood Brew Pub) in Govy and had a few beers on our way home. Their summer Hefewizen was excellent! I will likely be stopping there in the future!