11/27/01
What a difference 11 days makes! Jon and I met up at Timberline on the 16th to find a chubby base at 6000 ft of . . . . 2 inches. Obviously some things had changed a bit in the interim.
Matt had been doing some skiing up at Meadows over the weekend and reported some yummy powder all around. The destination debate included high on Mt Hood Southside - Illumination Rock / Crater Rock (too wind-hammered), White River Canyon (long approach from the bottom, no snow bridges over the drainage, and too much new-snow sketchiness to enter in from the top), and doing laps just above Timberline in the Salmon River drainage. We finally decided on doing laps in the Heather Canyon just above the treeline.
Good decision.
Met up with Jon at Govt. Camp and swung down to Hood River Meadows to meet up with Matt. Shuttled a car up to main Meadows base area and started hiking at around 7:30. Skies had cleared and it was somewhere in the upper teens. Contoured around and made the lip of the Canyon in no time.
| Approaching the canyon rim at treeline |
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What a view - the canyon in pristine shape - no tracks, other than a few high traverses laid down by boarders ducking the rope out of the area. Looked too good to be true. The canyon still hadn't been opened for the season - still no control work going on in there either. Dug a few pits, kicked off a couple of Rutschblocks, and decided we were feeling pretty good about the slope.
| Them boys have growed up to be such fine, hard-working young men. |
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Jon had honors and started making turns while a-whoopin' and a-hollerin'. Grins all around. We all descended in turn and turned to admire our work.
| "You happy with that?" |
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Jon punched in and started building a track back up out of the canyon. By the end of the day we had done so many circuits, this track had pretty much become a highway.
| Matt & Jon doing a little road maintenance |
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| Lap #2 - untracked freshies!! |
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| Matt doing some some environmentally-sound snow preservation |
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| Jon feeling the freshness over on the third rail |
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| Another trip up the monster skin track. Our 1st lap tracks can be seen there between Matt and Jon. |
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| Putting the final signature on the day on lap #4 |
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We continued to do laps into the canyon until we "popped". Jon had a few tumbles in the uptrack as he wrestled with some over-waxed skins. Kind of like a turtle stuck on his back as he wallowed around in the deep.
"You sure are messing up this skin track, Jon."
Upon hearing me say this, despite all the fun we were having, his retort was rapid and stinging.
| One last trip up & out of the canyon |
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After leaving the canyon, we skinned around and out, and descended down to the Hood River Meadows base area. The terrain over there was still not open for skiing so we enjoyed another 1200 feet of trackless powder (except for a few cat-tracks) down to the bottom. Shuttled back to main Meadows base area and pulled out the lawnchairs and refreshments, and watched as the next storm rolled in.
20 inches fell the next day... 7 inches the next... 13 inches the next ... 18 inches the next...
A pretty good start.