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Hood snow conditions


OlegV

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Oleg- I don't know what they are...but you can see from this copy-and-paste as to what they're going to be:

 

Today: Snow showers likely. Snow level 2500 feet. Snow accumulation up to 3 inches. Pass winds southwest 5 to 15 mph.

 

Tonight: Snow showers likely in the evening...then snow developing north after midnight. Breezy. Snow level 3000 feet. Snow accumulations 4 to 6 inches. Pass winds southwest 10 to 15 mph increasing to 10 to 25 mph after midnight.

 

Friday: Snow...heavy at times. Breezy. Snow level 2500 feet. Snow accumulation 8 to 14 inches. Pass winds southwest 15 to 25 mph decreasing to 10 to 15 mph in the afternoon.

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3 of us went up the S. Side yesterday (1/26) which ended up being more of a suffer-fest than anything. The winds were strong out of the south\southwest and visibility was poor. Somehow the NOAA forecast kept convincing our brains that the current conditions were "temporary" and the blue sky would magically appear and the winds would die and the snow would make us yearn for more days like this. Alas reality won out. Anyhow, I think when we started there was a practical realism in what was realistic and safe.

 

The snow was drifting so it was either knee deep drifts or icy crust. My poles had a rime ice layer by the time we hit the top of the Palmer.

 

Skiing down was great for the last 1/4 mile, but the rest was mostly "just getting down"... WIT method.

 

-r

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  • 2 weeks later...

I was up yesterday (Wednesday). The weather sucked for us supposedly having a high pressure system hanging out. Low level clouds that really didn't let up. Wind. Freezing Rain. Today is supposed to be better, weather wise. Things on the snow front are fairly packed, not terribly icy thought (We were up to around 9500 feet or so). The turns were pretty good still, although I worry about the freezing rain ontop of the snow. Couloir will have to fill us in on that.

 

When in doubt, go ski it yourself. Even if the conditions aren't great, at least you'll be getting a workout and get to practice your survival skiing.

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The winds were really strong last night. I started out on skins and the snow went from hard ice to hard-breakable crust. It would have been workable but that combined with the wind made it absolutely ridiculous. There were several times where I was having trouble staying up on the skis, with a pack and having the snow consistency change under my feet. 28 degrees at Timberline with what I guess were 35 mph sustained winds...it just wasn't any fun.

 

Once the wind mellows later today it might be pretty good up there. I may head back up there either tonight or sometime this weekend. The sight of the white mountain under clear skies and an almost full moon were incredible. bigdrink.gif

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Also was up last night. Went up to crater rock. Skinned to about 500 ft below base. Ski crampons would have been great. Bomber conditions. Solid snow. Really windy last night. Ski down at sunset on hard snow/ice. But all in all it was not as bad as I thought it would have been.

Get your climb on this weekend. Heading to Leuthold on Sat.

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Very nice pics, iain! Looks like you did a nice ski tour. thumbs_up.gif

 

Last night, headed up there to do Reid, but it seems that after walking above treeline, someone turned a freakin' turboprop on, and faced it right towards us, from the east.

 

Fearing the icefall because of it on the west side of the mountain, we bailed; but the walking (what we did) seemed really windpacked, and icy. Almost slipped and fell a few times on iced over snowboard tracks.

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nice pics, did you guys go all the way around?

 

Yeah, most of the mountain is pretty firm right now, though the parts we were off skis had a bit of a posthole to them, such as climbing up the Reid area. If you were gentle you could stay on crust some of the time. We were not off the skis that much though.

 

The only good skiing we had was right off I Rock where it gets baked. Similar angles and aspects might be corning up, but this wind (and cloudy weekend forecast) keeps things pretty solid up there. But I guess this is a climbing site so it should be all good. cool.gif

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I've got the kid this weekend (17), but am planning on a S.Side ski\climb (Sunday). I'll probably be back about the time he lumbers out of bed! smile.gif

 

If anyone is interested PM me.

 

Trip\Condiitons Report to follow.

 

-r

 

I'll be interested in your take on the conditions. We left the truck at 2:15 and slogged through freezing rain and poor visibility to the top of the ski slope. Didn't look like it was planning on improving so we turned back. Hope you got some decent views from the summit. We'll be back for those later I guess. Snow was in great shape up to that point.

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