cluck Posted March 20, 2007 Posted March 20, 2007 Trip: Mt. Hood - Ski Tour: Cooper Spur --> Meadows Date: 3/17/2007 Trip Report: Took full advantage of a sunny Saturday to check out a ski tour I'd been pondering for months. The plan was to skin up Tilly Jane trail and continue up Cooper Spur to Tie-in-rock. Then ski around the east side of the mountain over to Timberline Lodge. We get a nice "alpine" 8AM start from the trailhead and are breezing past the Tilly Jane cabin by 9:30. 2 more hours of skinning under georgous blue skies with stunning view of das Hoodwand brings us to Tie-in-Rock. At this point, we are getting knocked around pretty bad by random wind gusts so we opt to start our descent right at the rock rather than continue along the ridge to the broad, flat area at the base of Cooper Spur route and risk getting blown down onto the Elliot glacier. This proved to be a mistake we would pay for later by regaining elevation on the Newton Clark Glacier. The wind is totally messing with us. We are on the leeward side of the mountain which means we should be sheltered from the prevailing winds... in theory. But what we experience is a mixture complete calm and random, hold on to the mountain to keep from getting blown off wind gusts that come sporadically from any directon. At one point, the wind blows my glove liner out of it's stowing place in my jacket and blew it 100 feet down the ridge before dropping it in the snow suddenly and returning to dead calm. I eye my glove cautiously as I peel off my skins and click into my skis. Slowly traversing over to recover the glove, I get tanatlizingly close when another random rogue gust picks it up and flings it over the ridge and out onto the Elliot glacier. Damn! Oh well, time to ski. We enjoy a few buttery turns to get below a small rock outcropping and then start the traverse accross the Newton Clark Glacier. In a matter of minutes, we glide past Lamberson butte, above the Newton-Clark drainage, and over to Heather Canyon. Here we're faced with the decision to attempt to negotiate the broken cliff bands or climb up and ski above them. We opt for the annoying but more conservative choice and skin back uphill, regaining about 300 feet. In retrospect, had we initially continued on to the flat area at the base of the Cooper Spur route proper we'd have been in much better shape. Oh well. After stowing our skins a second time, we cruise above the top of Heather Canyon over to the ridge where we can look down into White River Canyon. We are greeted with a healthy blast of wind and ridge after ridge of brown scree. Forget this. We abandon our plans for Timberline and opt for the "consolation prize" of dropping into the top of Heather Canyon and skiing back down to the parking lot. By 2:30 we're tipping back beers in the sunshine outside the cafe at the Hood River Meadows lot. This turned out to be an excellent tour. The price for entry is 4500 feet of elevation gain, but it buys you spectacular up-close-and-personal views of Snow Dome, Elliot glacier, North Face gullies, Cooper Spur, the spider, Newton Clark Headwall, and Wy'east routes. Highly recommended Gear Notes: Superhero wife with a cell phone and a car to pick our slack-asses up! Thanks babe! Quote
SmilingWhiteKnuckles Posted March 30, 2007 Posted March 30, 2007 Any thought as to how the NF route conditions might be right now? Quote
SmilingWhiteKnuckles Posted March 30, 2007 Posted March 30, 2007 Any thought as to how the NF route conditions might be right now? Quote
ivan Posted March 30, 2007 Posted March 30, 2007 too easy - styrofoam snow the whole way - would be wise to be out of the lower gullies before the heat of the day brings in the artillery though Quote
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