Paying to skin up Mt Hood.

[ScaredSilly]

I am sitting here enjoying my day off writing comments for year around resorts on Forest Service managed lands:

 

https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2013/10/02/2013-23998/proposed-directive-for-additional-seasonal-or-year-round-recreation-activities-at-ski-areas#h-18

 

There is an interesting bit in 2343.11—Policy (Ski Areas) Proposed Paragraph 4 to allow for charging for improvements made by a resort. The implication is that if you are skinning up a groomed trail you could be charged for it. I thought about the implications for skinning up the South of Hood regardless of the time of day. Of course then there is the descent as well.

 

Folks might want to think about this aspects. It is problematic for Hood as that is the only reasonable access point but it could lead to access issues.

 

 

[Ben Beckerich]

What ARE the current rules? During the winter, they deliberately groom out a skin track for us to the top of Palmer... since the lift is out, I assume it's done as a courtesy to anyone who wants to skin up. But once the lift opens, if you skin up groomed snow, you get told "the climber's trail is over on the east side of the resort," in varying tones of friendliness and hostility by 5 different redcoats on your way up. Since they do NOT maintain any kind of clearly defined cat road or skin track over there where the climber's trail is supposedly buried under 20' of snow, I will look for the almost invariably present snow cat track that follows the lifts up. It follows groomed snow, but usually isn't groomed itself, and it's not a hard, inconvenient, or dangerous thing to just step aside when cats come through... yet I still get told, sometimes pleasantly, sometimes curtly, "the climber's tail is way the fuck over there," with a ski pole pointed out toward the eastern horizon.

 

If they want to permit access to groomed trails, I guess if that's their prerogative, then it's their prerogative. They just need to make the rules very explicit so people know what the fuck they can or can't do.

 

ETA - That is, so long as it's just mechanically groomed trails. Gonna be some bullshit if they try to get a fee for being an access point. I already give them $35 or $40 a year to park.

Edited November 29, 2013 by Ben Beckerich

[letsroll]

Timberline could turn into meadows and make you skin around the resort in the wilderness area. But thank goodness they tolerate climbers and skinners. I skin through the resort but try and keep to the sides of runs or on the cat tracks. It they were to charge they better groom a nice trail for us to follow. Even then I will not pay. I am. Putting in the work to power my self up the slope so I don't have to pay $$.