a little skiing at Mt.Hood, a lot of relaxing at Timberline

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Thanksgiving with the family in Salem...then up to Mt.Hood on the 25th for some post-turkey day exercise.   Becky and I got a crack of noon start from Timberline and skinned up to the top of the Palmer chair.  The snow up high was a mix of wind-buffed powder and small ribs of ice....perfectly skiable but not exactly great conditions.   As we sat around at the top of the Palmer snowfield and had a snack, a snowcat drove up the slope, turned around and headed back down, leaving a 10ft wide lane of perfectly groomed corduroy.  The Palmer chair wasn't running, so we figured maybe the employee had gone up just to inspect the lift towers or something...but whatever the reason, we were happy to be able to take a break from the variable conditions and hop onto the groomer for some lazy high-speed turns.
We still had a couple hours before sunset, so we toured over towards the west and yo-yoed a couple laps around Little Zig-Zag canyon that held some great calf-deep powder before shuffling back over to Timberline Lodge for a relaxing night of hot-tubbing and dinner.

season opener...Baker & Alpental touring

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Maybe being away for the fall is why it felt like winter showed up in a hurry...but the Cascades got plastered over just the past two weeks and it was time to get the ski season going.

Becky and I toured at Baker on Saturday...we expected the snow to be great, but the sunshine was a unexpected bonus.   Not a big day...our legs aren't quite in shape yet, but we yo-yoed some mellow powder and enjoyed the views of Mt.Baker and Shuksan.

Sunday, we met up with Kirsten, Mica, Andy, and Tundra for some laps at Alpental.  Quite brushy down low, but coverage and snow quality mid-mountain and higher was fantastic.

home!

 

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Got back to the good ol' PNW on Thursday morning...spent the first few days napping, visiting with family, napping, knocking the dust off the bicycle and motorcycle...by Sunday I was ready to play in the snow.
Didn't make much of an effort to find any partners for the trip to the Muir Snowfield...figured my pace would be way off after a month and a half of doing nothing but being a desk jockey in Shanghai and I figured it might be more relaxing to just tootle along at my own pace.
It was sunny in the parking lot but clouds were sitting off to the south...and as I slowly made my way up the hill the clouds continued to follow over my shoulder. Fortunately I was able to stay in the sun the whole way up and even at Camp Muir the wind was nearly dead calm which made the temp which was somewhere in the teens quite tolerable.
The ski down was a total mixed bag of ice and powder, and once into the clouds the visibility was terrible..but   it was so very nice to get back into the mountains after being away since September.