June 26, Mt Hood

Made the annual pilgrimmage down to Mt Hood in search of perfect corn and were not disappointed. Jim and I started from Timberline parking lot at 6:40 am in glorious clear weather with a cooling breeze. At one point we could see about 30 slow-moving climbers in the Old Chute, but couldn't tell if they were moving up, down or sideways! One of the great benefits of the ski climbing schedule is that the climbers had all left by the time we descended. Had an uneventful skin to the Hogsback and a crampon boot to the summit, which we reached around 11:15, I think. After a long break on the summit with stellar views I skied down the ridge to a wide chute lookers left of the Old Chute (Jim had depot'd his skis lower down). The chute started very steep, perhaps 45+ degrees, but a perfect half inch of corn on a firm base made the turns easy and predictable. After another steep pitch on the West Crater wall we opened it up for a howling cruise down to the lodge. Other than point-release wet slides we saw no signs of scary instability.
As a side note does anyone know what the filament-like clouds are in the second phto? They were quite incredible looking down from above, with the glaciers below. As another note, with all the road works in progress it now takes longer to drive TO the mountain, than to ski it!