September 6, 2010, - Illumination Rock - Mt Hood

I left the southern Willamette Valley this morning just before 5 am.  After a quick drive, I met Todd at the Alpine campground just after 7:30, and we headed up to the Timberline parking lot, where it was quite cold.  We chose to ascend above the Palmer lift via the White River snowfield, and the upper mountain was in and out of the clouds all morning.  Here's a shot of Todd skinning near 9300 feet....



By mid-morning, the snow had softened considerably and appeared to be good for riding.  The White River snowfield was pretty cupped, so we headed out towards the Zigzag Glacier and Illumination Rock.  After a short break, I climbed out to Illumination Saddle, where the wind was really howling.  The Reid Glacier was beautiful with the cloud deck a few thousand feet below, and appears to still be in decent condition.  We strapped into our gear around 11:30 and headed down, as it appeared the clouds might be moving back in and could possibly obscure our vision on the way down.  Here's a few shots of the action....me on the board....




Todd on the teles



We were able to ride from 9400 down to about 7200 feet, and the snow was surprisingly smooth and abundant for this time of year.

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Once down to the bottom of the snowfield, we cracked open a Green Lakes Ale from Deschutes Brewery and admired our turns down the last pitch (ours are to the left in the picture)...



A quick 10 minute hike back to the east put us at the top of the mile canyon in the ski area, where we were able to ride to within a few hundred feet of the cars.  This was probably my most enjoyable September up on Hood!