Jan 9 Mt. Hood - Newton

8-10 inches over crust.  It was me and another party of four in an empty HRM parking at 8am.  I took off first with the four others not far behind.  Breaking trail wasn't difficult since the snow was high quality low density stuff but it moved easy on the crust so traverses were tricky.  Near alpine the others caught me and we entered the alpine together.  The forecast called for stable conditions and I saw no movement in Heather or on Gnar so after kicking off some cornices with and saw no movement I jumped in.  Snow was light and fast and the crust skiable but after about ten turns I hit something and took a spill.  I slid about 75 feet and came to rest minus pole.  After retracing my slide I found the pole and discovered what I hit.  The huge cornices from a few weeks ago had crumbled down the face and left rubble everywhere but none of it big enough to stick out of the 8-10 inches of new snow.

As I skied the Heather run-out at Noon a lot of people were on their way up.  Each group I passed asked me if how crowed it was in Newton.  I told them there were five of us when I left.  I thought it odd that everyone was asking that question until I got to the HRM parking lot.  The lot was as completely full and even the access road had cars parked on it all the way down to Hwy 35!  It was a mad house!  I decided to go back to PDX via Hwy 35 hoping to avoid the throngs on Hwy 26 and the eventual accidents that happen with so many people.   There was a roll over on Hwy 35 but because that road doesn't see as much traffic and it is kept so wide it wasn't a problem getting by it.  Hope they were okay.