October 31, 2004, Mt. Hood Meadows Bowls

Conditions were absurdly good today. Mt Hood Meadows remains closed which is to the gain of backcountry skiers. I arrived at the Meadows closed gate around 9am were I followed a party of 2 and their cute pooch, Luna, from Hood River into 4 bowl. Skinning up it was windy, cold and their were intermittent dark clouds. In 4 bowl conditions were great: 5-10"s of relatively light snow on-top a supportive base. Snow conditions would be like this virtually the rest of the day. At the base of 4 bowl I met Andy P--who is a TAY poster!--and his significant other Ann. Like me, Andy and Ann just completed their first consecutive year of skiing. We continued making laps of the various bowls. As the day went on the weather improved, the temp warmed and the wind lessened. Towards the end of the day Andy and Ann's friends, Ravin and her husband also named Andy (we'll call him Andrew per Ravin's suggestion) showed up. I did a couple laps with them before heading home. The snow remained fun all day but where it had received lots of sunshine it was transforming into breakable crust.

Here's Andy turning in the pow, note the smoke trailing him:



I took an astounding 221 photos today, a lot of which came out really well. It was tough to choose one photo to post so I posted more at TTips here.

Maybe Charles will let me submit photos for a home page gallery? Please? I don't think there's been a gallery from Hood yet :-)