September 29, 2011, Mt Hood South

This is getting to be my last chance, home-town TAY ski.  Still fun to see things change.

Looking for a little quicker accent than my regular White River Ridge rout, I hiked the standard climbers trail from behind the lodge, up the mountain next to Mile and Palmer lifts.  Planned on just taking quick turns on the Palmer snowfield.

T-Line reopens for fall operations today, so I expected to see some activity.  They ended up turning Palmer for a small number of folks - (private party?) between 11-1.  Since I can ski with a crowd all winter, I headed for Illumination rock and topped out just above the Saddle, between Crater and Illumination Rocks, out and well above the permit area.

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Skied continuous snow from that elevation down into the Zigzag canyon to around 7-7500'. 

Snow continues a couple hundred yards further, but the canyon walls only get taller and steeper.   I and had quite a traverse up, down, and over to the Mile canyon. 

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There are nice fingers of continuous snow in these gullies between the ZigZag and Mile Canyons, which still runs out to the upper summer equipment park at around 6800'.

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Fall operations are Friday-Sun.  Should be some great weekday October turns on either the Palmer Snowfield, or in the gullies above ZigZag, right through to winter snowfall.   


35 Months. 

Cheers.