Jan 16, 2005, Alpine trail to top of Palmer, Mt Hood

With our unstable snowpack, dearth of snow and purported inclement weather, there were not many options for today. On the drive up we discussed both Benett Pass and the Alpine trail, which is a trail that runs from Government Camp to Timberline lodge. We initially drove to Benett Pass were we found shallow snowdepth and rain-saturated snow with a faint crust, conditions not conducive to enjoyable skiing in the glades and mellow clear cuts here. We backtracked to Government Camp and headed up the Alpine trail. The snowdepth seemed to be slightly deeper in Govy then at Benett Pass but the snow surface was pretty similar: it had been rained on and was slightly crusty. For me one of the main novelties of doing the Alpine trail was I had never been on it before and I've heard it talked about a lot, usually it being mentioned that young snowboarders like to hang out here all day building kickers and doing whatever else it is snowboarders (except those that read this forum ;-)) do. The trail did live up to my expectations with the highlight being a group of probably-not-sober snowboarders sitting on the side of the trail which were kind enough to attempt to socialize with us. When one of them asked where we going, Jason responded "Timberline", to which one of them enthusiastically responded something to the affect of, "DUDE that's such a f-cking long way from here".

At Timberline (no it's not that far) we stopped and ate in the WyEast lodge. I had the freedom, er I mean, french fries and caffeine, sugar and carbonation (aka a Coke). The french fries were excellent--some of the best I've ever had at a resort. It seemed that the entire upper mountain was socked-in but there were intermittent sunbreaks so we headed further up. Much to our surprise as we neared the top of the Magic Mile we got above the clouds and it was--prepare for a shock--perfectly SUNNY! It was also groomed even though neither the Mile nor the Palmer lifts were running and the chairs were stored in the quad buildings. We de-skinned at the top of the Palmer and skied down on surprisingly good snow. The groomed on the Palmer was really excellent, it was soft enough to be easily carvable yet firm enough to be fast and fun. The alpine trail wasn't bad either as the faint crust that was there in the morning had melted.

Jason at the base of the Palmer:


;D