May 2 Mississippi Head to Paradise Park TH.
5/15/12
WA Cascades West Slopes South (Mt Rainier)
2076
4
Why would you want to walk 3 miles and 2000 feet downhill in ski boots? Maybe because you secretly hate your toenails?
On May 2nd we set up a car shuttle, Geoff parked his suped up Subaru down at the paradise park trailhead (approximately 2000 ft. elevation) near the Zig Zag River. We hopped into Elliot's beaten down Subaru and headed to Timberline lodge.
We skinned up Mountaineer's trail like so many other times before, with the goal of Illumintaion Rock. Clouds, wind and general concerns about white out changed our minds half way up the Palmer snowfield, so we traversed over to the secret gem known as Zig Zag canyon.
May 2nd and the canyon is filled with POW! holy smokes!
Once out of the canyon, we headed down to treeline, getting the most out every roller, windlip and bumple (that's a trademarked christoph benells word). I jibbed 2 trees in hard boots.
It is hard to know where you are going when descending 2,000 vertical feet through thick Oregon woods. That is, if you don't have an Iphone, GPS, map and compass.
After snowboarding through the woods for miles, the terrain flattened out. I switched to skis, without skins, and did some Plakeing, and Moseleying, and even a few telemark turns. I pizza'd when I needed to pizza, and french fried when I needed to french fry.
We came out directly on the trail at the snow line.
After this all that was left was the aforementioned 3 miles of downhill trail, that subsequently smashed 8 of my 9 toenails (number 10 was lost when I dropped a snowboard on my toe back in November). Our high point on Mt. Hood was Mississippi Head, around 8,000 feet, and we descended via splitboard, splitski, ski and boot down to 2,000 feet. At 8pm we made it back to the car and the 12 pack of Rainier beer.
Great day and a long, classic tour through several microclimates.
On May 2nd we set up a car shuttle, Geoff parked his suped up Subaru down at the paradise park trailhead (approximately 2000 ft. elevation) near the Zig Zag River. We hopped into Elliot's beaten down Subaru and headed to Timberline lodge.
We skinned up Mountaineer's trail like so many other times before, with the goal of Illumintaion Rock. Clouds, wind and general concerns about white out changed our minds half way up the Palmer snowfield, so we traversed over to the secret gem known as Zig Zag canyon.
May 2nd and the canyon is filled with POW! holy smokes!
Once out of the canyon, we headed down to treeline, getting the most out every roller, windlip and bumple (that's a trademarked christoph benells word). I jibbed 2 trees in hard boots.
It is hard to know where you are going when descending 2,000 vertical feet through thick Oregon woods. That is, if you don't have an Iphone, GPS, map and compass.
After snowboarding through the woods for miles, the terrain flattened out. I switched to skis, without skins, and did some Plakeing, and Moseleying, and even a few telemark turns. I pizza'd when I needed to pizza, and french fried when I needed to french fry.
We came out directly on the trail at the snow line.
After this all that was left was the aforementioned 3 miles of downhill trail, that subsequently smashed 8 of my 9 toenails (number 10 was lost when I dropped a snowboard on my toe back in November). Our high point on Mt. Hood was Mississippi Head, around 8,000 feet, and we descended via splitboard, splitski, ski and boot down to 2,000 feet. At 8pm we made it back to the car and the 12 pack of Rainier beer.
Great day and a long, classic tour through several microclimates.
Awesome. Will be getting me some Mt. Hood this weekend.
...excellent TR, thx...good luck on the toe nail adventure to come...
Nice report--been there done that (from Illumination Rock down thru the Canyon & trees to hwy). Load of fun.
Great tr, I laughed most of the way through!
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