Sept 27, 2012, Mt Hood, Illumination / ZigZag

Timberline is prepping for October 5th reopening.  Lots of equipment out on the snowfield.  Wendells has a couple of park features and their portable tow set up in Mile canyon just below the Palmer / Mile terminals. 

Approached in leathers up the Mile access road.  There was some vehicle traffic and operations was out working on lift towers.  I stepped out of their way and got waves or nods.  At base of Palmer, I struck climbers left toward ZigZag and Illumination Rock.  Got to continuous snow roughly abeam Palmer midway and switched to skins.  Saw a fox in one of the canyons between the permit area and ZigZag Glacier. 

Snow on the ZigZag was thin corn over a firm base.  Down low, cups are small but annoyingly firm, the middle third was smooth corn with long shallow runnels, the top third has big icy cups with lots of rockfall.  Illumination saddle and ZagZag Glacier proper is covered with swimming pool size cups and rockfall.  I saw one crack in the ZigZag, but its out amongst the rocks anyway.

I abandoned skis at  the top of ZagZag and traversed over to Illumination Saddle where the view of Reid Glacier and the northwest side rock formations is pretty incredible.  Sitting on the saddle is a little  edgy.  It's a long slide then drop onto the Reid, and the fall back onto the ZigZag side would be a sandy, rocky tumble.   

Great run on ZigZag Snowfield / Glacier down into Zigzag canyon, then traversed over to he Mile, and rode out below Windells tow.  Snow continues further in the ZigZag, but gets really choppy and dirty.  Continuing further means committing to skinning out as those canyon walls get really tall and steep. 

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Illumination Rock

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Big Cups and Rock Fall Below Illumination Saddle

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Reid Glacier - Columbia River Beyond

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Volcanic Rock Above Reid Glacier

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Pinnacle Above Saddle

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Illumination Rock from Saddle

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Top of ZigZag

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ZigZag Turns

47 Months - Cheers