Home > Trip Reports > April 26, 2013, Mt. Hood, Above Cooper Spur

April 26, 2013, Mt. Hood, Above Cooper Spur

4/26/13
OR Mt Hood
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Posted by Skier of the Hood on 4/27/13 5:04am
Preamble:
With temperatures warming I left the great north for the promise of a corn harvest. The views of Washington Pass almost made me stop to ski there but we continued on our way to Mt. Rainer. Pulled into a forestry road at about 1am around Mt. Rainer and skied from Camp Muir the following morning.
Then we drove down to Portland and headed to Mt. Hood.
The promise of another corn harvest was not enough to get us out of bed so we took our time and waxed our skis and began our ascent of the zig zag glacier around 4:30pm. The moderate winds kept the mush to minimum and we had amazing refrozen corn for our decent at 7pm.

Cooper Spur:
Somehow our alarm didn't go off so once again we had a late start and got to the Tilly Jane TH at 10am. Began skinning a little more then a half mile from the top of the cooper spur ski resort. Made quick progress up past the cabin and out onto the moraine for a lazy 45min lunch. A group before us had ventured about halfway up the snow dome but we decided to go up cooper spur due to time. At the top of the spur we spied a set of tracks higher up on the summit cone that lured us further to about 9000ft. NE facing slopes above 8000-9000 and north facing slopes above 8500-9500 feet had yet to corn up completely. We began our decent at 5pm and had quality corn to treeline. Below treeline things got sticky till past the tilly jane cabin at which point the snow became somewhat enjoyable again. Arrived at the car at 7pm.
Think we buzzed past you on our descent.  Snowdome was prime @ 1130 so we ripped skins and headed down.  The mush at treeline was challenging.

Nice. So the road was snow free to the Tilly Jane trailhead?

yeah, probably been pretty snow free for a couple months.

I suspect the road was snow free to the Cooper Spur Ski Area. Usually the road to Tilly Jane Campground/Cloud Cap won't be open until late June at the earliest.

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Skier of the Hood
2013-04-27 12:04:59