April 8, 2016, Mt. Hood, Up Pearly Down Old?

Forecast was excellent so I made my first trip up Mt. Hood.  Friday had the better forecast and thought it would be better for crowds too.  Got a reasonable start at about 6:15, about sunrise.  I had heard that with Mt. Hood it is best to start early to avoid ice and rock fall but I had skiing in mind and didn't want to wait for hours up top and I wanted the whole thing to be in light and any earlier i couldn't get a nice breakfast along the way ;D.  Couple other people near me on my way up, one on skis, one with a snowboard on his back.  Somewhere about Palmer around the Triangle Moraine area skinning stopped working and I switched to crampons.  Got to the Hogsback in less than 3 hrs.  Sun was starting to hit the Old Chute area.  Feet were killing me so I took a bit of a break.  Coming up I heard and saw some people skiing down from what looked like the top and it didn't sound good.  Approach to Pearly was very straight forward.  The route up Pearly wasn't that bad, fairly steep and icy but with an ice axe and crampons not bad.  Views at the top were incredible in all directions.  I made the westward traverse to what looked like a good drop in spot, may have been the old chute, not sure.  Had sunlight on it and it was about 11 AM so figured it would be good enough to ski.  Other people seemed to be down climbing a bit and not skiing from the summit ridge but down climbing didn't appeal to me, I brought skis!  The first bit was quite narrow and steep and icy so it was very slow going with an ice axe in the uphill hand.  After surviving for a couple hundred feet the snow quality improved.  There is a section skiers right of crater rock that is nice and steep and smooth and good snow quality that was easily the highlight of the ski.  Further down the snow degraded to that really sticky stuff though some section around the top of Palmer I was able to get moving nice and fast.  All in all it was about 4:15 up and less than a half hour down, including a break to enjoy the sun and view.  I recommend waiting for later than 11AM to ski down if you want a lower stress drop in from the summit ridge. Too lazy to post pictures properly but they are on Flickr, search for my username, adamedunn.