Oct 1, 2006, South Side, Mt. Hood
10/1/06
OR Mt Hood
3300
2
I debated whether to put this in the "Lift Served" section, but since I didn't ride the chair and went above the high point of the Palmer chair, I thought this would be an OK section. If the moderators want to move it, no problem.
Since the rest of October weekends were filling up fast with other plans, I wanted to get my October turns in on Sunday, particularly with the nice weather predicted.
I started from Timberline at 11:45am in sneakers on the road to The Silcox Hut. After the hut, I followed a trail to get on the snow at the midway point of the Palmer chair. Many folks were taking advantage of the lift and the beautiful weather. I skinned up the climber's far right of the snow field and the snow was soft and smooth: very easy to skin up. When I reached the top of the snowfield, I still felt like going up. Took off the skis and scrambled on to the snow field to the east and slightly above the groomed area. This snow was very suncupped, but soft enough to make for reasonable skinning. Reached the top of this snowfield at about the 9100 ft level at around 2:15. I had lunch and enjoyed the views of Jefferson to the south. The Steel Cliffs were shedding rocks constantly and provided some background noise.
The ride down in the suncups wasn't bad, but I really liked the cruising on the groomed and super soft Palmer. Since the lift had closed a while earlier, I had the place to myself. At the bottom of the Palmer snowfield, I found a strip of snow in a gully to the skiers' left of the chair. The snow in the gully continued all the way down (except for one short carry) to about 500ft above the Timberline lodge. I walked back to my truck in my boots, not bothering to change back to sneakers since it was so close. I'm guessing I was able to ski over 2000 ft of vertical. I was back on the road home by 3:30.
This was my 24th month and compared favorably to last October when I skied down from the Top of the Palmer lift on just a few inches of snow that had fallen during the storm that had hit earlier in the day.
Since the rest of October weekends were filling up fast with other plans, I wanted to get my October turns in on Sunday, particularly with the nice weather predicted.
I started from Timberline at 11:45am in sneakers on the road to The Silcox Hut. After the hut, I followed a trail to get on the snow at the midway point of the Palmer chair. Many folks were taking advantage of the lift and the beautiful weather. I skinned up the climber's far right of the snow field and the snow was soft and smooth: very easy to skin up. When I reached the top of the snowfield, I still felt like going up. Took off the skis and scrambled on to the snow field to the east and slightly above the groomed area. This snow was very suncupped, but soft enough to make for reasonable skinning. Reached the top of this snowfield at about the 9100 ft level at around 2:15. I had lunch and enjoyed the views of Jefferson to the south. The Steel Cliffs were shedding rocks constantly and provided some background noise.
The ride down in the suncups wasn't bad, but I really liked the cruising on the groomed and super soft Palmer. Since the lift had closed a while earlier, I had the place to myself. At the bottom of the Palmer snowfield, I found a strip of snow in a gully to the skiers' left of the chair. The snow in the gully continued all the way down (except for one short carry) to about 500ft above the Timberline lodge. I walked back to my truck in my boots, not bothering to change back to sneakers since it was so close. I'm guessing I was able to ski over 2000 ft of vertical. I was back on the road home by 3:30.
This was my 24th month and compared favorably to last October when I skied down from the Top of the Palmer lift on just a few inches of snow that had fallen during the storm that had hit earlier in the day.
Congrats on you 24th month and thanks for the report! Sounds like conditions were pretty good. I almost went up to T-Line on Sunday, and probably should have after reading your report. It looks like I won't be able to get October turns in for a couple of weeks. I'll have to wait and see what the weather looks like. Hopefully we'll get some snow between now and then. It sounds like there is still plenty of snow on the palmer snowfield. It's starting to look a little sketchy from the T-Line cam.
Excellent!
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