07/27 - 29/07 - Hood, Snowdome (non)Skiing B-day

Highlights:
Emily and I (and Milton Friedman, RIP) have the same birthdays -- July 31!   In telechica style (except for Milton) we decided to ski a volcano.  We chose Hood.  We invited friends.  We had an amazing time.  We did not ski.  (ok, technically, i did get one turn in.)
Jamie and my brother and I started a slog up to Snowdome, but found ourselves terribly deficient in three key areas:  knowledge, guts, and rope.  So, we turned back.  There's just something creepy about rocks tumbling down toward you arbitrarily and big cracks on the glaciers and... well, knowing that you know nothing.  But, at least we hauled our skis around on our back all morning.  that was fun.
We went for a moonlight hike up to cloud cap on saturday night.  AMAZING.  Just beautiful, probably the most memorable birthday of my life. 
A really good weekend, but no skiing. 
However, the "core four" (as we call ourselves) were reunited. Props to the original Tele Chicas from THIS FORUM for the inspired telechica photo (you know the one). Our little pod of telechicas has embraced that as a tradition, which is captured in the long-winded version of the story, with slide show (and NO skiing!): http://backcountrytr.blogspot.com/2007/07/happy-birthday-snowdome-mt-hood-727-729.html


I see that someone skied it on Sunday.  ~sigh~  We just didn't think it was a good idea for us.  Lots of mountaineering education is in my near future, and rope-purchasing...  and guts-finding.