March 08, 2010
Winter camping on Mt. Hood
"Adventure on your own frontier" was the motto of the summer camp I went to for many years and this weekend, thanks to Jason proposing a winter camping trip on Mt. Hood, I got a healthy dose of that. Jason showed me some of the tricks of winter camping which I hadn't done since some family trips back when I was kid. After celebrating Jason's 30th birthday at a bar with friends the night before we got a late start on Friday. We drove up a snowy road past Laurance Lake near Parkdale and got to the trailhead we were looking for, the Subaru did great. Snowshoeing and skinning the five miles up to Elk Cove at around 5500 feet took a long time; Jason and Sam stayed out in front. We arrived at the meadow well after dark and found a spot for camp. Jason got dinner going and I dug out a pad for our tent. The sky above was filled with stars, we didn't see any other lights except planes. In fact we didn't see anyone the entire weekend.Saturday dawned sunny and calm. We lazed about getting ready in the morning, enjoying our amazing campsite, surrounded by snow-covered Barrett Spur and Mt. Hood. With much lighter packs we hiked up to the ridge and then climbed the ridge to about 7000'. We ditched the packs and hiked further, finding a lookout over the Ladd Glacier. Then it was time for some turns down the mountain, Jason on his telemark skis, me on the snowboard for my first backcountry descent.
All too soon we turned to hike back up to the ridge where we soaked up the sun and lingered. We then skied back to camp down the steeper east side of Barrett Spur where the snow had been in the shade for a while and gotten quite firm. We both managed to ski to the edge of camp which was fun.
So far everything couldn't have really gone any better. Sunday however brought the real adventure. I proposed we go back a different way and Jason eagerly agreed. So we hauled all our stuff up the ridge again and then skied down to our car off-trail. We definitely took the shortest route but predictably we ran in to some very steep terrain. First some icy snowfields in an open forest. I had to find some softer snow in the trees to dig my boots in to on the descent. Sam reluctantly followed me down. Then we quickly found ourselves in even worse shape in a dense forest with lots of downfall and completely icy underfoot. We both were relieved when we got on a gentler slope. There was still some slogging through deep snow between a creek and a clearcut field with young trees before we reached the car. What a trip!
Turns out the adventure wasn't quite over. I was driving the Subaru back down the snowy, icy road and within a few hundred yards of the pavement drove it off to the snowbank on the left, thankfully not the slope down to the creek on the right. It was pretty far off in the snow and it took Jason and I two hours or so of the day's last light to dig it out and get back on the road. I thought we were going to be hiking out of there for a while. Rolling in to Parkdale we enjoyed beer and nachos to celebrate getting out there for some adventure.
More photos on Facebook and check out Jason's excellent shots!
Posted by Dave at March 8, 2010 03:47 PM