Cloud Forms

Not much in the way of weather over the last few weeks. A few cool photos, though

One of the coolest lenticular clouds I've ever seen on Mt. Hood

Looking down on SkiBowl and clouds from the toe of the Zigzag Glacier

Mid-November Powder

Terrific storm cycle last weekend laid down about 3 feet of snow in as many days.  Two days of powder turning was the payoff.

Skin track up under the chair at SkiBowl

Powder turns

Early sunrise and cloud sea over Salmon River Canyon

Karbs getting in deep

Tracking back up the ridge for another lap

 

You can see our tracks from lap one at the bottom of the canyon

 

New Year’s Turns – 2011

Sunrise & Sean about to drop in on lap one

Karbs on the uptrack after lap #1

Karbs getting after it - looking down-canyon - lap two. Big pile of avalanche debris below right (BIG crown upper right)

Final flourishes on another lap

Punching in on another climb back out after lap #2

Sean on the uptrack having a look at the monster avy crown

Close-up of the 5-6 foot avalanche crown

Trudging up a few hundred more vertical feet for the final descent. Good view of the avalanche starting zone behind.

Sean jumping in on the final lap.

Gear collection (and final damage survey) amongst slide debris prior to trudging back up and out to the car.

Crazy wind-scoured snow features

Delicate Arch - wind-worked snow.

Deschutes Float – October 2010 – A Tale of Two Float Trips

Jon, Sean and I linked up Friday morning 10/22 for a long-anticipated float trip on the D.

Jon loading up at the put in at Trout Creek

Forecast was for some serious weather rolling in over the weekend, but Friday and Saturday weather forecast made it look possibly worth our while.

Jon and Sean swinging flies on Friday

The scenery, beers, and story-telling were outstanding!

Sean checking out the scenery on his first Deschutes float

We pulled into camp Friday night ready for a good feed, more stories, and completely naive to the Saturday that would befall us.

Friday night camp

Sean cooking up the Saturday morning vittles as Jon breaks camp

Morning clouds retreating after a rainy Friday night

Sean and Jon checking out Whitehorse Rapids - the faint rainbow to the left belies the danger ahead!

Jon pointing out Oh Shit rock in Whitehorse

Jon and I had floated Whitehorse a year before under Jon’s flawless oar work… and we managed the crux of Whitehorse this time with no issues as well (Jon hit the seam perfectly)… until a rock (or devil spirit or poltergeist) snagged his left oar and literally snatched it out of his hand in the middle of Whitehorse. We quickly scrambled to get the spare oar into the lock, remained shaken but unscathed, but the lost oar was nowhere to be found.

That behind us – we simply pushed on and continued to fish the river.

Jon casting while Sean rigs up in the boat

Sean and Jon admiring scenery before THE INCIDENT

Right before hitting camp for Saturday night I was at the oars. Had a small tongue of water grooved in… or so I thought… Unfortunately the currently carried me right of my intended line and into a rock that proved to be a worthy adversary for the raft fabric.

The raft lost the rock vs. boat battle – and I managed to fillet a MASSIVE hole just above the reinforcement in the raft that ended at the water line. We limped to our intended camp and I did my best to avoid losing my lunch as we still had 12 or so river miles to float before the takeout.

Jon executing the mission-saving repair. There is a close-up of the tear but I don't have the stomach to post it - even now

Sleep didn’t come easy for me that night as I was convinced I’d racked up charges (in terms of trip completion and participant safety) that I could not cover. Bad juju indeed.

In the end – Jon & Sean’s expert patching skills, luck, and some serious positive trip mojo allowed us to float the remainder of the river without incident.

Bottom line – 3 days with good friends, 2 semi-serious incidents, 1 trip completed, and decades of stories to tell!

February Scrounging

Snow year thus far has been less than impressive. Still managed some decent turns with Sean and Shawn this past Saturday after a bit of new snow overnight Friday.

We got chased off toward the end of the morning by high elevation rain and milk-bottle fog during our egress, but we were cooked and ready to roll anyway.

Shawn celebrates the discovery of the elusive bowl

Karbs ripping big sweepers on lap #1

Sean descending on lap #2

 

Cooper in hot pursuit on lap two

Final tracks on lap three resulted in thousands of rollers and a couple of big giant wagon wheels! (things getting warmer)

Our work is done here... skinning up & out after lap #3

Bluebird Day in the Canyon

Sean, Shawn & I met up for a schuss on a simply outstanding sunny day. We didn’t have high hopes for conditions but were actually pleasantly surprised.

Turned into an epic day with lots of laps completed

Shawn & Cooper dropping in on one of the first descents

Sean & Shawn punching in on the up after lap number one

Almost to the top...

Cooper (L) and Shawn (R) dropping in on lap three

Shawn and Sean nearing the top after another climb out

Sean skiing some crazy angles

Shot of the day - Sean descending... Shawn way down below left

Saying good-bye to lap one tracks on the final skin up and out

Sno-vember Continues…

Shawn and I met after an overnight dump of another foot of snow. The storms of November continue.

Wonder if we’ll get into a super-high-pressure month of December… have seen it happen before…

Oh well, just means high elevation targets come into view.

Shawn leading the charge on the steep & deep skin track

Gunning thru the shortie trees. Cooper lovin' the powder - Shawn trying to keep up in the deep stuff!

Mt Hood – November Powder

Another big storm cycle late last week meant super-early openings for Mt Hood ski areas… and some epic backcountry conditions.

First turns of the morning into the Salmon River Canyon

Skin track up through the hoodoos

Jim coming through on lap one

Skinning back up after the first lap

Jeremy turning & grinning on the next lap

Jim laying down more powder turns

Sunshine & powder... a pretty tough way to spend a Saturday

I think our work here is done

Skin track exit ramp

Leaving the scene of the crime - & obvious evidence to the right

Halloween on the Deschutes River

Spent Halloween weekend fishing the Deschutes River with Jon Carney. Objective of the weekend was to hook up with some Steelhead… caught a few trout but no Steelhead. No matter… beautiful weekend!

Mt Hood – Maintaining the “Streak”

Skiied this past Saturday with Sean up to the top of the Palmer.  This day enabled Sean to keep a 10-month skiing streak alive… Conditions were… challenging, but we were actually able to ski all of the way down to within about 600 feet above Timberline Lodge.

Sean booting up the Palmer

Unfortunately glaze ice conditions on “mature” snow meant skinning was out of the question. Ski crampons would have been handy.

There was a bit of new(er) snow in the lee of small ridges so we stuck to that stuff rather than the water ice on the rest of the Palmer…

Sean getting some turns in on firm stuff

Entering the rock-strewn gully - Timberline Lodge directly below

Our work is done here - egress on dirty ice