On the last weekend of no permits a weather window opened up for an overnight hike & early morning activation of Mt St Helens. The trail was covered with snow to the parking lot. I hit the trail at 1:20am and made good time to chocolate falls on skis. Somewhere heading up the ridge I had to make the switch to bootpacking the skis. Heavier backpack, but faster travel overall.
So in my continuing series on how to summit the easy way, I loaded up the family for the tail end of spring break and headed over to Bend, OR. The weather was gorgeous with just a bit of wind blowing. That contributed to delaying my activation time by an hour due to the lift not yet in service. In the meantime, we skiied the lower slopes. Snow was icy in places particularly the sides of runs and the upper reaches. Once the Summit lift opened, I grabbed my pack and headed up.
In looking for my next winter activation, I came across Tom Dick and Harry (W7O/CN-032) which is on the upper portion of SkiBowl West.
We did this summit as a winter snowmobile trip with Cooper Mtn. and Poison Peak.
See full report here:
http://www.pnwsota.org/blog/wu7h/2022-march-04/cooper-mountain-wa-feb-2022
We did this summit as a winter snowmobile trip with Cooper Mtn. and Fox Peak.
See full report here:
http://www.pnwsota.org/blog/wu7h/2022-march-04/cooper-mountain-wa-feb-2022
WW7D and I set out on an adventure to see if we could activate Cooper Mountain via snowmobile. We knew that it was theoretically possible since Cooper Mountain lies on a groomed snowmobile trail. The only intel we had was a 7 day old trail grooming report. We knew from past experience that we might arrive to find the snow park gated or the trail impassible due to downed trees, lack of snow, etc. We decided to roll the dice and make the long journey from the Seattle area to Chelan, WA.
A friend from Eugene wanted to hit Mount McLoughlin in the winter and despite the drive distance from Beaverton, it looked like too beautiful a mountain to pass up. After picking up rental snowshoes from REI in Medford I made it to the Summit Sno-Park TH at sunset. Casey arrived shortly after and we made some quick dinner on our backpacking stoves then turned in for the night.
I skied up Cooper Mountain on Feb 6, 2022 for its first-ever winter activation and my first trip up it. This looks to be a drive-up summit in the summer, but winter is a very different story unless you have a snowmobile (there is a groomed snowmobile trail all the way to the summit, so that would be quite easy). However, I do not have a snowmobile, so I made the trip on my new Altai Hok 125 cm skis.
We were down in Philomath, OR and decided to check out Marys Peak while we were in the area. I know Marys is thought of as a mostly drive up, but I found a popular hike from lower down on the mountain. The East Ridge trailhead "Connor's Camp" has nice parking and a pit toilet. It is a fee site, so you'll need your forest pass or $5 to fill out a permit.
Yesterday morning I climbed Mt. Hood (W7O/CN-001) for a sunrise SOTA. I think this was my 6th ascent of Hood. Conditions on the mountain change daily & weekly. This was one of the more difficult ascents & descents.
My friends and I left the climbers lot at Timberline just before 2am. We took our time and made the top of Palmer around 3:40am. After a quick breakfast we continued up the mountain on good solid snow. We were hit with sulfur from Devils Kitchen throughout the hike up.