Skiing and winter travel

[Deezus]

Originally Posted by macdiesel

Deezus,

This is great info man, thanks a bunch.

A few follow up questions... Do any of the Hood resorts have any side country or Hike to terrain?

Also I assume that the Hood would offer some touring opportunities in the springtime. Ever get out and hit any of that? Is back country skiing a thing in Oregon?

Yes--for sure. There's a lot of backcountry skiers in the Northwest, enough so that when I go to rent randonee skis some weekends the shops in Portland are out of stock. When we get big snow years like this season, the resort will close by the beginning of May, but there will be people backcountry skiing well into the summer.

Hood has some good backcounty opportunities and it's not that hard to access. The easiest to get to is the areas just around Timberline, but you're basically just hiking above or below the ski area, which can be kind of crowded. Hiking up the climbers route to about Crater Rock is a good short daytrip on a sunny day. I've gone up White River Canyon in between Mt. Hood Meadows and Timberline Lodge on backcountry skis and hiked up the ridges onto some of the above bowls and had fun. Some of the best backcountry skiing on Hood is over on the east or north side, which can be harder to get to until the roads are clear--but I've heard Cooper Spur and some of the bowls over there provide excellent late season skiing. There's also hiking next to Mt. Hood Ski Bowl on Tom, Dick, Harry Peak although this is lower elevation and doesn't last as long as the higher slopes on Hood.

There's backcountry ski possibilities on most of the Cascade volcanos. One of the best backcountry ski routes is skiing down Mt. Adams about 2 hours away in Washington. You can basically ski from just below the summit from around 12,000 feet and when the snow is good you can get about 6,000-8,000 feet of vertical. Last year when I was climbing Mt. St. Helens in June there were people skiing down on all the way from the summit on about 9 inches of still fresh snow. One of the times I was bummed I didn't bring my skis.

Here's a few websites that are good sources of info:Skiing the Cascade Volcanoes: Ski Mountaineering on 28 Majestic Volcanoes in the Pacific Northwest

Turns All Year: year round backcountry skiing and snowboarding

Backcountry skiing is good in the Northwest--and there's enough to keep one occupied through the year--and like the poster above stated there's even more to explore around the Three Sisters and Bend. I've seen ski tracks down steep chutes on the Broken Top volcano as late as August. But you can basically pick slopes that suit you up here, whether it's glade skiing, alpine bowls, steep canyons, or whatever. As long as one has some basic avalanche safety knowledge and know's when and where to avoid glaciers and crevasses, it's easy to get into. The snow or the terrain might not be at the level of Utah(my personal favorite place to ski in the country)--but there's plenty for a good skier to enjoy out here. And there’s definitely a decent ski/board culture in the Northwest. It’s laidback, but people are very passionate about the mountains out here.

[Dry Side]

Also plenty of Nordic skiing trails. Both groomed for skate/classic and non groomed for classic. This year Bachelor is keeping the Nordic center with groomed trails open every weekend until June 19th. I was up skate skiing last Saturday and Sunday and both days felt like mid winter with new snow coming down. This Sunday may be a repeat. Meissner which is much closer to town is groomed through March.