Sunday, July 29, 2007

Happy Birthday! Snowdome, Mt. Hood. 7/27-7/29



Emily and I have the same birthday, along with Milton Friedman. Unlike Milton Friedman (RIP), Emily and I like to ski, so we planned a little b-day skiing shindig on Mt. Hood. We invited a handful of friends to join us for a weekend of skiing and "other".

My mom, brother, self, and friend Jamie all arrived at Tilly Jane campground around 9:00 Friday night. Adam, Jamie, and I planned to ski first thing in the morning.

We Seem to be Missing Something
We drove over to Cloud Cap and threw on our packs, hitting the trail by 7 a.m. Not bad, considering we'd actually planned to hit the trail at 7 a.m. The first part was a pretty easy hike along a ridge. Then we dropped down into "the war zone". Tough going down there, lots of piles of rock, all unstable. Took us forever to reach the snow. Sometimes you'd step over a rock and then there'd be a giant hole full of water and ice. You couldn't tell where it ended. Adam stuck his ski pole in and never did touch bottom. Made me wonder just how stable the rocks were.
When we got to a bit of snow, our original plan was to traverse it. It appeared to be the best place to do any kind of crossing. However, when we got there, we also noted that there were lots of unfriendly noises, cracks, and generally unwelcoming vibes coming off the glacier. We also noted a distinct shortage of three critical things for glacier crossing: knowledge, rope, and guts. We turned back. Technically, i did get one turn on snow. We hiked back down, noting the tumbling rocks now bouncing down around us. We wore our helmets most of the way back. Two kinda creepy things: you could always always hear water flowing beneath and around you, and there were some rocks tumbling and bouncing down from above. eeek.
When we got back to the parking lot a couple drove past and stopped. They'd been watching us from the ridge above and were worried, they'd been able to hear a lot of ice falls. we didn't hear that, all we heard was rushing water.
We went back to Tilly Jane, where mom fed us some blueberry pancakes, then we all took a nap. Man, that's a nice little area, sooooooo chill.
Hey Ladies, it's your birthday!!
The rest of the crew arrived a bit later, probably around 2... Kathy, Emily, Davin, and Stephanie. What a fun group, could not have asked for better. Adam and mom and I went to Hood River for some cake and misc groceries. The rest of the gang went hiking. We all arrived back to camp around 6:00 for a spaghetti feed, cake, candles, campfire. Davin busted out his guitar and entertained around the campfire. I liked his choice of music. I've never had a burning desire to buy anything by pink floyd, but Davin sang "wish you were here" and now I must own whatever album that's on. It was a real highlight to stand around the campfire with Davin playing/singing.
We decided that, since it was a full moon, we needed to hike. Us lady-folk took off around 11:00 to head to Cloud Cap and hike up on a ridge. It was an easy trot over there, it didn't take us long at all. The view was overwhelming. I literally got a lump in my throat. Hood loomed above us, ethereal, glowing in varying shades of blue. The moon rose over the east flank of the mountain. We heard small slides of rock in the glacial valley below us. To the west, clouds were rolling in, slow and thick. Looking north, the valley to the gorge was dotted with a few clusters of lights, and beyond that you could see Mt. Adams. Yes, all this was visible at midnight. We took up various perches on the ridge -- some sitting on giant boulders, or leaning up against a rock, others standing -- and absorbed it all, utterly speechless. Finally, after 45 minutes, we started to get cold and decided, reluctantly, to go back to camp. I'll never be able to describe the view, but at the same time, I'll always remember every single detail of it and be able to see it in my mind's eye. My god.
Nature Girls!
We were going to get up early and head over to Timberline to hike up and ski down. Unfortunately, the camp didn't see any life until about 9 a.m., and we all seriously lacked motivation to do anything beyond drink coffee. I'm a bit embarrassed about that, but at the same time -- we were having fun with our friends, and that's where it's at. Adam and I rode our bikes over to Cloud Cap Inn, and back. Em, Kathy, and Jamie hiked over. Very cool place. It was getting on in the day, so we packed up and headed home.
We did manage to get a "Core Four" scarpa girls picture to add to our collection. If you check the slideshow, you'll see we got a BUNCH of them, (Thanks Adam!), that was pretty fun. Those pics are becoming a tradition, a pretty fun one. :)
While we didn't get any skiing in, the view and the company were more than worthwhile. It will go down as one of the (if not THE) most memorable birthdays of my life.

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