Somewhere on Mt. Hood

This is my new favorite secret stash on Mt. Hood. Someone mentioned there was some good skiing in this area and a quick look on a Topo made realize I should have discovered this long ago. This was great for first turns of the year!

Mt Hood Back Country Skiing: Gnarl Ridge

Evan and I took off from the HRM lot at Meadows and followed a trail east. After breaking onto the lower part of the ridge we followed the trail up to Gnarl Ridge. When that trail hits the mountain circumnavigation trail you are on your own working up the ridge. By that point the trees are thinning out so finding a route is pretty easy. Go up as far as you want and be careful finding a route down, some of the cliffs are LARGE. It was about 7 miles round trip for about 1200 vert of skiing. The terrain has real potential to be good, but it's a ways to get to it.

Evan Crossing creek 1

Crossing creek 2
Crossing creek 3
Making the ridge under dense tree canopy the snow was extremely minimal. We ended up finding it easier to carry with the lack of snow, multiple small creeks, and steepness.
Near the Top of Gnarl Ridge
Investigating the cliffs to find a chute that went
Our chute

Tom Dick and Harry skiing near mt hood

Here is some info from a day around the first of the year where 4 of us decided to climb Tom Dick and Harry peak, ski back down to the lake, re-summit and ski back to our car in the parking lot at Ski Bowl. Good overall day, not great snow, but eh. From the road it took us about 1.75 hours to summit. We followed the trail on the first ascent which adds a good bit of distance west vs just hiking the ridge. On the second ascent we followed the ridge and while shorter was a bit harder, especially for route finding in the thick trees.

Mt Hood: White river Canyon skiing

Last weekend we went up for a little hiking, turning, and jumping up in white river canyon off of Mt Hood. The snow was pretty good and the weather turned out to be awesome. First real jumping of the year and it was essentially pretty poor. Our jump was too steep and our landing had a wall but all and all we had a good time.


A day of skiing in white river canyon from Erik on Vimeo.

Copper Creek Washington

Copper creek two weeks ago. The hard rains were during the week, but as the weekend approached the water was quickly drying up. We were able to get on copper, for my first time, at a great flow. It was around 1300 on the East Fork of the Lewis and dropping quick. For the first time on the water since the Little White 2 months ago this was a fun choice. Overall nice run, not too hard, but only a few spots worth coming back for. The final five, especially 4/5 was awesome and big falls was really good, but with a few exceptions the rest of the run was mostly just bouncing around. I will be back, but I don't think this is a must run multiple times a year kind of run.
Pictures will come soon.

Untitled from Erik on Vimeo.

The Little White

Oh the L-dub.
After a summer of being out of Portland and out of my boat it was time to get back in the creek boat. Since the beginning of June I have been running around doing the river guide thing or seeing family so my kayaking has been suffering. Anyway, back now and since things have started to calm down in the beginning of August I have been on the lower wind twice. Seemed like a perfect time to make my first run down the Little White.

The flow was low, the gauge was not even in the water! Low as it was, this is still an epic run. The little white is everything I expected, steep boulder gardens, big drops and powerful holes. It was a great run and I learned a few things. The big lesson was that not only does Sacraledge have a cave next to it, there is a pretty big one behind the curtain. I can only tell you this because I was there with my boat. I was not in my boat, but we were there together. After pulling my way out of the cave behind the curtain and into the cave next to the drop i was fished out by the crew and down the river we went. First swim in a number of years, at least it was on the little white.
All in all it was a great day on the river and I learned that when you don't playboat much for a long period of time you quickly forget how long you can actual be in a hole before you should start to worry, in retrospect I should have ridden longer before bailing out, but what can you do.
Walked: Island, Bowey, Stovepipe, Spirit/Chaos.
Here are some pics from a great day in Southern WA.

Chris at Boulder Sluice



Jason: Boulder Sluice



Me at Boulder Sluice



Chris at s-turn, probably the cleanest waterfall I have ever seen.



Jason on s-turn

Rock Creek: Not the little white salmon

Last weekend the crew decided it was time, time to take on a task that kept at least me waking up every 20 minutes the night before in anticipation and stress. A run famous for beat downs, difficulty and general awesomeness. We come to the stressful conclusion it was time for the little white.

Saturday was Portlands first 80+ degree day of the year, and in retrospect was the day we should have gone out. When Chris checked the gage on Saturday it was around 3.2 which was highest we wanted to do. None of us having been down, the consensus we hear is we want 3.0-3.2 for a first time run. The warm weather brought the flows up overnight and when we arrived it had jumped to 3.6. We talked and decided, "um, we could put on but that would probably be stupid for our first time down."

Here we are on Sunday at the put-in for the little white and deciding not to do it. After some deliberation we decided to head for Rock Creek. Some of the crew had not run it before and heaven and hell was calling us. So rock creek, it was not the little white, but it was still a great day on the river. Hell may be the best waterfall I have ever run, and I even missed the good line.

Enjoy the video