Fresh Snow on West Moraine, Mt. Hood

Not bad for November

Winter has arrived on Mt. Hood. At least for the moment. Coverage below timberline is very limited. Coverage above timberline is marginal, but where there's snow, it's pretty good. Timberline ski area is reporting only 7 inches in the past 24 hours, and a base depth of 17 in. We dug a hasty pit and made our own observations: on a leeward, East facing aspect we found a base of almost 22 inches. Full trip report and snow stability observations after the jump:



Aliza, Daniel, and I started from the Timberline climber's lot at around 9:00 a.m. We found plenty of new snow. We also found lots of wind and very limited visibility. Given the poor visibility and new snow, we decided to stay on the lower mountain, and seek out low angle terrain. Visibility was good enough to see the West Moraine, which looked like it was filling in well. We decided to make that our objective.



West Moraine is the moraine just East of the Timberline ski area (go figure). It is accessible from multiple places along the climbers trail that runs along the Eastern ski boundary. There is a gully between the Timberline ski area and West Moraine, so picking your entry is important. Especially during the early season, it is easy to choose the wrong crossing, and end up with steep gully walls on either side, in the bottom of a terrain trap. If you choose well, the crossing is pretty straightforward.

Daniel ripping some November Pow 

As a result of the poor visibility, it took us a few tries to find a good crossing over to the West Moraine. We made some great low visibility powder turns in the meantime. Eventually the skies cleared for a brief moment, and we found our crossing. However, before attempting to cross the gully, we decided to dig a hasty pit to see what the snow was looking like.

Notice the shearing at 45 cm and just above 35 cm after two taps on the shovel from the elbow

We dug our pit on an East facing slope at around 6100 ft. We measured the snow depth to be about 55cm. We isolated a column, and began our test. A credit card test indicated consistent snow from the surface down to a depth of around 35 cm. At 35 cm from the surface, we found a layer of ice, likely from a rain event a few weeks ago. There were facets beneath the ice all the way to the ground. Three taps from the wrist produced no movement in the column. However, after two taps from the elbow, we immediately noticed some shearing at 10 cm, and again at 20 cm (45 cm and 35 cm on the probe). Another tap from the shoulder and the top layer failed entirely. Given the recent snow and obvious wind loading on that aspect, the failure at around 10 cm was expected. We noticed no failures at the ice layer or the facets below. Based on the snow pit, we decided to avoid any of the wind-loaded East facing slopes, and to find the most conservative route across to the West Moraine. My guess is that within the next day or so, the layers at 10 cm and 20 cm on East facing slopes will be pretty well bonded.

Aliza skinning out of the gully separating West Moraine from the Timberline Ski Area 

After we dug our pit, we found a low-angle entry to the gully. We crossed the terrain trap one at a time without incident. From there we skinned up to just below 7000 feet. Snow coverage above that elevation was minimal, largely because of the high winds. We made a quick transition, and made our way down the West Moraine. The snow was dense, but soft and cold. We skied a ~30 degree south facing meadow, one at a time. We regrouped at the bottom and simultaneously skied the rest of the low angle moraine down to its terminus. One last steeper pitch and we were at the bottom of the Salmon River Drainage. We reapplied our skins, and began zigzagging up the West side of the drainage. We cut a traverse back to the climber's parking lot. Not a ton of vert, but another great early season day. Let's hope the snow keeps coming!

Aliza skiing into the Salmon River drainage