Features• Riding Journal

Timberline, Mt Hood Day 1

Ahh finally made it to Mt. Hood…the summer shred destination.  The snowboard camps are done so the mountain is quiet with just locals and some ski racers left.  There is still quite a bit of snow on the mountain and I was very happy to see a halfpipe to ride.  

Unfortunately I’m riding alone this time…but I’m fine with that, always a chance to meet people on the mountain and I have music just in case I don’t.  My best friend was gonna come down, but she broke her arm before getting the chance to hit snow.  
So if you have the summer itch, it’s quiet and there’s a good amount of snow left to ride.  The Timberline park is really good right now, halfpipe, rails and jumps with very minimal people.  Downside is lift tickets are $49 and they checked me on every chairlift today for a ticket.  

Heading up the magic mile chairlift

This morning I woke up in Gresham, checked out the webcam and Timberline Lodge at the base was foggy…so I went back to sleep until the fog wore off.  By 10am it looked a lot better and the mountain was sunny for the nooner hour.

Can still hike to the peak and get some riding in if you are an overachiever.  I’m fine with the top of Palmer 

Finally up on Palmer Snowfield, these are great conditions for August.  You can see the terrain park in the lower right of this photo.

Getting the view in the goggle with my typical shannonigans.

The sun didn’t last for long and soon clouds came in pretty quickly.  I went down to change and lose a layer but I still stayed pretty warm for most of the day.  

In the morning I rode the Atomic reverse camber to ride it on more hard packed conditions and then switched it up to ride the Capita Black Death Inc and Union contact bindings in the afternoon.
Capita and Union…it’s like Halloween!
When fog rolls in at Hood…it can be bad or not so bad, today was okay.  I’m at the top of Palmer and this was the fog.

Down the run, looking up as the chairlifts disappear into the darkness

I like the shots of empty chairs in the fog except when you are the last person loaded on Palmer and you’ve heard stories of people being left on chairs.  

Riding down…got the pic of the board cutting through the amazing snow (aka rainy slush)
Here’s a look at the terrain park in the fog, I’ll take better pics when it’s not so foggy.  
The halfpipe is typical for this time of year, like a big taco that’s super wide.  Even still it was fun, people were just lapping the pipe.  I did some hiking but then started lapping the pipe again.  Today was pretty mellow just getting back into riding.
And day 1 on the mountain is done…the clouds overtook the Palmer chairlift and chairs closed down for the day.
If the weather permits, I’ll be back on the mountain tomorrow.  Going into Portland now to enjoy some dinner with Erick’s family and meet his new mini-shred.  

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  • MelbaToasted
    August 19, 2008 at 11:02 pm

    hey holmes, hate to keep bothering you about the capita horrorscope; but are you going to be able to get a chance to demo it at hood? any chance you got some width specs on the 3 different sizes while at the capita offices? (dope tour by the way… they seem super chill)… anyway, have fun up there.

  • Anonymous
    August 20, 2008 at 3:24 pm

    haha that black death is chris’s old deck!

    that sticker on the top is from a very fun day with my shop (bnm) and our good friends down at milo. haha thats random.

    -Waffles

  • Shayboarder
    August 20, 2008 at 4:19 pm

    Hey Melba, no go on the horrorscope unfortunately…the pro’s are rocking them so harder to get on them. I’ll see if I can get the width specs when I drop off the boards at Capita.

    Anonymous, haha yep I wondered about the sticker, awesome to see it recognized and the people who had it before me.

  • waffles.
    August 21, 2008 at 8:24 am

    haha yeah it was a sweet day.

    ben waffles.

  • addison
    August 21, 2008 at 1:34 pm

    What did you think of the new Contact Bindings?? you should do a little review of them

  • Shayboarder
    August 21, 2008 at 6:21 pm

    I enjoyed them, I’ll be putting up a review within the next week of them…so stay tuned 🙂

  • MelbaToasted
    August 21, 2008 at 10:45 pm

    hey shay, someone on snowboard.com found the horrorscope specs on TJ’s site… pretty psyched that the 56 looks to be a midwide at 25.5 in the middle and 29.9 at the tips, so my size 12’s will fit on it this season (barely)… hoping that the rocker tech is solid on it, and that i can get my hands on one (only 500 made???)… thanks for the info, holmes!