Well, with my season pass for Mt. Hood Meadows in somebody’s drawer up at the resort, the snow season is over(at least here in Oregon), so it’s back on the bike. This is the rainy season here in the PacNW, so it’s only the hardcore riders that get off the couch and out the door. Until today, the offroad riding has been great, but with rain the past couple days, I’ve switched to the road bike for rainy rides in the hills around the ranch. I’ve always been a fan of European bike racing. Races like Milan-San Remo, Ronde van Vlaanderen, Liège-Bastogne-Liège and Paris-Roubaix have always fascinated me; really tough men riding bikes. Whenever I ride in the rain and it is uncomfortable, I think I’m Eddy Merckx and I have to keep peddling so the peleton won’t pass me at the finish line.
Been working on MTB videos from the early 90′s; the glory days of NORBA mountain bike racing, should have them up on the website soon.
If you’re up there at Meadows and holding my season pass; at least scrape the ice off your windshield with it; get it out in the snow.
Beautiful day today; sunny and cool. Headed out to the hills to ride around and see what I could see. I spent most of the day on old logging roads. The legs are in fair shape from lots of snowboarding but not quite ready for two or three thousand feet of climbing. Checked out a bunch of old roads. There were some planting tags on the trees from the 1980′s, so not much traffic there.
The gates on these roads were removed many years ago.
Great view from the higher hills into the valley below. Having spent a good deal of time in subtropical climates, I still love to see the deep, dark greens of the PacNW.
I checked out a number of trails leading off into the boonies. Most of these trails are game trails. Above two thousand feet or so; the bigger trails are made by groups of elk, deer trails are a little smaller. The elk trails are more than enough room for singletrack riding; you just have to go at “expedition” speed. You never know what is around the next bend or over the next hill. This is bushwacking at it’s best.
Going off alone into the woods on these game trails is sketchy business. Be prepared to spend the night should something happen, tell somebody where you are going.
Still; unknown trails into beautiful country, let’s get in shape for thirty mile rides and get on it.
For everyone involved in the potential upcoming snowboard project; it looks like either Mammoth or Bachelor, probably Mammoth. Depends on the weather and everyone’s commitments should something else come up; looks like lots of potential for south swell action.
I’ll post general info here; email or call for details.
The 2009-10 snowboard season came to a sudden an unexpected end on March 18. Shortly after a couple hours shooting photos of the Revolution Tour; I was informed by the lift operator on the Cascade lift to report to the Ski Patrol at the top of the lift. When I got there; the head ski patrolman told me I was endangering resort customers and my season pass was being pulled.
Not sure what the deal is with the Ski Patrol. Couldn’t get a job at a real resort and got stuck at Meadows? Whatever it is, they don’t have much respect for the paying customers, especially snowboarders.
Mt. Hood Meadows has always kept run grooming to an absolute minimum and keeps lifts closed whenever possible to save money. This creates dangerous overcrowding; especially at trail crossings where a run will funnel into a path less than twenty feet wide. People; most often groups of skiers; stop at these trail crossings waiting for the rest of their ski mob; blocking the trail. If you go around one of these ski groups and one of the skiers complains to the ski patrol; your pass is pulled.
The snowboard parks and halfpipe at Meadows are serviced by the Daisy chairlift; which is closed 90% of the time. Snowboarders are forced to use the Vista chair; which is uphill from the parks and halfpipe and you must pass a beginner lift. If you go fast enough to make it uphill from the parks to the Vista chair; you risk having your passed pulled on every run. Meadows management and the ski patrol expect snowboarders to walk about an eighth of a mile after each run through the park or halfpipe instead of running the Daisy chair to get to the terrain parks.
Another really disturbing thing are the comments on Mt. Hood Meadows related internet sites where skiers encourage each other to get snowboarders off the mountain. Probably ninety percent of the skiers at Meadows are from Portland. They pack the resort on weekends then complain about it all week on the internet. This “weekend warrior” mentality of this commuter resort is a major factor of the Mt. Hood Meadows “experience”.
I’ve been skiing and snowboarding my whole life and have ridden most resorts in America. Mt. Hood Meadows is the worst all around ski area by far. Aside from the fact they have snow on a hill; I can’t think of anything good to say about them.
The Revolution Tour Boardercross competition was held on March 18. While the halfpipe competition was held in blizzard conditions; today was blue skies and bright sun.
Photos of the Boardercross qualifying runs are on the Snowboarding page of the WatermanAtWork.com website.
The Revolution Tour rolled through Oregon at Mt. Hood Meadows today; safe to say the USA has some hot up and coming pipe riders. The competitors in this tour are thirteen years old and older; the Olympic champions of 2014 may have been riding today.
The weather was typical Oregon; as soon as the competition started, the blue skies turned to gray and it started to snow. There’s more photos of the halfpipe competition on the WatermanAtWork.com Snowboard webpage.
After a week of pretty heavy snowfall; the weather up on Mt. Hood is getting warmer and wetter.
Weekdays see fewer and fewer skiers and snowboarders. Weekends are still crowded and the last week of March; Spring Break will be crowded; then after that it will probably only be a couple weeks left before Mt. Hood Meadows closes for the season.
With Daylight Savings Time in effect; you can go snowboarding in the morning and mountain biking in the afternoon.
Afternoon temperatures are still in the fifties and the trails are mostly damp with an occasional puddle or mudhole; but it is time to get back out riding the bikes.
Today we are having a major late winter snowstorm. The snow level is pretty high; about 4500′; but above 5000′ it is really snowing. Might be close to a foot on Mt. Hood by the end of the day today and into tomorrow. The bulk of the snow falling at night will be a good thing; it will be a bit colder and the snow won’t be as wet.
No photos from Meadows today; pretty much total whiteout. The top of the mountain was closed and it was snowing heavily and very windy. Still; there was excellent powder to be found if you know where to look.
Fingers crossed for good conditions; headed up again tomorrow.
Today was a typical day on Mt. Hood; snowing, sunny, windy and cloudy; all at the same time.
A cold storm moved in from the northwest bringing 3-4″; maybe a little more in some spots; of light, fluffy snow; something we have not seen much of in this El Nino year. Always nice to have fresh tracks in fresh powder.
As is usually the case here at Mt. Hood Meadows; the snow gets tracked up in about an hour so you have to get there early.
I was lucky enough to be one of the first into Heather Canyon today. A little windblown on top with powder pockets in between the wind ridges; nice deep pow in the middle canyon where the wind blew the snow down the valley.
As I rode out of the canyon on the Heather lift; I wondered if this might be the last good trip down the canyon in this rapidly approaching El Nino spring.
The kayak fishing season is right around the corner; if the weather continues like it’s been going we’ll be trout fishing in the backcountry lakes and smallmouth bass and walleye fishing in the Columbia in a couple weeks. Time to get the kayaks and fishing gear ready to go.
There is a new Kayak Fishing Wear webpage on the WatermanAtWork website to help you get out there as early as possible by suggesting the proper apparel for any kind of early season weather you might encounter.
Check out the Kayak Fishing Wear page and get a jump on the early El Nino spring fishing season.