michelle and i headed to the three sisters wilderness for 2 of the thee day memorial day weekend. we met our friends tim, josh and camilo & co. before the weather started to turn. and turn it did in dramatic fashion. never mind the forecast. we were hammered with thunder, lightning, rain and hail for most of the night. 14 hours under a tarp couldn’t have been better. really! well…if the rain had been snow things would have been a tad better.In term of weather you name it and we saw it. did we get any turns in? hardly! did we have fun? hellza yeah! there is nothing quite like feeling that lightning is striking INSIDE your tent!
Here’s a thorough trip report.
yesterday michelle and i visited mt. høø∂ with our black lab jane. the clouds played with us upon our arrival; there was a high overcast plus a lower layer of clouds that danced in and out and from a distance seemed to have the potential for whiteout. we decided to bag a tour and ride the palmer instead. oh mon dieu quelle horreur! we purchased lift tickets and brought our gear with us in case the weather cooperated and the spirit moved us to skin to illumination rock. the skiing was better than expected given the thin northwest snowpack this year. the snow was windpacked dust on crust: in places slightly grabby and others buttery smooth.
we found the best snow skiers far left of the palmer snowfield. one run we skied too low and too far out-of-bounds. the snow ran out, we picked our way across snow patches and ultimately shouldered our skis to be able to ski to our car.
skiing back to the car we spied a human pack train to our left:
this pickup was parked near our car:
i must admit that there’s a soft spot in my heart for oregon dead heads playing on høø∂ no matter how long it’s been since they’ve showered.
the snow season this year never matierialized though fortunately, at least in oregon, the drought situation has all but vanished due to amounts of precipitation in late april and all of may. winter has returned late in spring this year. we’re eager to know if late season precipitation will help the springer runs(spring chinook) which have been alarmingly low this year?
i was hired recently by Jesuit High School for a yearlong documentary project. Jesuit High School needs to update all their photography for public relations purposes and after a selective bid process i was chosen for the job which will include environmental portraits of administrators, landscape images of campus, student body candids, and pictures of sports and other extacurricular events. i’m glad to have been chosen and look forward to working with Jesuit.
Blake and I are sitting on our packs on top of Middle Sister at roughly 10 am for the third Spring in a row, having brought our dogs Ike and Jane for the first time. We’re content to just sit, gaze, and ponder while the dogs-pink tongues extended to counter the warmth of their thick, black coats-watch our every move hopeful for one more scrap of food.
The view from atop each of the Three Sisters is unlike that from any other high peak in western Oregon. What is most obviously missing is the checkerboard landscape that plagues this bountiful part of the world and is most pronounced during the snowy months; white squares represent snow-blanketed clearcuts and the dark second or third growth forest.
Instead of a disheartening panorama of piebald forests, we are treated to a gin-clear view of a white wonderland containing two Sisters, the Husband, the Wife, Broken Top, Bachelor, Washington, Jefferson, Thielsen, Tipsoo Butte, snowy lava fields, fourteen glaciers, and hardly a trace of the chainsaw’s handiwork. What a relief it is.
On top of it all, there is no question in our minds that the seldom skied north face of Middle Sister is ‘in’ as we throw small lava rocks onto it from above. The tiny projectiles don’t bounce and roll, they stick and float near the surface. During our past two visits the route has been boilerplate, blue ice. Fine for front-pointing your way to the summit but far too ‘interesting’ for a ski descent.
The north face of Middle Sister is one of those drops that makes you swallow hard and think twice. You see no middle ground, just the first turn or two and then the Hayden Glacier 2,000 or so vertical feet below. This time around the face is in prime condition: soft enough to ski but not too soft to raise concerns of wet snow slides.
The dogs, unfortunately, want nothing to do with this descent. Ike whimpers. Jane backpedals, turns and wags her tail as if to say, ‘C’mon dude, let’s follow the ridge instead.’ It’s not my turn for glory. It is my turn to wrangle the dogs, partially descend the ridge, and find a good camera position.
I ski a few hundred vertical feet over wind-scoured Cascade crud topped with dollops of rime ice. Ike’s whimpering mellows but the poor beast is still gripped. I find a spot from which to shoot and tell the dogs to ‘take a break’ which they do gladly; it’s been a long climb and the skiing is a little dicey, not to mention that the golfball-sized gobs of rime don’t make an ideal running surface for padded feet.
Not only are we now in a good place to document Blake’s descent, but we’re also in a position to traverse out on the face and ski the lower half. Before I can put my camera to my eye, Blake begins his descent of a line that I doubt many others have tried. The dogs’ tails wag and their frames wriggle while my camera’s shutter clicks and the motor drive hums.
We ski the rest of the face one at a time, Blake with Ike and I with Jane. Blake makes turn after turn as Ike dutifully follows. I keep a close watch, holding Jane back all the while.
1,000 vertical feet below man and dog make an arcing left turn to move out of the face’s deposition zone. It makes no sense for them to rest in a place on to which Jane and I could possibly release a fatal amount of snow. Blake turns and waves a ski pole. Time to head. I release granular waves of wet snow with each turn though none has the momentum to keep up.
Near the bottom I spot Blake out of the corner of my eye. He’s pointing at something and I can’t quite make out what he’s yelling. I’m almost there and having too much fun to care. As I glide over the three-foot wide opening of a crevasse located just above where the pitch starts to ease, I glimpse a snowbridge 10 feet to my right.
I realize what Blake has been vainly attempting to shout and point out. I stop, turn around to face Jane who’s charging close behind, and try to encourage her to run faster and keep her eyes glued on me: “C’mon Jane, good dog! Good girl Jane!” With little chance of directing her across the snowbridge, my only hope is that speed, strength, and wits enable her to soar and land safely below the crevasse.
My heart sinks as she drops into the hole and disappears. ‘What an idiot, I’ve killed my dog,’ I think to myself. As I’m out of one binding and leaning over to release the other the dark day becomes light again. The first thing to appear is a little black nose followed by a furiously burrowing sixteen month-old Labrador frame. Then, like a pea on a griddle, Jane bounds out of the crevasse.
Unscathed and unfazed, she barrels into my outstretched arms, tongue dangling and eyes longing for another treat. Jane can have all the treats she wants. I give her the three I have left together in one handfull.
ink
Originally uploaded by halle.
we checked out the detroit cobras at sabalas in portland last night. lots of ink & tons of fun. above is one of my favorites. what a great show. i highly recommend the cobras. rachel nagy can sing! shades of janis joplin & irma thomas.