Halle’s Smooooth Words o’ Wisdom

It’s that time again.

This is an outtake from a shoot yesterday on NE Alberta St. in Portland, Oregon:

The shoot involved Hector, a Portugese Water Dog, and beef flavored ice cream called Frosty Paws. Hector was loving it:

The sixth try might be the charm for Oregon Republicans in their quest to win the governor’s seat. The race between Ron Saxton and Governor Ted Kulongoski will be interesting.

Sunday Pat Hanson and I skied the Snowdome on Mt. Hood’s east side following our Saturday hike up the Polallie Ridge Trail to a camp site near timberline. The day was sunny, warm and yet another reminder why I love the Pacific Northwest.

The Dome is a summer ritual for the backcountry ski crowd in these parts. It’s a wonderful tour with high scenic value and little technical risk. We’ve skied it many times though never this early. Usually we ski the upper portion then head skier’s left down the Languille bowls to the Timberline Trail. Given the deep snowpack and our timing we were able to ski directly to and across the Elliot Glacier. The snow warmed to corn by 11am when we chose to slap on the boards and go for a ride.

A good omen began the day. Three fawns crossed our path en route to the Ramona Falls car drop. Once at the trailhead Michelle and I piled into Pat & Melanie’s ride for the trip to Timberline Lodge. We spotted Petra and Rob heading our direction on highway 26 and once at the Timberline parking lot convinced them to join us on a ski tour from Timberline Lodge to Ramona Falls via Illumination Rock, the Reid Glacier and Yocum Ridge.

Sunday was a free ski day at Timberline in honor of the life of Richard L. Kohnstamm, “the man who saved Timberline.”

After riding the Palmer Chair Pat, Michelle and I skinned to Crater Rock and then headed to Illumination to rejoin Rob, Petra and Melanie. Upon arrival we learned that Melanie lost control of one of her skis. We fetched the ski and a binding part which both came to rest a short distance below Illumination Saddle.

Rob tightened the DIN settings on Melanies releasable Telemark bindings and Pat fashioned some hasty leashes to insure that Melanie’s skis would stay put the rest of the day.

The 2 cruxes are dropping to the Reid Glacier from Illumination Saddle and traversing from the Reid to Yocum Ridge. The drop to the Reid is typically icy and the pitch steep.

Petra, the black speck near the center of the photograph below, lost her ski boot shell in a fall while skiing from Illumination to the Reid. Petra’s boot cartwheeleed towards Michelle and I and might have continued for who knows how long had Michelle not demonstrated National Football League receiving skills.

Petra made sure to buckle her boots tighter the rest of the trip. Once on the Reid the rest of the tour was pure joy especially lower down the mountain when we experienced brief episodes of mildly heinous bushwhacking. I would rate the Ramona schwacks Grade I BW3 for what it’s worth.

The following picture shows the meat of the tour. From Illumination Rock in the upper right hand corner we skied some fall line along the Reid and then did a skier’s right Swiss fall line traverse just above the cliffs in the middle of the Reid. From near the bottom of the cliffs we skied a mildly exposed traverse to the spine of lower Yocum Ridge.