The cascades have received a pretty healthy dumping o fresh snow! Should be a great fall weekend opener for timberline, or (their fall season starts tomorrow).
I've been to Timberline a lot and I love the place. It isn't the lift served slopes; they are mild, it's Mt. Hood. It's truly massive and much of it has permanent snowfields or glaciers - all year. I've skied there in May (4 times), June (1), Sep. (1) and Oct. (1). Every skier MUST stay at Timberline Lodge sometime in their life. It is special. One thing I would never do there is ski on a few inches of new snow with no base. Above the timberline which is at ~ the 6000 ft. level, hence the name of the lodge, it is a pile of jagged, vicious volcanic rocks. You can ski WV on a couple inches of new snow over grass. Jumbled lava requires many feet of snow. Fortunately there are permanent snowfields, such as the lift served Palmer snowfield, and they ski beautifully on a few inches of new snow over an old base. Above the lifts is where the real action is, it gets steeper and the corridors of snow between the immense lava pillars are magnificent. But you have to be vigilant. Whiteouts move in very quickly all year round.
Edited to say that the Timberline slopes may be mild but they are not the whole story. In winter, which ends in late Apr./early May there are _4_ lift served areas on the mountain. The major one is Mt. Hood Meadows, 2700 vertical feet with another 1700 above that served with snow cats for the price of a lift ticket. There are great steeps everywhere. That side (the north side) of Hood has many ridges and going out on those ridges yields about 20 steep ~500 vertical foot drops. Then there is Heather Canyon, a yawning gash in the side of the mountain accessible from a blue slope. Just screw up your courage and drop in. Above Heather Canyon is the 'Super Bowl', which may or may not be accessible by snowcat. I've never been there in winter when the cats were running. A friend has done it in May on climbing skins.
This is the leading edge of a really big cold front moving east. Snow spreading into the Rockies this weekend. Even here in Kansas City, our low is supposed to drop into the mid-40s by Monday night. Of course, this is the night I leave for a conference in Phoenix...
My next conference is in Salina frickin' Kansas. The last person who had this job routinely had conferences in Denver and Breckenridge.
TOTAL SNOWFALL AMOUNTS OF 12 TO 24 INCHES ARE EXPECTED BY 9 PM THIS EVENING...NEED TO TAKE NECESSARY PRECAUTIONS FOR WINTER-LIKE CONDITIONS...INCLUDING STRONG WINDS...EARLY SEASON SNOW...AND UNSEASONABLY COLD TEMPERATURES.
