This has been an extremely low snow year here in Oregon. Pretty much all the snowshoes routes has very little or no snow on it. I still wanted to snowshoe somewhere and gather some snow pictures.
I decided to go to the top of Palmer lift and beyond on Mount Hood. With weather being in 60F, we decided to start before sunrise to be able to climb on ice with crampons. until we reached Silcox hut at 7000 ft level, snow was slushy even in the morning at 6AM. We were able to walk unto the hut without any special traction devices.
After passing the hut, we were getting into icy conditions and decided to put on crampon. From here on, it was straight up following the ski tracks. It was early in the morning, so ski lift has just started, but there weren't any skiers up on the slope. Ski tracks were being groomed. All in all -- not much of a wilderness experience with snowcats going up and down besides us.
At 8600feet, we got to the top of the palmer lift and had a long break. I couldn't believe how warm it was that day. After taking few more pictures, It was time to go higher up. Once we reached 9200ft level, we decided to make a traverse towards Illumination rock. That was it for the uphill hike. After stopping for another 30mins, it was time to glissade down the mountain. By this time, most of the snow has turned soft. Glissading down was just as fun as it could be. We were able to go all the down to Silcox hut and after that walking down another 1200feet down to the lodge was the most tiring of all.
In summary, if I were to describe the day in a line -- that would be "Amazing views and extremely warm!". I would definitely do this again sometime later in the early spring and stay somewhere higher up to watch the sunset. Lets see how that goes.
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