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Ski season 2006/07 - it was a strong season for us. Anna and I skied together resort accessible backcountry in Heather Canyon a few times. She progressed with her snowboarding skills during the winter and I had a rich spring and summer skitouring season on our big volcanoes. Enjoy the photo documentation.

The ski season started rough, with the news of a closed and washed away highway to our home ski mountain MHM. The whole town was hoping the road gets fixed before Christmas. It was a long 4 week wait, but finally it happened.

By the time Christmas came around, we had plenty of snow for some backcountry action in Heather Canyon. Our snow in the PNW has a high moisture content giving it the bluish color and is called cascade cement.

January blue bird days are rare and cold, but that makes the snow powdery. Mount Hood and it's Wy'east face.

On a solo outing I climbed Wy'east face later that season. The upper part is steep, approximately 40° pitch, the snow was superb corn and skiing a dream in mid May.

The majority of my skitouring this season took place on the northern slopes of Mount Hood. The Cooper Spur area, Eliot Glacier and Snowdome are the playgrounds.

Access to the north side is somewhat long before the forest road opening in July. Hiking the Tilly Jane Skitrail adds about 2.5 miles extra one way until the real skiing starts. But the views above treeline towards the north are rewarding and breathtaking.

Here in the Pacific North West we are lucky to have excellent snow conditions late into the spring an summer month. Many of the access roads open in mid June or July, and this marks the start of the backcountry season for higher altitude goals. Our volcanoes reach elevations of 12,000 feet on average with epic descents of 5,000 feet on snow.

...epic...

...and not so!

This is skiing in the month of July and can you ask for more? 4000 ft vertical butter cream followed by 1500 ft of mixed conditions!

I think it couldn't be better.

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