Chris's blog

     The Pacific Northwest has been having a great season. Its unforunate that can't be said for the rest of the nation. Disregarding numbers like season snowfall totals and high temperatures, I left the powder paradise of the Cascade mountains and searched out some awesome lines in Utah's Wasatch range.

In order to snowboard off Mt. Hood's summit, everything has to go right.

In order to snowboard off the summit of Mt. Hood, everything has to go right. December 22nd 2011 was one of those days.
    Oregon had been in a month long dry spell and the snow at the resorts was hurting. Texts were coming to my phone reading "glare ice" and "worst skiing ever" from co-workers who were already up skiing at Mt. Hood Meadows on the 21st. The goal was the summit though, not the ride down, so we summoned the motivation to awake at midnight and head to Timberline Lodge...

Had the normal three days off this week, and decided to drive down to Bend to check it out. After everything I had heard about it, I was really excited to check out the area and surrounding mountains. Once again, no one could coordinate days off, and those who do have the days off scoff at the idea of going split boarding. It would have to be me and the dog, two nights camping and a few mellow snowboard runs.

I left Portland right in the middle of rush
hour traffic. While I love living near 
downtown for the beer, food and music, 
traffic is my most hated enemy of all time.
As much as I screamed no one would 
move. I got on the open road at 6:30 pm.

On June 10th I had returned to
Lake Tahoe for the first time in
10 months since i had moved to
Portland. The cloudy grey winter
in Portland left me pale and white.
Bad combination for backcountry
snowboarding and lying on the
beach in sunny Lake Tahoe. The
resulting sunburn caused my nose
scab over, and my lips to bleed.