The difference between the snow conditions on Friday and those on Saturday redefine "Night and Day". As I was leaving the mountain friday afternoon it was just starting to snow. As I decended in elevation towards sandy the light snow fall turned into a torrential down-pour. Any normal person would have grumbled about the lousy weather, etc... but all I could think of was how much snow was fallling on the mountain. And snow it did.
When I arrived early saturday morning there was about a foot of fresh powder waiting at the base of the meadows ski runs. There were four in my group (me included). Two who had, for all intents, never snowboarded before, and two experienced, one of which being yours truly. For the first part of the morning the other experienced boarder and myself helped the newbies get aquainted with the hill and how to ride the lifts. After which my friend Meghann and I struck out to explore this winter paradise.
Mt Hood Meadows had just opened a new high speed quad lift, Vista Express, and it was still unfamiliar to many. As such, the lift lines were considerably shorter. I learned in a few minutes that the weather at the top of Vista was approaching gale force winds, but it didn't matter, there was fresh, untracked powder and good company.
After about four or five runs down Vista I was beginning to run out of steam and decided to call it a day (mountain was closing in 45min anyway).
I was in high spirits and looked forward to day three. Little did I know what awaited me the next day. |