Tag Archives: White River sno-park

Mar12

Backpacking up to the White River Glacier

Posted on March 12, 2024 by perfectusvarrus

Friday and Saturday, 16-Feb-2024 and 17-Feb-2024

I really do stick to the spots I know, don’t I?

But why not, when the goal is just to get out of town and sleep on the glacier? I mean… the goal here isn’t to get crazy views (even though I like to!), nor is the goal to hike a ton of distance (though I do hike some extra miles when I can)… The goal is to get out of town, carve a spot into the snow, and appreciate the cold and solitude.

The white river glacier works well for that – I know it like the back of my hand, it’s not a long hike, and I can take my time on the drive out. I mean, I’ve never set alarms for days that I go up onto the white river glacier. I wake up slow, get brunch, then… take it easy. It’s nice.

This trip was no different from the others. I mean, I didn’t even get to the trailhead ’till 5:00 or so! And Sundown was 6:30!

But that’s fine – I know the path, I have headlamps, and…

Why was there a fire going near my campsite? Was there someone else in my spot?? For the first time in three years???

No, dear readers, thankfully I hadn’t been site-sniped. It was better… so much better. I’ve never seen any one else camping near my area, in the 3+ years I’ve been up that trail. Which is kind of strange, since I only found this specific spot because, when I went up in 2021, someone else had already carved it out from the hillside…

Anyways, I met a team of folks who were making fondue, and we shared fondue. It was delicious, and I very much plan on making fondue the next time I go backpacking. Also I plan on saying fondue as many fondue times as I fon-can. Do. Due.

In trade, I promised aerial pictures of their camp – I made sure they were okay with my flying my drone ahead of time, of course, and they were quite psyched for the opportunity, so… win-win, right? Heck yeah, right.

The rest of the trip was exactly as normal – quiet, relaxing, and exceptionally enjoyable. I adore the snow, the cold, and the quiet that I can’t ever seem to find in the summer. Something about the stillness of the air, maybe? Or where the world seems to be hibernating, and not expecting anything from us? I can’t say for certain, but I can say that I appreciate it.

Jul5

My friends come to visit – A drive around Mt. Hood

Posted on July 5, 2023 by perfectusvarrus

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Saturday and Sunday, 20-May-2023 and 21-May-2023

Ohh man… it’s been a while since I’ve gotten to hang out with Dave! I think the last time was when I was still living in Hood River… and all I really remember was that we had a fire on the porch, wrapped Dave up in a sheepskin rug, and had him pose with a dwarven sword and a battle axe.

Those’re the kind of things we remember.

Anyways, Dave and his wife Lakay came to visit in May!

Saturday, 20-May-2023

Technically this story begins on Friday night… but the summary for Friday was “Dave and Lakay got into the airport, we drove home, hung out for a bit, and then fell asleep.” Simple and easy.

The real adventure begins on Saturday morning.

Our goal for this visit was to… well, visit! But every good visit needs a framework, and we settled in on doing something I haven’t really done before – visiting spots from a movie! Lakay is pretty into Twilight, and since it was filmed in Oregon and Washington we had an awesome opportunity to check out a few spots from the movies. The main town of Forks, up in Washington, was a bit out of reach for a weekend trip… but thankfully a few spots were nice and nearby.

Our plan for the day was simple and elegant: Relaxed morning, movie location lunch, then do a clockwise tour around Mt. Hood!

Breakfast was a nice meal at home, followed by some catching up and prepping for the days adventures ahead.

Then, our first stop on the tour – The Carver Cafe! Apparently it was a whole scene in the movie, and the super neat part was that we got seated exactly where the main actors sat in that scene!

From there, the legendary Multnomah Falls! Kinda interestingly, I ran into a coworker there who owns property in Oklahoma near Dave and Lakay… kinda weird, but definitely cool!

Then, a quick stop for views of Hood, a drone flight or two, and a it of poking around the White River sno-park.

Finally, our ultimate destination of the tour – The Timberline Lodge! We got to play on the snow a bit, had an amazing dinner, and then got the best present of all from Mother Nature… a full lightening storm, shattering the sky off to the East of the lodge!

I can’t overstate how cool the storm was – Lightening is much more rare in Oregon than it is in a lot of other spots I’ve lived, so in and of itself it was a treat… but the storm was limited to one specific cloud formation off on the horizon, which meant we could easily just gaze over at it and appreciate the cloud-to-cloud bolts, and knew when to expect the air-to-ground strikes.

We seriously just parked by an overlook, and sat on the hood watching the storm. I don’t know how long we stayed out, but it was at least an hour or so until the sky got dark and the storm finally receded into the distance.

<I didn’t get any pictures of this… forgive me, but my photography-fu isn’t quite strong enough to capture lightening yet>

A seriously good end to an excellent round-the-mountain adventure.

May11

Snow backpacking on the White River Glacier – with Jess!

Posted on May 11, 2023 by perfectusvarrus

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Friday and Saturday, 14-April-2023 and 15-April-2023

It’s been a hot minute since I went backpacking… and an even hotter minute since I’ve been backpacking with someone!

This weekend, I’d be taking Jess on her first snow backpacking experience – so I went with the basics, and we headed up to the White River Glacier to hopefully take advantage of the campsite that I’d tamped down back in… January? Okay, yeah there’s no way that campsite is still prepared.

Ahh well – it’d just make it more of a learning experience, right? Right. Right!

Friday:

We got a nice Pine State biscuits breakfast, and headed into the woods. Snow. Onto the Glacier.

As always, it was beautiful.

As always, there’s not much to say about walking. We snowshoed, it was fun, had a blast.

Got to camp, carved out a campsite, and settled in for a relaxing and cold evening… good books, good gin, and delicious cocoa!

Nothing really huge of note, though I was really happy with how the tent site came out!

Saturday:

Saturday dawned nice and clear, with a beautifully crisp and cold world around the campsite.

We had some coffee and tea, a good breakfast, and headed upward, toward the little overlook at the top of the glacier. It was lovely, with solid snow and great views of the Cascades down to the south – and some stellar clouds filtering the light around us!

We hiked upward, and descended back down. Packed up camp, and made the shortish walk back to the car… just in time to make the early dinner bell at the Timberline Lodge, and get to see the sunset from the restaurant!