Cooper Spur Skiing
In Febuary we spent a night on Cooper Spur on the NE side of Mt Hood. The burnt out snow covered forest that the Tilly Jane trail passes thru has an eerie feel to it. As the last of the trees thinned out up on the spur the snow turned to bulletproof ice so we made camp in the stunted trees around 6,700 ft.
There were some thin low clouds that gave the sun an amazing fireball like appearance as it lowered, then it dropped behind the pyramid of Hood's summit producing an eclipse effect. The show was stunning.
Once the sun was gone the temperature dropped into the teens, but it didn't feel especially cold. We had a nice evening in camp.
The next day we skied down the spur and up to the boarded-up Cloud Cap Inn. The slopes in the forest were still covered with several inches of well preserved dry powder from a few days prior. The 1,800 feet or so of skiing thru the burnt trees down to the Cloud Cap road was fantastic, although we stayed too far right at the end and had to bushwack the last hundred yards.
We managed to ski the thinly covered and mostly flat road without putting skins back on, and finished up the loop at the car in good time.