VIRB

I was half-way up the 6-odd mile road to Timberline Lodge from the highway (literally driving up the side of Mt. Hood, which is a neat trick no matter how you look at it) and I decided "fuck it, I'm going to Meadows instead. A quick call to the Elle Randall Sno-Report (powered by Google) confirmed the conditions, I whipped a bitch in the middle of the road, and powered the extra 10 miles to Meadows.

There's no particular reason for this, at least not based on actual conditions. Mt. Hood Meadows and Timberline Lodge are, after all, on the same mountain (two of the six ski areas at Hood) and have pretty much the same snow and the same weather. In fact, from the Mt. Hood Express lift at Meadows you can clearly see the Palmer Lift at Timberline, and you could easily ski from one area to another. (Snowboarding from one to another might involve a bit of hiking, but I suppose it is possible as well.)

But the differences, while subtle, are important. First off, Timberline is closer to Portland (10 miles closer) and thus hard to pass up for the Portland afternoon ski bunny. They already had to drive by Ski-Bowl, Ski-Bowl West, and Summit to get to Timberline. Asking them to pass that up and go all the way to Meadows is a tough thing to do. So Timberline is more crowded.

The second difference, which you could only really tell by going to both areas, is more important. Timberline is on the south face of Mt. Hood, while Meadows is on the east face. The south face has a gentle slope, so the runs at Timberline tend to be pretty much straight lines. The east slope is much steeper, so the runs at Meadows switch back a lot. This sound dumb, but at a large resort with high speed lifts, consider this. It takes you about 10 minutes to get from the bottom of Timberline to the top on the high-speeds, and it takes about 8 minutes to go the 1.5 miles to back to the bottom, unless you dilly-dally. So you spend more time on the lift than on your board(s) at Timberline. The runs at Meadows, with all their switchbacks, are shorter as the crow flies, but much, much longer in actual distance travelled. So you can take about the same 10 minutes to get from bottom to top (this is trickier at Meadows, since the whole resort is staggered) but it easily takes 20 minutes to get to the bottom, up to a half an hour if you meander.

So, at Meadows, you get that Holy Of Holies at a ski area: you spend more time on your board(s) than on the lift. And that's why it's better.

(Timberline has a far, far better lodge, and much better food, but if you're gonna sit in the lodge eating all day, why the fuck don't you just stay in Portland and go to a restaurant?)

Anyways, I guess I didn't need to justify my decision to the vast majority of you that don't live within a couple hours of Mt. Hood, but if you ever visit here in the winter (and why wouldn't you want to, really?) you'll be armed with Local Knowledge. Long story short, I'm a bit sore as a result of being slightly (heh) out of shape, but all in all a fun day. Next snowboarding day will be in Arizona, oddly enough.

Anyways, I came home and found out we got a new cat. "Accidentally," I guess it "just showed up." Mmm-hmmm. Oh, and I got a speeding ticket. My first in Oregon since I was a teenager. Whee.

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