After getting ourselves ready first and then strapping in Eli to the carrier we headed up. I haven’t been there since the Mt. Hood Scramble last June where there was still huge piles of debris from the White River glacial outburst of November 2006 which brought Mt. Hood Meadows to its kness btw as its main access road to the mountain. Now the parking area looks twice as big as before the washout I guesss they had some extra materials handy to use for grading. There was also plenty of other folks out enjoying the day (so much for solitude). The weather however was perfect lots of sun and not very cold maybe 30 degrees. The only thing we neglected to pack baby wise were Eli’s shades so I gave up mine.
We took the high road on a ridge where all the sledders were hiking up to get a good sledding spot which reminded me of my bro’s great sledding incident of 2005. Our annual family get together that year was a day of sledding and playing in the snow then back to the house for homemade gourmet pizzas. I had brought a couple inner tubes and along with my brother we decided to find some steeper terrain. Steep we found but also quite bumpy as my brother went airborne and when he landed he popped his shoulder out of socket and then jamming it back in. A hill clearly meant for young kids with more flexable body parts. The reason I mention this and why the memory came back to me is we did not see anyone else with inner tubes. We saw lots of toboggan style sleds and those round saucers. We saw one one kid probably 5 years old go down the hill backward on of those saucers perfectly calm, he was really picking up speed until he caught an edge which flipped him head first like a somersault only with his hands and feet spread out in the air, slamming him into the hard snow pack. His parents freaked. I freaked. I’m sure my wife freaked enough to get Eli a glass bubble to live in once he can walk. But the kid got up shook the snow off his head and grabbed his sled and started climbing back up the hill for more.
We hiked on where the hill got steeper and where snowboarders who couldn’t afford a lift ticket were making jumps and assumingly tossing back some cold ones as snowboarders often do. We stopped at nice area in the trees on the ridge and had a light snack of dried fruit and granola bars, let Eli play in the snow where he made a great mini snow angel with my assistance.
We decided to turn back as Eli was starting to get a little fussy so we strapped him back in and made the descent back to the Disco. We only descended a hundred or so feet and Eli was asleep. He snored the rest of the way down. Enough so that other parties could hear him as we passed.
We were all starving so we stopped at Mt. Hood Brewing for a pint and a burger. I ordered an Ice Axe which is there IPA and is stupendous on draft especially after a day on the slopes. I traded with C though who somehow through the pregnancy or something forgot what a stout should taste like and didn’t like the nicely roasted malts of the Hogsback Oatmeal Stout she ordered. I think she referred it to tasting like a cigarette butt. I assumed not a menthol and traded with her. YUM-O as RR would say. Next I had another stout that was cask conditioned very smooth and paired well with my blue cheese burger. After a tasty lunch although a little spendy, we got back in the Disco for some off-road action in the snow. Okay just a short snow plow run-out area but still fun. We didn’t spin a tire and Eli already loves fourwheeling!
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