June Powder Day

We thought the powder days were over. The first hot days of deep slush had passed too, and a nice corn cycle had finally set up across the Cascades. So with a round of product testing scheduled for this week at Mount Hood, we had been looking forward to warm summer turns on the Palmer Snowfield, firm snow softening to corn, and debriefing on the prototypes in the sunshine on the deck of the Mount Hood Brewing Co.

Needless to say, we were a little surprised to pull into Government Camp on Monday night with snow driving sideways in front of the car. It wasn’t just the odd squall, and by Tuesday morning there was three inches on the ground in town and eight inches new reported up on the hill. High winds, snowfall and temperatures around 30 degrees had us feeling a lot more like January than June.

(June 10, 2008 - Kasha Rigby, Charlie Lozner, Graham Gephart and Alison Gannett gear up for testing with 8" of new snow on Mount Hood. Photo by Nils Larsen.)

We only had one lift to work with, but it was a blast to get out and ski mid-winter varied snow over the day. The lifts rose above the clouds on Wednesday, but the warm sun was offset by howling winds that kept us bundled up even as the snow corned up through the day. We had a great test crew in town, with Alison Gannett, Kasha Rigby, Shelley Hakanson and Nils Larsen accompanying Charlie Lozner, Eben Sargent and me.

(A little cold for June, but all smiles from Kasha and Alison in the powder.)

We heard a couple people referring to the crazy mix of weather “June-uary,” and I guess it’s enough to keep me from proclaiming (again) that I’ve had my last powder day for the year.

-Graham Gephart