Mt Hood Snowkite Session

Airnsails · Since 22 Jun 2005 99 Posts Hood River, OR

Today (Sunday) the planets aligned for the best snowkite session I've had on Hood to date. Mostly sunny, some new snow and 25 knots of fairly steady wind. KB photographer, Richard Hallman and I headed up the mountain with backcountry gear, He was on AT skis with skins and I used my split board. We climbed for an hour, traversed under the chair until we were out of bounds, and threw up the 9 meter for a 3 hour session.

Even though the wind was blowing across and down the hill, it was still possible to kite up, so my goal was to go up until I could go no further. After 1500 vert, the wind picked up to 30 and became a bit gustier than I felt comfortable kiting in so I called it day packed up the kite and snowboarded down through the clouds. In a matter of minutes we went from the sun and surreal setting of a Mt Hood summit backdrop to under the gloomy cloud cover. The fact that a kite can take you higher than the clouds is pretty cool in my book.

Kataku2k3 · Since 14 Aug 2005 3618 Posts Gresham Videographer

Awesome, Aaron! How high did you hike up in an hour? Top of Mile?

Diggy · Since 25 Nov 2006 318 Posts Gorge to Coast Obsessed

Looks like it was an awsome day up high!

boardrider · Sun Mar 16, 2008 8:44 pm

Awesome -

Gman · Since 11 Feb 2006 3044 Posts Portland Unstrapped

Kudos for bagging the elusive Mt Hood sess - AWESOME

registered · Since 12 Jul 2005 947 Posts tsunami Sandbagger

glad to see you got something. St. helens seemed like it may have been not so fun of an approach.

Sol-flyer · Since 21 Mar 2006 1083 Posts I AM THE Otto Mann

nice one!

I'm glad somebody is getting some sick ass snow sessions in...everyone on here is going ga ga over the water, it isnt event spring yet you unicorns!!!

So whats up with hood? Is it hard to get the winds right? to much hiking for the normal unicorn? I know what you mean about the sidehill winds, It takes a bit more power to get ya going uphill on an upwind tack. And going down is fun, but its lame for jumping. (just not the same after gliding)

so are we gonna see nice some colorful pics of hood in the next KB issue???

look forward to seeing more snow action!
-sol

Cap · Since 12 Mar 2008 21 Posts Hood River

Nice Aaron. We were at Meadows for an awesome day in Upper Heather. You could have had some fun in A-Zone on a small kite.
Patrik

pinkchopperkites · Mon Mar 17, 2008 8:39 am

I can hardly wait to ride Hood.

pdxmonkeyboy · Mon Mar 17, 2008 1:27 pm

Optimus Prime · Since 23 Jul 2007 47 Posts

right on man... wish i could of seen that. out of bounds freshies!!

pinkchopperkites · Mon Mar 17, 2008 11:38 pm

Jackson has lots of good kiting but we don't have any 5 mile diameter domes around. Most mountain terrain around here is too treed, too tight, or too steep to explore with a kite.

You're probably right, but I've still got high hopes for Hood and the other volcanoes of the NW. I played around on a few volcanos in Chile and there was definitely a lot of untapped potential.