Replying to Our magical adventure to mt hood.

SO me and a few buds drove up from Bend and camped thursday night with big hopes for skiing on the 4th of July.    Things were pretty interesting right from the get-go.  It was really just a last minute idea to head up there.  We went shopping and got some good food and stuff, but didnt get out of town as soon as we hoped.  We were fine on time until we got to the Madras skatepark which was one of our main side adventures we had planned out. apart from the scootering mexican crew and that badasses in denim shorts the place is rad.  The park had some really good flow and ridin triples through the bowls was fun and as things happen, a 45 minute "quick" skate sesh turned into a good two hour sesh and we were still a good hour way from our destination.  SO we crammed back into the crowded Grand cherokee and were on our way. Finally we made it up to the hill and began searching for a camp site.  After mobbing through a few good trails looking for a good spot, we dicided since teh sun was gonna be down in just a few minutes we shouldnt be so picky. SO we're making a u turn on this dirt road and my buddy literally drove his jeep into a mountain, but since the jeep is "indestructable" we were golden and continued on our way finally finding a trail with a sign saying  Bridge out ahead.  We knew that was destiny. so we drove up to the broken bridge and started setting up camp in the dim light.  turns out the bridge was just sunken in and made a pretty good mini ramp.  so we skated for a bit, finally setting up camp.  then my friend decides to drive his jeep up the hill a bit further to find dry firewood, only to blow out his tire.  Luckily he had a spare and that was that in the pitch blackness.  then we discover that all 4 flashlights were dead, the campfire took an hour to start, and then it started to thunder and rain.  Not to mention we forgot all kinds of essential camping supplies such as forks, plates and pretty much everythitng.   But throughout the whole first day all we could think about was skiing the next day and it'd alllllllllll be worth it.


The next morning we packed up camp and ate pancakes out of our hands due to lack of plates.  Finally we made it to timberline. We were all SOOOO stoked to ski, and it was 4th of July and thats just a happy day.  Cruise down to the mile to purchase our tickets and this cheery australian accented guy informs us that Palmer lift wont be in operation today, but we could still ski down the trails from the magic mile lift howeve tht might be shutting down soon too.  We had hit rock bottom.  pissed sad deppressed frustrated, we drug our useless ski's back to the jeep.

We decided hell we're already up here lets go try to skate HCSC, but it was an off day at camp and all the ramps were chained up and soaking wet.   ON to Windells to see what we could sneak into there...... Nothing, also an off day and there was no way we could go unnoticed.  SOOOO back to Bend we go.  However we remembered that Mount Hood Summer Ski Camp had some cool stuf. so we pull in and everyone is just staring at us.   I roll my window down and the convo went like this.
"hey we were just passing through after trying to get some skiing in at hood, and we were just wondering if we could maybe just skate for a bit?"  They just smiled and said hold on we'll go ask.  So we got out hit the trampolines and i started to skate the halfpipes which were really nice, but none of my friends skate vert and all the workers there were so gangster and thought they were real hard so we took off and hit madras skatepark and redmond skatepark on the way back, all the while shooting bottle rockets out the windows.....

ALL in all it was an awesome trip up to hood even though no skiing was to be done.

My advice to those thinking about camping out up there is to definitely bring your skateboards.