Chris Holm had come up the night before to hang out with us and catch up. We were all excited about doing a bit of skiing on Sunday and were planning on heading to Cooper Spur to skin up and ski some of the Eliot glacier on the North side of the mountain where we figured there might be some snow. Read on…
Unfortunately, upon driving all the way through Hood River and up Route 35 all the way to the Cooper Spur road we were met with a blocked gate and several miles of hiking on bare path with our ski boots. We had left late and it was already noon so we decided it wasn’t worth the trek and to continue around Mt. Hood to check out how Timberline and the Palmer Glacier looked. 
We arrived at Timberline to find the lifts not in operation and some pretty gusty winds. We debated for a few minutes on whether to just call it a failure and leave but instead decided to start skinning up the Palmer with Leo to see how it was. At worst we could just turn around and ski down. 
With the wind it was surprisingly cold and we all were bundled up heading up the mountain. We put a coat on Leo and put his Doggles on so he wouldn’t become snow blind from the bright sun but left his booties off his paws so he could retain his footing on the icy slopes on the way up. 
Honestly, it was incredibly boring to skin up the groomed slopes of the Palmer Glacier but it was our only option. Leo did just fine keeping up and for the most part he was pretty good keeping the doggles on his head. Only a few times did I have to push them back down on his eyes. He certainly kept us thoroughly entertained.
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