For our final snowstorm ski, my ski partner and I made the long drive (with chains, it took one hour) from east Portland over to the Saltzmann Road entrance to Forest Park. We noticed many people parked down along the creek at the base of Saltzmann, some nearly blocking the road with their large SUV's. My chained-up Civic, however, had no trouble negotiating the hairpin turn or relatively deep snow higher up along the road toward the trailhead. The normal trailhead was blocked, about 50 yards down, by a large tree, fallen over the road, so we parked along the street, where people who live in the neighborhood appear to leave their cars.
Saltzmann Road looked more like it belonged up near Zigzag. We were surprised to find that there was still a lot of untracked snow along the road, though we didn't need to make new tracks to get up or down.
There aren't many viewpoints in Forest Park. This one at least allowed us to check on Mt St Helens:
We were surprised to notice how little snow had melted off the trees. All the east-flowing drainages in the Park have a South slope and a North slope. Those south slopes don't get any sun, so they retained lots of snow beautifully:
Sunny areas were greener:
We reached the Maple Trail and hung a left:
We found good conditions as far as the snow was considered, but lots of downed trees and bushes (vine maples!) covered the trail, and much of it was slow going:
We tired of negotiating with branches and limbs, so we took the Koenig Trail uphill off the Maple. The Koenig Trail was really steep and we floundered around a bit getting our scales to bite. We took a right onto Leif Erickson, which was well-tracked and relatively fast. We passed some great icicle formations:
We hung a left back onto Saltzmann, and skied up to the Wildwood, which was in fine shape. I don't know exactly why there were fewer downed trees on the Wildwood, but it was a much smoother ski.
We had to work that evening, so we turned back downhill on the Wiregate Trail (WHEW! STEEP DOWNHILL!), and followed Leif Erickson back to Saltzmann, where we enjoyed a fun run back down to the car.
I skied five days out of six during this storm, and I think, considering that I was working off and on during that time, I got as much out of this storm as is possible. Thanks for reading!
Four Ski Interludes, Part IV: Skiing Forest Park
Four Ski Interludes, Part IV: Skiing Forest Park
Believe it or not, I barely ever ride a mountain bike.