This is a guest blog by Asit Rathod. Portland native, pioneering big-mountain skier, Asit has skied all over the world and has explored every inch of Mt. Hood in ski boots. More importantly, Asit understands how to have a good time; he's the first guy we call when we're going for a Mt. Hood summit adventure. One of the reasons that we're lucky to call Portland, OR home is that we can go backcountry skiing year-round. Backcountry skiing in Oregon is truly unique. Photos from Katherine Donnelly. The beauty of being an Oregonian is, well living in Oregon. I got a text from my Brother Chris Pew last week thinking about skiing from the summit of Mount Hood. It had been a few years since we have had time to make turns together, of course, I was in. He was bringing up part of the Trew crew: Lady Katherine and Sir Hibbs. Chris and crew had the ambitions of starting at 4 am to watch the sunrise while skinning up. My ambition was to sleep in and catch the first chair at Timberline. Our timing couldn’t have been more perfect. We met at the top of White River headwall for some socially acceptable HI5’s. Still unsure what that means but I’m pretty old while getting lost in my head quite a bit these days. We chose to move from summiting to having a bit of fun. Clicking into our bindings to make the traverse over to Illumination Saddle. There are certain places on this earth that hold special energy. Illumination Saddle on Mount Hood holds beauty and energy impossible to understand until you experience it. We settled in as we had a bit of time for the snow to soften. We shared stories, root-beers, had chocolates, bread, cheese, danced to Biggie Smalls, and laughs. Lots of laughs. The ski down back to Timberline was full of laughs and why we do this thing, fun. Just good old plain fun sliding on snow. We finished our day tailgating at Trillium Lake cooking hot dogs, telling stories, and more laughter. Like the great Biggie Smalls said, “Learn to treat life to the best, put stress to rest.” -Asit Rathod Here's some of that Hibbs' video magic to give you a taste of the day:
