BRODY LEVEN: MOUNT HOOD

It's easy for most, but impossible for few.  Going to Mt. Hood, saying you skied Mt. Hood, and spending days and days at Mt. Hood.  All without actually skiing from the top of Mt. Hood.  Jay Eichhorst, Adam Clark, and I were completely incapable of being at Windells's Surface Week without visiting the tippy-top of the tallest peak in Oregon and vying for its 942,876th ski descent.  While 99.9% of the mountain's visitors were working on their cork 7's and underflips on the medium line, their blind-ups and k-feds on the dub kink, and their sandwich-making lunch-building at the Windells campus, we climbed.  We traveled over This Named Snowfield, alongside That Famous Buttress, up Some Other Glacier, and eventually through the couloirs that reach the summit of Mt. Hood.  Alone at the top of Oregon, our dull crampons reflected the cloudless sunshine.  We gazed out to St. Helens, Rainier, Adams, and Jefferson.  We closed our mouths and opened our eyes.  Adam and Jay raised cameras as we chose our preferred ski descent.  Only 3 hours after sticking skins to the bases of our Free Series skis, we left the summit, knowing that we wouldn't remove our skis until we rode into the parking lot, 5300 feet below.  It was mid-July and the present danger wasn't riptides, the coping, or emergency exits; it was a broken cornice, an avalanche, or a slipped crampon.  Skiing from 11,250 feet, precipitous ridges were left behind, 100-foot tabletops came into view, and My Surface Week was officially a success.

- Brody Leven