White River Canyon

Overview

White River Canyon is between Timberline and Mt. Hood Meadows, and accessible via a Sno-Park. The trailhead area gets a lot of sledders, and the initial hike in is pretty long and flat. At the end of the initial section, you'll need to cross the White River to get to more steep terrain, terrain that comes with a decent amount of avy risk. So in many respects its not a great touring spot. But still, I'm looking forward to exploring this area, the initial approach is a medium density forrest that I enjoy, its quiet in a way that I haven't gotten from other spots (after the crowds at the beginning), and it looks like there's some cool slopes to explore. I'm looking forward to updating this summary once I get higher into the canyon.

Tips

It's a bit hard to notice, but there's a fork to the left early on that leads to another trail, which rejoins later on. They're fairly similar, but I'd suggest taking the fork if only to stay out of the way of the sledders and hikers. On 2023-12-26 I took the "main" trail heading in and the "secondary" trail for the descent, so you can see where each goes.
At least the "main" trail here is marked with blue diamonds.

2023-12-26: WRC Flat Day

Summary

For this first time into WRC, snow conditions weren't great, previous days had rain. Still, there was enough to skin in on (though skis weren't actually necessary at all, I'd have gone faster without them, but thats not as fun). I picked WRC to have a day with a bit less vertical and more distance.

My "ascent" of about 600' ended at the required river crossing. After searching around, there wasn't any spots where I felt happy about trying cross, and the one person I saw coming back across hadn't made it dry. Instead, I did two laps on a small slope on my side of the river and headed back, a late start meant it was starting to get dark anyways.

Overall a fun little area, though not challenging before the river. After the river crossing, it picks up both in difficulty and risk, so don't be lulled into false safety by the gentle start.

Tracks

Conditions

~35°F, cloudy, light snow, low wind. Rain and warm from the previous days had left a crust layer.

Report and Lessons

The trail in was pretty well tracked, though it was starting to fade near the river. Once across, this area feels like there might be more navigation required, and less "follow the track", since there's less traffic here.

I felt much better about my pacing this time around. My stopped time was mostly from poking around trying to find a river crossing and getting distracted by views, rather than taking rests.

The small slope ended up doing some skiing on looked like a good place to build some little kickers, if there was more snow. And the area directly to its West also looked fun to ski.

I need to practice kick turns.

I felt good about not trying to cross the river. Could I have? Yes. Would I really be in that bad a spot if my foot was wet? Probably not. Was it worth risking slipping in ski boots and and hurting myself? Not at all.