The Wy'East Face: Wy'Did I Wait So Long?

The Line: Wy'East Face, 5,000+', ~42° max

The Mountain: Mt. Hood, 11,239', Oregon Cascades

April 13, 2025

Mt. Hood's Wy'East Face has occupied a top-three spot on my To-Do list since my freshman year of college, not more than a year or two after I first strapped on a pair of skins. The main thing that occupied my time on the chairlifts at Mt. Hood Meadows--besides battling hangovers--was fantasizing about skiing that wide-open, perfectly smooth face that descended from the crater rim. Alas, it wasn't until I left Portland that I developed the confidence to give it a shot. Even then, no matter how many times Zach and I agreed "dude, we're definitely going to go ski the Wy'East this year," we never quite got around to it. Until one sunny spring day in 2025...

The author didn't bring his camera, so all photos are from his five year old iPhone and/or video screengrabs. The author regrets his decision greatly. 

Axell, Julian, Zach and I started out from the main lot of Mt. Hood Meadows around 9AM. The projected high around 9,000’ was only 34-38°, depending on which NOAA tile you clicked on, so we weren’t worried about getting an alpine start. Meadows is quite enthusiastic about enforcing their no uphill traffic policy, a policy which another skier we met informed us is gay (along with every employee of the resort). Who knew. We skirted the southwest boundary line until we were on the ridge that makes up the western boundary of the resort. Occasional sections of bare rock forced us to duck into the resort, but luckily we escaped the notice of the red-jacketed fascists. 

From the top of the Cascade lift, the Meadows had groomed an uphill path continuing to the top of Superbowl so that the unwashed masses of resort custies could do some actual physical activity. Luckily for us, ski patrol hadn’t yet opened the gate for the sheeple, so we had it to ourselves. 

After a long break for snacks and crampons at the top of the cat track, we continued on. The snow surface was a mosaic of snow and small ice ridges, the latter of which wouldn’t give an inch under the Sun’s rays. I adjusted my expectations from ripping corn off of the top to survival-ish skiing. However, as we climbed higher, I noticed that the firm footing had turned into mid-calf pow, and my hopes rebounded.

We watched as a group of three skiers eyed up the line from the top, and then two of them skied down gracefully. The third skier, armed with (of course) DPS skis and (of course) a BD whippet, looked like he was about to slide out with every back-seat jump turn. The three of us watched, grimacing, as he repeatedly fell back into the slope and gave thanks that he never put us directly in his fall line. Here’s my PSA: if you ever find yourself on a descent that you are barely in control of, please swallow your pride and put the crampons back on.

On the booter with some boys from the Gorge.

The "Toughing it Out" award for the day went to Julian, hands down. He had had a disagreement with a tree earlier in the week that left him with a nasty rib bruising. Even so, he made it a long ways up the boot pack before deciding to post up where he was and wait for us.

I was starting to lose steam as we passed 10,000 ft, but Zaxell weren’t showing any signs of slowing down. Hot tub beers the night before weren’t seeming like such a good idea any more (there’s no way I could have predicted this). I pulled out my phone and measured the slope angle as 40° and then 42° in the pitch that appeared to be the steepest section. There was a pitch to our left that was steeper, but even so, I feel like this line is lower angle than I was led to believe. The snow was starting to feel a bit mushy on top and, while it wasn’t enough to make us worried about the stability, this lit a fire under our butts to get up and down before things got too sloppy.

Good ol' south side crater. Ah, the memories.

Once we had gained the crater rim at the top of the line, we were treated to a unique view of the crater and the climbers working their way up. The possibility of going to the summit came up in discussion beforehand, and it was agreed that it would probably be determined by timing the corn. With the softening that we had experienced on the bootpack, there wasn’t any discussion about whether we’d be making a quick turnaround back down the slope. I haven’t been to the top of Mama Hood in a few years now, and part of me regrets that we didn’t give ourselves a little more time.

Ax Man about to drop out of sight. 

Any shred of regret was forgotten once we clicked our heels in. Given that Zaxell had done most of the trailbreaking, I was more than happy to let them go first. Zach dropped in and we quickly lost sight of him. He soon radioed up with a conditions report, and the Axell followed. I loved watching the boys ski into the abyss with the whole bottom of Hood laid out far below. Finally, it was my turn. The snow was soft and not too steep, but still a bit too punchy and choppy for me to truly rip. Still though, what an experience! And then the icy section. It wasn’t quite as miserable as it could have been; the surface was smooth and consistent enough to allow for some reasonably confident jump turns.

Zach, Julian and I about to drop onto the Newton-Clark Glacier. Photo: Axell Beskar.

I rendezvoused with the guys at about 9,500’, and that's where things became veryyyyyy pleasurable. We swung over onto the lower stretches of the Newton-Clark Glacier and into the upper reaches of Clark Canyon, opening up the speed on corn that seemed to go on forever. Some stretches we party lapped, some we took turns, each time meeting up to talk about how much damn fun this was!

Hot pow, baby! Photo: Axell Beskar.

Eventually we found ourselves on the Clark Canyon side of the small ridge that divides Heather and Clark canyons, then skied a steep, treed face down into the confluence of the two. Our plan originally was to ski out to the Hood River Meadows lot and then take the shuttle to the other lot, but it turns out they aren’t in the habit of checking passes at the Heather lift…

...

Despite not catching the Wy'East in prime conditions , I can confidently say that this has got to be one of the best ski descents in Oregon, if not the entire Cascade Range. The wide open, aesthetic face on the upper reaches and the 5,000+ foot, fall-line descent into either Clark-Heather or White River Canyons combine to make this an experience that is hard to find elsewhere. The Newton-Clark Headwall, Wy’East’s scarier big brother just to the east, has replaced the Wy'East near the top of the To-Do list, where hopefully it won't sit for nearly as long.

-WCG