I just got back Saturday from a great trip to Mt. Bachelor up in Oregon with the Clear Lake Area Ski Club. We took 46 people up there for a week and had a lot of fun. The mountain exceeded my expectations and I had a blast. My knee held up ok, although it got a little sore the last few days.
We stayed down in town (Bend) at the Riverhouse. The rooms were nice enough and we had a continental breakfast each morning, but riding the vans and buses up to the mountain each day got old fast. The first shuttle van would leave the hotel at 7:45 to drop us off at the park & ride lot. The bus would then drop us off at the mountain a little before 9:00. Several people rented cars for the week. I hitched a ride with Jim & Julie Moncur for the last few days. I even convinced them to head up early on Friday in case the lifts opened early. They did and I got an extra 15 minutes of ski time.
On Sunday, our first ski day, we had lots of falling snow. We also had some fog and wind mixed in so visibility was pretty limited. Karen Ives' brother-in-law Dave skied with us and showed us around the mountain. He and Karen's sister live up there. Dave kept trying to talk me into hitting a lot of the jumps but I passed. Didn't want a repeat of last year's screwup at Schweitzer. We found a great tree run that we did 7 or 8 times. When we got to the Portland airport, Caren Caffrey (a former club member now living up there) and another woman familiar with the area told me there weren't any good tree runs at Mt. Bachelor. Bzzzzt. Wrong answer. I found more tree runs than I could handle.
On Monday I followed Dave around for most of the day. We did that same tree run another half-dozen times or so. The snow was falling and getting blown out of the tops of the trees hard enough for our tracks to get covered between runs. Each time I got to the bottom of the glade (between the Boomerang and Downunder runs) I had a big powder grin stuck on my face. Tons of fun. A little before three most of our group quit for the day and caught the early bus back to the hotel. The weather then turned downright ferocious with heavy winds and blowing snow. Visibility was practically nonexistent. I passed up the chance to take one more run right before the lifts closed at 4:00. I couldn't afford to take the chance of losing a ski and missing the bus. The last one left for town at 4:30. I was the only member of our club to be on it that day. One of the bus drivers said the road up to the mountain was the worst he'd seen it in 30 years of driving, saying he just bounced from snowbank to snowbank. The weather started to clear as we headed down so it wasn't that bad. Only saw two cars stuck in snowbanks. We had a group Valentine's Day dinner that night at the hotel that was really nice.
On Tuesday I skied with a group from our club for most of the day. I even went inside and had a sit-down lunch. Velma and Yvonne, our trip leaders, had organized a group lunch that day and the resort set up a great buffet for us. We had some more blowing snow and some occasional fog. I spent a good bit of time picking up other people's skis and helping a few dig out of the heavy snow. I didn't ski in the tress as much as everyone else was content to stay on the open runs. On my last run of the day I followed a local hippie who was making great telemark turns on some cross-country skis with no metal edges. Very impressive.
On Wednesday about a dozen club members took the day off from skiing to go on a guided snowshoe trip. Everyone said it was a lot of fun, which was a good thing because it was a most excellent day for skiing. The sun came out as we were driving up to the mountain and I could see that they already had the Summit Express lift running. They usually don't even put the chairs on the cables until it's ready to open. I got in line with the locals before the main chair at the base opened and got on the third chair. I jumped on the cat-track that ran over to the Summit chair like a duck on a junebug and caught the second chair just as it opened. One snowboarder had made it over there ahead of me but I passed him up as he stopped to buckle his straps. I got first and second tracks doing some very high speed runs on the groomed slope right below the chair. By the time the crowd (including our club members) showed up, I had already made about 5 runs. The ski patrol had set off a slide in the bowl (actually the crater of the volcano) that morning. It was rather interesting to ski through the avalanche debris. I did my best Jeremy Nobis (ski film star) impression making big sweeping turns in the powder/crud. I'm usually too chicken to crank it up in that kind of snow. In the afternoon I talked Karen and Dallas Ives into skiing the back side. The top section was a little crusty but we had some great snow in the middle sections of the gullies. The bottom third was in some heavy snow in the trees. Two other club members started out with us but evidently didn't trust my judgment and went down a different gully that hadn't had as much sun. I doubt they found as much good snow as we did. Their loss. I couldn't talk anyone into doing a second run back there or hiking up to the top. Overall it was a fantastic ski day. One of the women in our club said it was a lot more intimidating to ski the runs when she could see. When it was snowing and foggy she couldn't tell how steep they were. We did a short pub crawl that night but most of us were pretty tired and ready for some sleep. Bend isn't exactly a big party town anyway.
On Thursday I headed to the summit first thing and got in some good speed runs before our group finally caught up with me. When I couldn't talk anyone into doing the backside with me I took off and followed some locals. They kept traversing all the way around the mountain and went right past the good stuff. I ended up backtracking and skiing it by myself. I took my time, especially in the trees, and didn't have any problems. I spent most of the rest of the day skiing by myself, including some great tree skiing. I had to go really slow and be extra careful since usually there wasn't anyone else around. I found lots of untracked snow to play in. We had a great group dinner that evening at a nice restaurant in town.
On our last ski day we had some more sun. I skied with the group for most of the day. It was a little more crowded since it was the Friday before Presidents' Day weekend. The snow was getting a lot crustier after a couple of days of sunshine and warmer temperatures. I saw one guy somersaulting down the bowl. He did at least 20 revolutions and amazingly wasn't hurt. I think I convinced him to look into buying a helmet. Considering he was bouncing through the avalanche debris he was lucky to be in one piece. After the ski patroller left I followed him down the mountain until I was sure he was ok. Only had to pick up his skis a time or two. I also stopped to talk to a patroller that afternoon. It turns out he was the one Rick Weller was following the day before. The patroller (who wasn't wearing a helmet) did a little tree-pruning with his forehead and got 12 stitches to show for it. Rick, always the shutterbug, got a nice picture of him bleeding. We had several club members buy helmets on this trip. Hopefully the trend will continue.
During the first part of the week I came to the conclusion that it's time to spring for some new gloves and shell pants. I'll see if I can find some decent Gore-Tex ones before next year. When I'd get on the lifts, the snow on my thighs and hands would melt and soak into the fabric. By the time I got to the top they'd be solid ice. My Gore-Tex jacket worked just fine.
The trip home was long but relatively uneventful. We left at 6:00AM and had some great views of Mt. Hood from the bus with lots of bright blue skies. United was having luggage problems and ripped my ski bag. They gave me a $25 voucher off future travel with them. Yeeha. I waited a looong time before getting my second bag. It wasn't the most exciting way to spend a birthday, but I've had worse. At least next year I'll be in a higher age bracket for NASTAR racing. Besides, now I'm halfway to 70, when I can ski for free! (Of course, by then they'll bump it up to 80 or 90.)
It doesn't look like I'll be skiing any more this year so until 2001, THINK SNOW!!!