While playing dominos (turns out there's actually things to do other than knock them down -- go figure!) we talked about what time we'd be willing to get up to go for a snowshoe trip up Tumalo Mountain. In the end we settled on a 7am departure with hopes to be back in time for lunch and hopefully a sleigh ride with the girls. Only the guys (Carl, Martin, Dick, and myself) would be going. The girls muttered something about being smarter than us, but we'd already accepted that as fact and headed off to bed.
6:05am came awfully quickly. However, Lilly and Clara both slept all night (right after we'd moved into a room where they could fuss and cry all they wanted) so I felt rested and ready to rumble. By a little after 7am we were caffeinated and fed and out the door.
The drive to the Dutchman Flat sno-park took just under half an hour. We were lucky to have left when we did because the parking lot was chock full of trucks and trailers off-loading loud and stinky snowmobiles. Happily, snowmobiles were forbidden where we were heading, but getting out of the parking lot was still a challenge as they sought a space to park their monsters.
The route description said there was no official trail in winter. True. However, there was the top of the summer trailhead sign just above the snow and a well-defined snowshoer's trench heading up the hill from there. We took that as a good omen and started up.
Tumalo Mountain is only about a mile and half each way, but it gains 1,400 feet and most of that pretty quickly. Martin had been on snowshoes once before. Carl had a couple more trips under his belt, but Dick was new.
To make matters worse, we had only four sets of snowshoes. I had mine (of course), Martin wore Daryl's, Carl wore Amy's, and Dick used Michelle's. The shoes Carl and Dick used were technically designed for women and had a lovely color scheme that complimented the colors each was wearing as though they had chosen to coordinate.
With a trench already cut into the snow it was merely a matter of climbing the slope. The route didn't do much in terms of switchbacking so, as Carl described it, we climbed stairs. (It wasn't quite that steep, but it was a pretty good workout.) We were in no hurry and I stopped more times than I can count to snap pictures.
As we climbed through the forest on the lower flanks of the mountain we could catch little views of Mt. Bachelor behind us (swarming with ants/skiers) and North Sister off to the north. Although the day had started cloudy it was getting progessively clearer with more and more blue fighting its way through.
Although the book promised trees thick with rime ice at higher elevations we saw little of it. The trees were twisted and misshapen by then fierce winds, but virtually all the snow was on the ground. (And there was a good base of it, too.)
We were passed by a few skiers, but saw only four other people on the way to the summit. Near the top we traversed around the northern shoulder of the mountain and were treated to spectacular views of the Three Sisters and Broken Top. Looking up the slope the snow just blended with the sky.
The summit of Tumalo Mountain (7,775 feet) is a fairly flat and pretty big. It took a few minutes to walk from one end to the other. The wind was blowing a bit more and we could see nearly forever. To the south we could see the Crater Lake area, I could pick out Paulina Peak from my day trip earlier in the week, and of course the Three Sisters and Mt. Bachelor.
Other people started showing up, mostly on skis. Only three went down the way we came up. Most headed down into the bowl on the northeast side of the mountain which promised great snow for them.
We took pictures of the views and the wind-carved snow on the summit before heading down out of the wind. Whenever I could I'd find an alternate route down with untracked snow and the steeper the better. There's something special about taking huge steps and sliding down in a cloud of powder.
We saw rabbit and cat tracks on the way down as well as the elusive snowboarder who had carved big turns into the powder. As we descended Mt. Bachelor got bigger and bigger. Near the bottom we could hear the whine of the snowmobiles again and knew we were close.
At the truck we were eyed with suspicion by the snowmobilers who looked at us unbelieving we would choose to climb under our own power when we could ride a machine and smell the triumph of the industrial revolution. We packed into the truck and headed back to the house earlier than expected. The girls were just finishing lunch when we arrived and happily shared some of the leftovers from the last few days.
Total distance was about three miles with 1,400 feet of gain. We made the summit in an hour and 40 minutes and got down in about half that. The rest of the time was spent drinking in the views.
