Oregon Days and An End To Skiing (for now)

At the very tippy top of Mount Bachelor with Tom and Lisa

We finished up our skiing for this season with a beautiful bluebird spring skiing day at Mount Bachelor with our friends Tom and Lisa. Prior to that we spent 4 days skiing at Timberline, 2 days with our friends from Seattle Jen, Chris and Jaden and Lisa, Chris, and Zoe, and 2 of those days staying with just our family staying at Timberline Lodge. 

Skiing Timberline with Chris, Jen, Jaden, T-Bone, Lisa, and Zoe

It was great to see so many friends and difficult to spend so much time so close to home only to know we were going to turn around and head south again. However, it was several days of wet weather while staying west of Mount Hood that reminded me that summer most certainly had not come to the Pacific Northwest yet (not even sure that Spring had come yet). 

Frozen up at Timberline

While I did enjoy spending time camping with friends, it had been a very long time since we last found ourselves sitting around a campfire in the rain with umbrellas (which we did quite a few times at the start of this trip). It was that experience that got me to look through weather forecast maps of the western United States to try and find where the closest place was where I could find the warmest, driest weather after we left Oregon. What the long term forecasts were telling me was to head to California.

So as I write this Kathy is driving us to California. The plan is to make it south of San Francisco by Monday afternoon, and meet up with our friend April who we haven’t seen in quite a few years. After that we have a little over a week to get our gypsy wagon to Zion to meet up with more friends.

The skiing adventures this season have been incredible, and as much as I did miss my beloved Alpental, it will be difficult for our family to get used to Pacific Northwest skiing next season. Although we didn’t start skiing until February, we got 27 days of skiing in, we skied in 4 states, 11 ski areas, and we had very few overcast days or even snowy days. Our friends Brandon and Sabrina flew to New Mexico to spend a weekend skiing with us there. In Utah, my brother Alex skied with us at Snowbird, and we were joined by my brothers good friend Bob. And finally in Oregon we skied with all the friends I previously mentioned. Most of the skiing for us this season were beautiful bluebird days, and even several fresh powder bluebird days (as a Pacific Northwest skier this is something I had previously only heard of in legends). Despite the amazing 2 months of skiing, Kathy and I were sick of dealing with a family of 4 and all of our skis and ski gear piled into a tiny box on the back of a pickup truck. Every time we stopped for the night somewhere, all the ski gear had to be moved from the the piles covering our beds in the camper to filling up almost every inch of the cab of the truck. Luckily, our friends Tom and Lisa graciously agreed to store all of our ski gear for the last two months of our trip.

Now as I finish this post and we are just a few miles from the California border, I am starting to get excited by the realization that this adventure is going to transition back to the same type of adventures that we started this trip with: hiking and exploring the wild places of the west coast! With that said, next stop, San Francisco!

One final unrelated note, according to my trucks computer we’re currently averaging 11.9 miles per gallon, just thought I’d mention, because I get asked that a lot.