I opted not to go for a ski yesterday because it was pretty stormy and my toe still hurts. I have another appointment with a new doctor in a couple weeks (the soonest I could get in) to try and figure out what’s wrong. I figured the usual spots in the Cascades would be pretty crowded today since there is new snow and sunshine so I decided to try another trip out east to Pine Mountain. Surely I would find more snow and fewer people, possibly even have it all to myself.

 

There was indeed nearly a foot of new snow at Pine Mountain. The clear skies had given way to clouds and tight, hard beads of snow. As I neared the 3-mile mark on the dirt road (near where I had parked earlier in the week) the snow started getting too deep to make driving easy so I decided I would  park soon and stick to the low hills as I did before. What a shock it was when I came around the last corner and discovered nine, yes that’s right 9, vehicles parked at the same crossroads where I planned to park. Two of the rigs had snow mobile trailers and a couple of these monsters were parked nearby. At first glance I had to assume that someone had gotten lost on the mountain and a rescue operation was being staged from this spot. I stopped in the middle of the road to consider my options: pull out my hair, drive somewhere else, or move back to the wilderness. I took in the fact that all the people at their cars had telemark gear so it couldn’t have been a search and rescue team. I realized it was too late in the day to go looking for uncrowded snow fields but there wasn’t even a good place to park. I pulled alongside a rig with two couples wrapping up their outing and they said they would be leaving soon so I could have their spot. The snow was nearly two feet deep so turning around and parking wasn’t going to be easy.

 

I assumed most of the skiers would have gone up the main road to tele down the old growth Ponderosa slopes of a nearby hill but I saw a snow mobile track going up the secondary road as well, the one I planned to use to get away from the crowds. One of the guys in the group about to depart came around the truck and recognized me. It was Eric, a friend from years ago that was roommates with an ex-boyfriend. Eric is a handsome, charming fellow. He makes everyone feel like you’re a true buddy. It was good to see him (and meet his new wife) and learn about the snow conditions up higher. He reported that there were sno-mo tracks on all the roads but that they had left the road pretty early on to skin-up the hills for telemark skiing through the trees and they had great runs.

 

After they drove off I parked, geared up and went over to chat with the three 30-something gals who were hanging out with the snow mobiles. They said they were with their husbands and that the guys had “prepared” a nice trail with the snow mobiles so the ladies could cross country ski a loop through the hills without having to break trail. I suspect they were the type who worried about breaking their fingernails as well. After 5 or 10 miles of roads had been messed up, I mean groomed, the guys took off to sno-mo to the top of the nearby ridge so they could telemark, while the women got in some cross country action of their own. 

 

I stood at the crossroads in despair. Here I was at one of my (used-to-be secret) get-away spots and it was so tracked up with ski and machine trails that I couldn’t figure out which way to go. I’ve been driving the 45 minutes to Pine Mountain to get in some solitary skiing for nearly 20 years. There were more people on the mountain today than I’ve seen in total for two decades. I guess Bend has just exploded with new residents. Therefore, more and more people are being forced to drive further and further from town to find untracked, quiet ski opportunities.

 

I opted to ski up the drainage that parallels the road so I could have fresh tracks. After nearly a mile of challenging work in deep snow, discovering the occasional buried log, I pulled onto the main road for a rest. I gave up after only five minutes. I hate skiing in snow mobile tracks, especially ones mucked up with a bunch of ski and dog tracks, as these were. Also, two guys skied down the road and waved cheerily as they zipped by and when I saw another group on their way down I bailed back into the deep, untracked white. I guess most skiers think nothing of driving for an hour to find packed trails with other folks all about, even at a place that used to be sort of a local’s secret get-away.

 

I side-hilled for a while, which really hurt my toe, until I came to a spur road that I had traversed many times in years past. I hadn’t been on it in quite a while and found it to be less steep than I remembered, and more lovely.  It was smooth sailing for almost a mile as I a slipped along in some old tracks that were refreshed with nearly a foot of new snow. Being in the old trail I only had snow up past my ankles so the going was pretty easy. However, after this unknown trailblazer turned down the hill and through the trees (obviously a telemarker), I was on my own again in white stuff shoveling over my knees. I made the summit of the ridge and though the road kept going downhill into a new drainage I decided to start heading back since I’d been at it for nearly two hours. I left the road behind and took off through the trees in the direction I suspected my car would be. The spur road I’d been on had sort of been backtracking so I guessed I wasn’t too far from my car; perhaps on the ridge just above it. With the deep snow and perfect pitch of the hill I was able to ski down through the trees, no road or trail, just me and a velvety decent among the old growth Ponderosa. Even though I was on skinny skies (not those short, fat telemark skies) I was able to make some tele turns at all the crucial places. I seldom got going too fast or to the point of needing to employ my surefire stopping technique known as falling.  About 20 minutes later I emerged from the trees untracked slope just a few hundred yards from where I’d left the car.

 

All but two of the vehicles were gone by the time I headed out. However, I past two more rigs driving in. More Bendites in search of uncrowded ski fields would be my guess. Good luck ya’ll.