Walk, Don't Ski

            Skiing with the Grants Pass Nordic Club at Mt. Bachelor, in the central Oregon Cascades, last week was, more accurately, "skiing." The "snow" in the picture below 

is, more accurately, such hard-packed ice that we took our skis off and walked the downhill stretches. Everyone stepped very carefully down to and across a snow-bridge over a creek.

I am crossing the bridge.

Every one of the thirteen skiers fell at one time or another. Even the very best skiers went down. I fell three times. We weren’t falling into soft powder, either.

            It was beautiful, though, with a marbled blue-and-white sky and creeks winter-black against the white fields. Todd Lake, where we stood on our skis to eat lunch, lay icy-white under the snowy peaks of Broken Top Mountain.    

Winter-hungry birds landed on our heads, hoping for hand-outs. 

On our way back to the cars, Mt. Bachelor’s hard-ice slopes glistened like glazed ceramics in the afternoon sun.

            Nonetheless, the next day we eschewed skiing in favor of hiking. Even Misery Ridge, at Smith Rock, sounded better than Misery Ski.

          Unfortunately, I hadn’t brought hiking boots with me (I had thought I would be skiing), so I had to hike in my dress shoes. As I climbed up the steep trail (remember its name?), someone coming down said, “Cute shoes. I’m not sure they’re good for hiking, but they’re cute.”

  I was as much concerned about ruining my shoes as about misery hiking. I remembered being caught in the same situation when I was twenty and made an excursion to Mt. Aetna from Aix-en-Provence, France, where I was a student. I didn’t know till I got to the mountain that it was possible to hike up an active volcano, but, as at Smith Rock, the desire to hike outweighed concern about shoes. By the end of the hike, the lava-rock trail had shredded my dressy sandals into ruins. 

            I was walking over easier ground at Smith Rock, but I did take my shoes off in the sandier places by the river to walk barefooted for a while. That helped save my shoes, if not my feet.

           Smith Rock is famous for its rock climbing routes. From any place on the trail we could see rock climbers clambering up sheer rock faces, looking like spiders with limbs splayed out against the walls. Occasionally we saw a climber hanging on a rope, swaying slightly, like a spider dangling on its thread. 

At Monkey Face, the silhouette of rock climbers against sky and above desert suggested the extent of their feat.

As though the hike itself wouldn't be its own reward (and breath taking, in the most literal sense), the view from the top was the other kind of breathtaking.

Mike Kohn with me on top of Smith Rock

On the descent we had stupendous views of the line-up of snow-capped Cascade peaks: Mt. Bachelor, the Three Sisters, Three-finger Jack, Broken Top, Mt. Jefferson. 

Mt. Jefferson with other, lesser, peaks

            If the skiing had been a bust, the hiking was great. And when we weren't outdoors, we enjoyed each other's company at the house we were renting in Sun River. We ate well, preparing a Mexican meal one night, Italian the next. We watched the opening ceremonies for the Olympics and some of the ice skating and skiing events. And now, when I think about it again, I think maybe even the ”skiing” was fun.