Last week I was skiing at Crater Lake National Park with a Sierra Club national outing. Such good company! (Sierra Club outings attract the most interesting people.) Such good food! (Mark Chang, trip leader, was also the trip's cook.) Such good leadership (Scott Mattoon and Jeannie Sivertsen in addition to Mark) and such good accommodations (at Union Creek Resort). As for the skiing, the snow was old and not at Crater Lake's usual depths, but nonetheless—such good skiing!
This is what it all looked like:
Day 0 (pre-trip scouting excursion, Scott and me). North entrance, 2 miles, 250-foot elevation gain. Conditions were not ideal. We had to manipulate skis over pick-up-stick tangles of downed logs and around saplings with treacherous hollows in the snow. But, we thought, we could maybe ski alongside the road instead of in the forest for the planned excursion to the north entrance two days later.
 |
| Skiing through the pick-up sticks |
This evening was the first official group activity: dinner, introductions, and orientation.
Dinner: Stir-fried dried tofu with Thai peanut sauce over rice linguine.
Day 1. West Rim Drive. 5 miles, 500-foot elevation gain. We skied past stunning views of Crater Lake and Wizard Island.
We skied to Watchman, where we sat on the snow for lunch. On the return, four of us detoured onto the Lightning Spring trail, down gorgeous wide slopes with graceful turns. And then the long climb back up. The turns were worth the climb.
 |
| Me, Kate, Hope, Debra, Terri |
Dinner, Italian: cheese and spinach ravioli with tomato pesto.
Day 2. East Rim Drive. 8 miles, 600-foot elevation gain. At a road junction we passed a sign with familiar words: Applegate (my address) and Grayback (the mountain I live on).
When we got to that spot on the way back, some of us turned down that road for another beautiful glide down a snow-covered road, again worth every bit of the climb back up. My good friend Kate Williams, a seasonal ranger at Crater Lake National Park, joined us for dinner and to talk about issues facing the Park (decline in newt populations, warming water temperatures, dictates from the Trump administration, etc.). Everyone loved Kate.
When we got to that spot on the way back, some of us turned down that road for another beautiful glide down a snow-covered road, again worth every bit of the climb back up. My good friend Kate Williams, a seasonal ranger at Crater Lake National Park, joined us for dinner and to talk about issues facing the Park (decline in newt populations, warming water temperatures, dictates from the Trump administration, etc.). Everyone loved Kate.
 |
| Bottom row, l-r: Scott, assistant leader; Kate Williams, guest speaker; me Top row, l-r: Hope, Kate, Peter, Debra, Mark Chang (trip leader), Diane, Terri Photographer: Jeannie Sivertsen, assistant leader |
Dinner, Japanese: Mabo tofu over brown rice.
Day 3. North entrance. 7 miles, 500-foot elevation gain. To avoid the logs and the saplings, we skied alongside the road, which was great,
then onto a small rise where we could look down onto the pumice desert,
 |
| I'm in front here. |
 |
| Me, Hope, Mark, Terri, Kate |
then across the road to the Pacific Crest Trail, where we skied through beautiful woods of large hemlocks and lodgepole pines, rollingly up and down, back to the cars. It was serene and beautiful.
 |
| I am skiing behind Kate |
Day 4, phase 1. One and a half miles down the Pacific Crest Trail (Union Peak trail), starting south from Highway 62, descending on icy, bumpy, twig-and-needle-strewn, narrow ski trails until we admitted that it was difficult and not much fun, so we all skied back to the cars, where one group opted to drive up to the rim and ski or snowshoe there (or sit happily and comfortably in the cafe and contemplate the lake). I joined the other group: Scott and two other skiers (by far the best skiers on the trip, which was intimidating, but I thought I could do it) to ski from the road up the Pacific Crest Trail to the Dutton Creek trail and on up to the rim. Therefore:
Day 4, phase 2. 4 1/2 miles, 800-foot elevation gain. This was OMG skiing. We climbed and descended a bit and climbed some more. We crossed creeks.
We side-stepped up steep hills.
We manipulated too-fast, narrow downhills. We skied through big trees, past glimpses of snow-capped peaks, onto small patches of open ground, up knolls and down. We did a lot of trail-finding and not a small amount of trail-losing. It was so beautiful to be there in the quiet beauty of the snowy forest, testing our skills and our stamina, experiencing the oneness with such beauty that only comes with skiing. It was difficult, challenging, and beautiful. When I stepped off the trail onto the West Rim Road, I thought, "By gum, I did it!"
 |
| Hope, crossing Dutton Creek |
We side-stepped up steep hills.
 |
| I'm doing the side-stepping here. |
 |
| Kate and Hope approach the rim at last. |
Day 4, evening. Two guest speakers from Umpqua Watersheds joined us for dinner and to talk about enrionmental issues they work on. (The Umpqua River, like the Rogue and Klamath rivers, originates in Crater Lake National Park.)
Dinner, Vietnamese: Pho with sweet chili sauce over salmon (my favorite dinner).
Day 5. Everyone left for the airport or home or further aventures in Oregon. I drove home to wartm the house, tend to the raw blisters on my heels, and dream, every night for four nights, about skiing. In my dreams, I never fell.
