Tag Archives: Cross Country Skiing

Feb13

A second attempt at cross country skiing

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Saturday, 15-Jan-2022


The last attempt at cross country skiing had a bit of a rough middle part, right?

I mean… getting stuck in a deep snowdrift, near a river, with skis that seem intent on sliding every way except where I wanted to go… not so great.

This time, I stuck to groomed trailed. Safer, you know?


I wasn’t quite sure if the skis needed “breaking in”, if they were just worn out, or if the folks at REI had done something ill-advised to them. At the end of the day, I’m an engineer – so how do we find out what’s wrong when something doesn’t work? We take more data.

I headed to the mountain, and took the skis out for another day or adventure. Results?
Yup. Skis are borked. “Needing breaking in” can officially be eliminated from the possible issues.



Anyways, I’m getting ahead of myself here. Hello, dear readers! I went to Mt. Hood to go Cross Country Skiing! I ended up not using said skis, but thankfully I have a lovely backpack with ski mounts, the day was gorgeous, and I wasn’t about to be stopped by some partially defective equipment.

Instead of skiing, I had a lovely walk. The sun was shining, the snow was deep, and there wasn’t another soul in sight. And, just to note, when I say the snow was deep? I mean seriously deep… check out the pictures of the trail markers. We’re talking ~4ft of packed snow, here.



Now, aside from all of that there’s not much to talk about, really… with one exception: I nearly fell through a snow-bridge, into a glacial river. That’s underneath the snow. Technically, it was a bergschrund – where the snow pulls back from a rock face.

Now, I know that sounds bad, but hear me out – it was also terrifying.


Thankfully, that’s not something that’s unthinkable, and part of hiking in the snow is being prepared for it… Now, it was unexpected, don’t get me wrong, but it wasn’t completely out of the blue. I had been paying attention to the terrain, and I knew that this was a risk area.

I know that not many people will end up in this situation themselves, or if they do they’ll have already had training on what to do… but just in case, here’s a quick walkthrough of my thought process and actions:

  • I immediately stopped moving.

    As soon as you break through the snow, in any situation, you always stop moving and spread out your arms. Think quicksand – you know, that stuff we were all absolutely convinced would trap us, when we were young? Yeah, it’s just like that.
  • Slow down and think.

    Once I had settled, I held my position and made sure I wasn’t sinking further. I stayed calm, and started taking stock of everything.
  • I took stock of myself, and my surroundings.

    I’d only fallen three or four feet, and my arms and head were easily above the ground level. I wasn’t wet, though I didn’t have particularly good footing. My skis and backpack were bundled up around my shoulders, but weren’t holding any weight from what I could tell.
  • Now that I knew what I was, and what I had around me, I started calmly getting out.

    My backpack wasn’t helping me, and my poles were in the way. I threw them to the side, keeping the skis in a position to help keep me from falling further. I risked my poles and pack sliding into the river… but that’s fine. I can buy new ones if I lose them.
  • I levered myself up, out of the hole, and walked slowly back the way I’d came.

    I spread my jacket out, and levered myself up ’till I was sitting on it – then scooched backward keeping my weight spread out on the edge of the hole. Sliding exactly where I knew was stable, I slid my gear ahead of myself without risking slipping to pick it up. I kept my gear between myself and the river, so I could easily catch myself if I slipped or broke through again.

    Once I was definitely on stable snow, I stood up and put my gear back on.


And then, I was out. Back on the main trail, and heading to my car no worse for wear… though maybe with a little bit more adrenaline in my system than I’d expected.

After I burned off the excess energy by walking a few minutes, I stopped and had a snack and some water. Let my body continue calming down, and rewarding it for a successful “fight or flight” activation.


Then I drove home and went to a BBQ house for baby back ribs. Pretty sure I earned them, yeah?

Yeah. The world agreed, with excellent mountain views and a beautiful sunset!

Jan24

2021 – A retrospective

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2021. The whole thing.

I started this post out by just creating a list of all the adventures that I went on in 2021. But… I realized pretty quickly that wasn’t particularly interesting – While it was informative, it was pretty dry, and the list didn’t really capture the feeling of the year.

Instead, I think I’ll just post my favorite pictures, along with a quick summary of the sort of the major adventures of the year:

  • The winter brought lots of backpacking and snow hiking – It’s still strange to me how much I’ve grown to know Oregon in the last year and a half… or, more accurately, how little of Oregon I really met in the preceding four years.
  • I visited friends in Sacramento in the spring; had amazing catch-up time, and saw some stunning views of Lake Tahoe
  • In the late spring, I visited one of the most photographed lakes in the Pacific North West – Colchuck Lake! I even summitted Asgard’s Pass with a friend… though the blood-price for that trip was steep. I injured my knee again, which put me out of hiking condition for nearly two months afterward.
  • The summer saw the death of my Grandmother, a blow to the entire family that we’ll never truly move on from. I was brought unexpectedly face-to-face with just how much of my personality came from her. Her passing brought an unexpected gift, though, in the form of nearly two weeks visiting family and friends back in New England.
  • The early fall brought my first dedicated rock climbing trip in quite some time – along with summitting what is probably the most iconic climbing route I’ve ever done. Devil’s Tower, in the bag!
  • The late fall brought friendship and comradery in amounts I haven’t seen in years. A backpacking trip with friends, and a huge event in my friend group – My friend Dillon’s bachelor party, and my role as best man in his wedding!
  • The winter is still coming in to Oregon, but the end of 2021 brought the return of beautifully snowy conditions up on Mt. Hood, and a reminder of just how glorious the Oregon Coast really can be…


**As always, if anyone would like a copy of any of these photos, please let me know. I have many of them already printed, but can always re-print anything that anyone would like.

Mar10

Cross Country skiing up the mountain… a little ways up the mountain, at least.

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Saturday, 27-Feb-2021

Mount Hood.

I’ve lived near it for years, now… and somehow, this winter is really the first time since probably 2017 that I’ve regularly gone up to visit. I love the snow, and I’m finally remembering just how much I can enjoy getting out onto the snow fields.

This weekend was a little unique – instead of going on a long solo adventure, I went with someone! Woo actually socializing! Go Ben!

It was a weekend of firsts – My friend Laurel had retreated into her winter cocoon for a while, so this was the first time I’d seen her since the Oregon rains has swept into town. It was also her first time putting chains on her truck, and her first time on cross country skis! Double-win, for double excitement! We met up in Portland, transferred probably too much gear from my car into her truck, and headed out toward the mountain with grins on our faces; there’d been a storm a few days prior, and the forecast was looking beautifully blustery.

Perfect weather to cross country ski in, right?

Right!

Things went pretty much exactly as planned – The roads before Mt. Hood were nice and clear, with a bit of rain and a smattering of traffic… but not much of either, thankfully. We ate breakfast sandwiches as we drove, stopping for coffee along the way. Soon enough we got to the pull off where the traffic cameras showed snow starting to accumulate, and we pulled over to put the chains on the truck before grinding upward into the snow.

Laurel did gloriously; not having much trouble getting the chains on, and then holding a steady hand on the wheel as we forged upward in elevation. Really, not much to say past that – the drive went well, with surprisingly few other cars doing strange things. People… seemed to be pretty sane this weekend, driving slowly and cautiously, with not a single person sliding sideways down the highway (unlike last weekend).

We parked, geared up, and headed into the snow.

The terrain was glorious – the snow was a bit deeper than it had been the weekend before when I was backpacking, but traveling was much quicker thanks to the skis, and the fact that I wasn’t carrying a 40lb backpack through the snow drifts.

Similarly to driving, Laurel did great on the skis – and as always, I got a deeper appreciation for the activity myself after seeing someone new taking to it. It’s why I love teaching people, and exposing people to new things – when you show someone something new, you have the chance to see it through their eyes for a few moments… and remember what it was like the first time you tried that activity.

It’s awesome, and I really appreciate getting to remember just how special and fun some of these adventures of mine are… especially when they start to become almost routine.

We skied ’till we couldn’t ski anymore.

Literally – we got right up to the foot of the glacier, where the trees stop and the mountain begins. It was beautiful.

It was beautiful, but also rather intimidating. Mt. Hood made it clear that we weren’t quite welcome today; the wind picked up as we left the cover of the trees, to the point that making forward progress was basically impossible… and seeing more than 10ft in front of ourselves was completely out of the question.

We’d come far enough though – our goal had always been just to explore and enjoy skiing, while catching up on the last few months, and we were accomplishing that goal quite well. So we didn’t press our luck – we took a short break in the lee of a tree, to have some cocoa and a quick snack of brownie bites. Then, headed back down the mountain toward the parking lot.

The way down was… interesting.

See, Laurel had rented her skis, which meant that they were in great condition and well waxed. Myself, on the other hand, had my pair of hand-me-down skis that some old neighbors had gifted me when they moved out of town. I haven’t ever waxed them, and I’ve been going on quite a few trips so far this year.

When we started downhill, I was pretty quickly left behind. One of my skis was still pretty well waxed, but the other was noticeably less so. But I’m nothing if not resourceful, so as we descended I pretty quickly got the hang of… well, basically skateboarding down the mountain. I’d balance mostly on my waxed ski, pushing off with my unwaxed one. I could control my speed pretty well, and was able to keep my fear of crashing to a pretty controlled unease.

I couldn’t quite keep up, still, but I think I did pretty well, all things considered.

After we arrived back at the truck, the cocoa thermos came out again. Sandwiches were made, cocoa was drank, and views were admired.

We drove home, a drive as uneventful as the drive up, thankfully. Nice and simple – a very good day on the mountain.

…

Then I got home, after transferring my inordinate amount of gear back into my own car, and found out that Laurel had sneakily attached a tiny hand to my antenna. The danger of hanging out with friends again – the pranks resume.