higher and deeper

Last week, Mt. Bachelor got hammered with 100" of snow in seven days.  The difference between the two weekends was incredible.  One weekend, I drove all the way to the parking lot with views of grass and rocks beside the road, and had to ski around trees and rocks poking up in the middle of runs.  The next weekend, my tiny car didn't have the ground clearance to swim all the way across the parking lot--which they hadn't been able to sufficiently plow--, six-foot walls left by snowplows bordered the road, and the still-raging storm kept the power company from supplying a steady stream of juice for the lifts.  Only two chairs (and a bunny slope) were running, and most of the mountain was put on wind hold with gusts of up to 100 mph at the summit.

I made a short day Saturday, because I wasn't certain I could get my car back out of the lot, and between the anxious throngs of people waiting in long lines for slow generator-driven chairs and terrible visibility at the top of Pine Marten chair, it wasn't worth it to me.  Besides, I'd already gotten a call from a co-worker and his son who had had enough and wanted a ride back to town.

In return, they offered me a ride up and back on Sunday--the catch was that his son would be done with his lesson at 3, and that would mark the end of our day.  My usual schedule was cut a little short, but with conditions only slightly improved over Saturday, I still had plenty of fun.  I spent most of my afternoon skiing through the trees on the Skyliner chair, wandering through copses and clearings I'd never known were there.

I also experimented a little with cold-weather garb.  I wore a pair of liner gloves under my mitts to help my fingers a little (they had gotten very cold the previous weekend), and instead of my usual neoprene mask, I tried a scarf made for me a few Christmases ago.  I could feel cold air coming in, but it allowed for better venting--although the vapor apparently condensed, collected, and rapidly froze.  It only took a couple hours after I broke off the first icicle for this one to form.