Update from the road
Apr. 5th, 2009 08:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snousleThe boarding at Shasta on Thursday was great! Warm weather, some sunshine, nice slushy snow, and the amazing $25 lift ticket. That's a real bargain nowadays. The mountain was nearly empty, so it was all very laid back.
I headed up to Rice Hill afterwards and got there shortly before dark. It was gloomy and rainy and my heart wasn't into cruising truckers. It's a lot better on those long warm summer evenings, I'll bet. I wandered around a bit late, and I did see one bristly grizzly daddybear sitting shirtless in his cab at 3 AM smoking a cigarette. I don't think he was looking for anything but he sure did make for nice fantasy material.
The next morning I arrived at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
twobraids' house, and after a laid-back afternoon we had dinner with Paul and Mark at a local vegetarian place. Looking at the three of them together you might think they were the offspring of a lawn gnome and a totoro. ;-)
My plans to snowboard at Mt. Hood on Saturday were very much in doubt due to the weather. The webcams showed positively Siberian conditions with the road covered in ice, and I had no chains. But the morning dawned clear and bright, so I figured I'd give it a try. Timberline was out - there was a chain requirement on the road - so I continued to Mt. Hood Meadows, where I've never been before. The road was bare and wet, no trouble whatsoever. OMG it was incredible! There had been six feet of new snow, followed by a massive heat wave. It just doesn't get any better than this.
Of course, being the weekend, just about everyone in Oregon noticed this as well, so it was a bit of a circus. The main parking lot was full and I had to walk about a quarter mile to get to the lift from my parking spot. But the lift lines were not very long and the slopes were not terribly crowded.
Both of these ski areas are on the flanks of huge volcanoes, which are really something to see from above the treeline. Even from the top of the uppermost lift at Hood, the peak is nearly a mile higher in elevation. Photographs cannot capture their incredible mass and size. They draw you in, make you want to touch them, with the crystal-clear air offering no hint that they're still several miles away.
Stayed in Portland last night and had dinner with an old friend. We went to the Portland Eagle afterwards (or the Eagle Portland? There appear to be two bars with nearly identical names?), which was a comfortable place, not especially bearish or leatherish but decisively non-twinkish.
Now it's off to Bellingham, hopefully with some interesting stops en route. Any particular recommendations?
I headed up to Rice Hill afterwards and got there shortly before dark. It was gloomy and rainy and my heart wasn't into cruising truckers. It's a lot better on those long warm summer evenings, I'll bet. I wandered around a bit late, and I did see one bristly grizzly daddybear sitting shirtless in his cab at 3 AM smoking a cigarette. I don't think he was looking for anything but he sure did make for nice fantasy material.
The next morning I arrived at
twobraids' house, and after a laid-back afternoon we had dinner with Paul and Mark at a local vegetarian place. Looking at the three of them together you might think they were the offspring of a lawn gnome and a totoro. ;-) My plans to snowboard at Mt. Hood on Saturday were very much in doubt due to the weather. The webcams showed positively Siberian conditions with the road covered in ice, and I had no chains. But the morning dawned clear and bright, so I figured I'd give it a try. Timberline was out - there was a chain requirement on the road - so I continued to Mt. Hood Meadows, where I've never been before. The road was bare and wet, no trouble whatsoever. OMG it was incredible! There had been six feet of new snow, followed by a massive heat wave. It just doesn't get any better than this.
Of course, being the weekend, just about everyone in Oregon noticed this as well, so it was a bit of a circus. The main parking lot was full and I had to walk about a quarter mile to get to the lift from my parking spot. But the lift lines were not very long and the slopes were not terribly crowded.
Both of these ski areas are on the flanks of huge volcanoes, which are really something to see from above the treeline. Even from the top of the uppermost lift at Hood, the peak is nearly a mile higher in elevation. Photographs cannot capture their incredible mass and size. They draw you in, make you want to touch them, with the crystal-clear air offering no hint that they're still several miles away.
Stayed in Portland last night and had dinner with an old friend. We went to the Portland Eagle afterwards (or the Eagle Portland? There appear to be two bars with nearly identical names?), which was a comfortable place, not especially bearish or leatherish but decisively non-twinkish.
Now it's off to Bellingham, hopefully with some interesting stops en route. Any particular recommendations?
