For the Love of Snow: Season's Change

Fall has now slipped into winter. The solstice this year was special--we were treated to a full lunar eclipse on the evening of December 20th. As is always the case in Oregon, we were concerned about the weather.

As it turned out, we had a high cloud layer that was moving through quickly. That meant we had a few breaks which provided an opportunity to view the spectacle. We brought the telescope out on the deck and used it for spying on the cosmos instead of its traditional use of spying on the neighbors.

The lunar eclipse from our back deck around 12 am December 22, 2010.

I've always enjoyed lunar eclipses--since the first one I witnessed. It was the summer of 1981 and I was camped out on the couch at my buddy Mike's house in Vista California. We knew it was coming up and invited sister Beth down for the viewing. We sat on the roof drinking G&T's and making comments about how amazing the event was. In the California night, the moon at full eclipse looked like a red super ball suspended in orbit. It was very cool, and very fun to share with my sister and my best friend.

There's been many since. One of the first ones we saw in Eugene was in the summer when we lived on Cleveland Street. It was a very early eclipse--just after moonrise--so Cleveland was not the best place to view it. We drove up on 28th Avenue and watched it. The irony was that it was only a few houses down from where we live now. My recollection was that Kayla and Dylan were impressed.

Back to the present day. Winter brings the puppies out in the parking lot. Of course, the puppies love frolicking in the snow...what pup wouldn't? This one looks a lot like Kodi did when she was a pup. Might be because this one is also a Retriever/Shepard mix.

That was a lot of action for the parking lot. Oregon welcomed winter with 50+ degree temps in town, which meant that temperatures at The Pass got well about freezing. My concern was ice/hard pack. At any rate, it was clear that today was not going to be a repeat of last weekend.

I planned ahead and left the Rossi's in the garage. I brought both pairs of K2's, but spent the day telemarking with Diane. Some readers of this blog might question whether I actually ever ski with my wife. Here's proof.

It was a good lower mountain day. The thermometer said 30 degrees in the parking lot; it was a cold Northwest 30. It was also a good day to strap on the teles and ski with Diane. I did a couple runs up top where it was windy. Moreover, all of the runs off the face were hardpack and pretty tough given my limited tele skills. The lower mountain was in remarkably good shape--the runs were groomed and good packed powder conditions.

Diane tears it up.

Dylan tests his balance on the rail. He griped all morning about how slow we are and then took off as soon as we hit the lot. He found a couple of buddies to ride with so we only saw him a few times before 4pm.

Dylan spins a '3 off the jump.

Frequent readers will note the early season presence of park features. We were pretty amazed they got anything up this early. The new feature for today was the jump. Maybe management is taking a new approach.

Nah.

Seasons change I: