December 31, 2018
On New Year’s Even Greg and I snowshoed up Tumalo Mountain and were treated to some nice views!
Once again we started off the morning with breakfast at Sparrow Bakery:
Dutchman Flat Sno-Park doesn’t have anywhere near enough parking available. Even though we arrived at 8:20am we got one of the last parking spots:
Mt. Bachelor was hiding in the clouds:
So was South Sister:
The trail heads straight up the mountain from the sno-park:
The temps were in the teens, so the snow and ice on the trees stayed where it was instead of melting off and it was quite beautiful:
We had some blue sky at the start:
But as we got higher, we encountered a lot more clouds:
Mt. Bachelor barely visible:
Now Mt. Bachelor is totally obscured:
The clouds swirled around us and occasionally we got glimpses beyond our mountain:
But when we got to the top of Tumalo Mountain we had no views. The snow was sculpted by the wind that blasted the summit area:
Due to the lack of views and the cold wind we didn’t linger up there and started heading back down:
Fortunately, the clouds started clearing out while we were still in the open area up top and we did end up getting some views. Mt. Bachelor:
South Sister showed itself:
We went off-trail a short ways to get a better view north into the Three Sisters Wilderness where we could see the Three Sisters and Broken Top. Nice!
The clearing continued and I enjoyed seeing the icy snowy trees set against the deep blue sky as we snowshoed down:
It was 21 degrees when we got back to the car at 12:30. What a perfect way to spend New Year’s Eve day!
