Coho Photography

Tumalo Mountain OR

The ice that earlier froze in my hair on the up-track is now melting underneath my hat and running down my nose, where it freezes in perfect little droplets, just waiting for my gloved hand to send them flying. The tips of my ears are just starting to warm up, proving to me that wearing a hat even when you are going up a steep hill on overweight tele-skis, having not skied in months, is a good idea. Tomorrow is new years eve and one of my new years resolutions will definitely be to ski more, exercise more, and wear my hat no matter how hot I’m getting to keep my ears from freezing.

Today is a near-perfect day to go up Tumalo Mountain. It is the going down that will be a challenge. We got 14 inches of new snow overnight, on top of oodles of fresh fluffy stuff that has been issuing from the sky for days. Everything over 35 degrees is essentially un-ski able due to avalanche danger, so we are stuck double poling down rolling hills of waist deep powder.

The wind blurs my view of the tips of my skis as they barely stay afloat, gliding down the back-side of a gentle rise. The trees that are perfect spaced, as if placed their by Ullr himself, are coated in a thin layer of ice giving them a sort of mystical quality, and stealing my attention long enough to leave me floundering, head down, in the deep snow. Once I paw my way to the surface, snow having infiltrated down to the now-bare skin of my lower back, I see Keith, a newfound ski buddy, pushing his diminutive dog Cota into his bright yellow pack. I grope for my camera to capture the quintessential moment of the day. A day of skiing in waist deep powder looks a whole lot better when you only have to worry about two legs and are over 18 inches tall.