News

John Harvey "checked all the boxes" Feb. 2 on his first trip as a leader for the club.  "Wonderful trip today. A perfect outing for the Nordeen Shelter loop."  He received positive feedback from the group and had some awesome views.  Well done John!

Five of us enjoyed a nice ski to Tumalo falls, led by David Gast. There were a few interesting descents and twisty sections which we all "enjoyed" on the trail along Tumalo creek. The view at the falls was beautiful as always. The return trip on the road was a fun cruise.  About an inch of new snow fell during our trip. 

This is a good ski which can be enjoyed when we have fresh low elevation snow.

With only three of us on the ski this morning, we diverted from the original plan to ski the Beginner Loop at Swampy Sno-Park. Instead, we headed clockwise on the Swampy Loop to the Swampy shelter, where we found a toasty fire already going in the stove. We threw another log on the fire while enjoying a snack.

A kind skier popped her head in and asked whether anyone had lost a cellphone, as her party had found one on the ski trail. The errant phone indeed turned out to belong to one of our group, and many thanks were given to the good Samaritan for finding it and tracking down the owner.

Contributed by trip leader Mark Waters

Conditions were awesome ,everyone skied great and had a good time.

Contributed by trip leader Dennis Damici

A blue bird day on the Todd Lake Loop trail. Three participants were new to the club. I gave a tutorial on the benefits of heel lifts. Everyone had fun and enjoyed the social interaction.

I really had no business leading a trip to Ray Benson SnoPark.  I hadn't been there in years and didn't really remember the trails.  But NOAA promised 40 degrees and a cloudless sky; perfect for skiing on Big Lake, which is what I really wanted.  And it was perfect.  There's just something about gliding across this seemingly endless, white, horizontal surface while looking at the mountains.

More importantly, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the forest around Ray Benson is not very dense.  This is perfect for off-trail skiing as there are only a few places where it is difficult to pick your way through the forest.  The primary area that is dense with trees is along the Pacific Crest Trail, so it is important to find a path to cross this area when skiing east-west.  And this day it was essential to ski on the crust between the trees, as the trails were all complete ice and dangerous.  We only skied maybe 40 yards total on the designated trails.  Out on the crust, the snow was soft enough for kick and glide.  In total we skied 6.3 miles with only 250 feet of elevation; pretty pleasant!

Contributed by trip leader Ann Padgett, photos by Laura Seaver

Cooperation from the weather gave us a fabulous Full Moon Ski.  Upon arrival at Meissner Sno Park we were greeted with alpenglow from the sunset.  We then headed up Tangent Loop to the Meissner Shelter via Manzanita. The scene at the shelter was quite festive with a large group of hikers there. After equipment adjustments we headed back down Manzanita to Tangent where we made a stop in the moonlight at Swampy Sno Park for snacks and drinks. The ski back down to Meissner was fast and fun with our way guided by moonlight. A great time was had by all!!

Contributed by trip leader John Stephenson, with photos from Barb Lowe

To take in the first full moon of 2025, seven CONC snowshoers/yaktraxers trekked up to Jeff View shelter. On the way up, we were treated to a brilliant sunset behind the Three Sisters. After dark, the rising moon took a while to break out of clouds on the eastern horizon, but once it did it lit up the night and the mountains. The shelter was hoppin’ with several other groups of moonlight seekers. The moon was high enough on the return trip to make headlamps unnecessary. I can report with high confidence that everybody enjoyed being up there on such a beautiful evening!

The number of registrants dropped from 14 to 10 when I sent an email that metal edges would be needed to traverse some of the sidehills on the way to Berley Lakes.  However, the remaining group was pleasantly surprised to find an inch of fresh snow at the Santiam Trailhead.  But the traverse was blown free of snow and difficult to gain an edge, as expected.  The prediction of partly cloudy was accurate, with a few snow flurries to add to the fresh.  Half of the route was through old burns with a splash of sun and a couple of small ponds, but the other half was often tricky navigating through the trees, often skiing on the small "bridge" of snow between two tree-wells.

The closer we got to Berley Lakes, the more fresh snow we found on top of the consolidated base, with about 3" at the lake.  Of course, this enticed us with off course turns and led to unplanned route finding through new growth to get back to the route.  However, the drop to the lake was much too steep for carving turns with deep tree wells that forced us to side step and kick turn our way down.  This was clearly an advanced skier adventure that appealed to those crazy people that joined the group!

Contributed by trip leader Kelly Clemen

Nine adventurous participants joined together for the CONC snowshoe up the new Vista Butte trail. Gaining over 700 feet of elevation in one mile, the route can be a bit steep sometimes, but the view at the top is well worth the effort. Our first challenge was getting up the 6-7 foot snowbank from the parking lot to the starting area. Fortunately a chute had already been created and we were able to place our snowshoes and poles on the bank above and then crawl up the chute. We strapped on our snowshoes and started climbing up that 700 feet to the top. We were fortunate that the trail was well-broken which made our trip to the top a lot easier. We stopped several times to get a breather and take off unneeded clothing, but in about 45 minutes we breasted the hill and marveled at the stupendous views of Mt Bachelor, Tumalo Mountain, Broken Top and South Sister as well as the numerous cinder cones and meadows below us. It was a lovely day, so the views were all out in the open. After eating a snack and taking in our fill of the views, we decided to head down a slightly different route paralleling the Vista Butte ski trail so we could tromp through some powdery snow. It added some new scenery to the trip and added a tad bit more mileage to the return. Once back at the trailhead, we had to slide back down the chute to where the cars were parked. Everyone did great on the day and had fun! If you haven't done the Vista Butte snowshoe trail yet, here is a link to a Bulletin article on the trail.