Winter is not over yet

I made it back to Oregon just in time to catch a few last Winter storm cycles. It took a little re-adjusting to the colder conditions, but my main impetus for returning home so early this year was so that I could get in some skiing. I certainly haven't been disappointed. Mt Bachelor will be closing early this year, May 18th, even though we have a huge base in the mountains, and it keeps coming down. It will be a LONG time before the mountain bike trails to the West of town are clear.

My friend and co-worker Pedro was in Hood River last week, having flown up from Baja to finish up the paperwork and finances from Vela's previous season. It was cold and Wintery in town last weekend, so I had the opportunity to see Mr. Boot playing in the snow. We went up to Mt Hood Meadows for a day of skiing and snowboarding. Even though it has been a while since Pedro was in the snow, he rallied and was turning like a pro by the end of the afternoon!

I have been working at Pine Mountain Sports for the last few weeks. It is a fun place to be: my coworkers all have a positive and fun attitude, it is a very social establishment, we have all the new telemark skis to demo, and Ginger gets to come to work with me and acts as the official greeter. It might be late Summer before many of our bike trips with Cogwild are able to reach the Cascade Lakes, but I hear that interest in this area is still on the rise and we already have a few custom tours scheduled.

Hope everyone is doing well. Sorry for the lack of frequent updates to the blog. Obviously it has been a super-busy few weeks for me. But Ginger and I are doing very well, thank you, and we are looking forward to Springtime, if it ever shows up...

Culture shock

It is a hard transition when you go from this:





to this:



in just a few days...