Friday the 30th of December 2011
Rip Waverly, Weird1 and I headed up to Mt Bachelor for an overnight hang.
We started at the Dutchman Flats Snow Park and planned to snowshoe out to Todd Lake for the night.
This was Rips first snowshoe trip! Also the first trip for much new gear including my new DIY Pulk.
When we arrived it was snowing a bit with a slight breeze, it was quite pleasant and peacfull outside.
We snowshoed down the groomed ski trail about 1/4-1/2 mile to the snowshoe trail and started to head in.
The snow gradually started to come down a bit harder and it took some time to find the trail markers
but for the most part we managed without much trouble.(Only one real detour)
After a few miles we came across a large opening with what we figured was the creek
that fed off of Todd Lake and we knew we were close to our goal.
The trail wasn't very clear at this point and after a bit of exploring and spotting a sign
on the other side we tried to get around to it. Weird1 was leading the way when his foot broke through
the snow and he found water! Now one of his boots was soaked and that was the beginning of our problems.
With some help, Rip helped him up and we started to backtrack, and found out there was water under most of this section.
Luckily we managed to keep everything else dry.
Not quite willing to concede at this point we start searching for options..
By this point its been snowing steadily for hours and even some of our trails have been covered back up.
The wind has picked up some and we are tired, its starting to get a bit stressfull so we sit down inside
some trees that provide some shelter for a well needed hot lunch.
After lunch we decide that the wind is pretty bad where we were and the snow is coming down at a decent rate.
We decide we are going to backtrack down the snowshoe trail and see what we find.
Weird1 gets a head start while me and Rip are packing up and I guess he ate his wheaties because it took us forever
to catch him and we were pounding the trail trying. (so much so we were sure he was lost on some other trail)
But eventually we caught up to him. The weather wasnt getting better, Weirds foot was soaked, and it wasnt even 5pm yet...
We decided to be smart and concede this trip and head back to the truck.
We did manage to have a great time and test out some new gear, so not all was bad.
Rip discoverd the fun of snowshoeing around the woods, and we are all looking foward to the next trip
to the Oregon Winter Hang (IN 12 DAYS!!!!!!!)
Oh and my Pulk worked AWESOME!!!!!
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