Sunriver & Mt Bachelor - February 2010

Hi and welcome to our photoblog. We are taking a break from the Japan trip pictures, and want to show you some pictures from our recent trip to the Sunriver and Mt Bachelor area of Oregon. We try to go there at least once per year to do some cross-country skiing. I think the first blog we did was of our trip to Sunriver last year.

Due to the poor economy, there were really some great deals this year. We rented the little house below for 2 nights and got two free nights! We always go through a company called Bennington Properties. They have many dog-friendly properties, and they have a "dog basket" waiting for Angus every time we rent one of their properties.

As you can see below, the house was very nice! We had a fireplace, and a great little area to sit and watch the Olympics each night after skiing. We could go do our pitiful skiing, then come home to watch the Olympic athletes show us how it should be done.

The first day of skiing was pretty bad. We tried a new sno-park that we had not tried before, because they allowed dogs to go on the trails. This sno-park was at a lower elevation, and had not had any snow for a while. The old snow was packed down and was like trying to ski across a bowl of ice cubes. No grip at all for the skis. So after I fell a couple of times, we ditched the skis and just walked on the snowshoe trails. We met some other people with their dogs, and walked with them while they snowshoed. Next year, we will go back with snowshoes!

We probably walked about 3 miles in the snow, so that was a pretty good first day. We stopped a few times for various photo opportunities. If we could teach Angus to take pictures, we could have a picture of Annie and me together!

On the second day, we had arranged for a dog-sitter to come and sit with Angus so we could try some other trails. We went to Dutchman's Flat and had some great views of the mountains. The skiing was still tough, but a little easier than the day before. Below is a great view of Mt Bachelor, which was our view for our picnic lunch while skiing.

In the picture above, look very closely at the top of Mt Bachelor to see the little "bowl" valley. This is where the picture below is taken. You can see the para-sailor just to the top left of the mountain peak. There were three of them sailing around while we were skiing. They landed just as we finished. If you look closely in the valley in the picture below, you can see a puff of snow where one of those maniac skiers who start at the very top of mountains is skiing down.

Way bigger cojones than I have!

Here's a panorama of the Dutchman Flats area, with Broken Top in the middle of the picture. I don't know the name of the mountain to the left.

On Saturday, we decided to wander around the area. We found another dog-friendly sno-park that was great. We will definitely go back to it next year. We also drove over to see Smith Rock State Park. All of the years we lived in Oregon before, we never went to Smith Rock. It is a world famous rock-climbing location.

In the picture below, you can see the Crooked River winding around part of the rock formations. It is a really beautiful spot. Lots of hiking trails and places for people to ride their horses.

It was a very cold, blustery day while we were visiting Smith Rock, but you can see that it doesn't stop serious climbers.

Another photo of the Crooked River and the rock formations.

So we had a great time at Sunriver, even though the skiing was terrible. Next time, we just need to be prepared with snowshoes. We've already gone to REI to check them out. We talked about coming back to Sunriver in October, to do some normal hiking and walking around Smith Rock. So maybe we will go more than once a year!

On the way back, we had a great view of the Sisters mountains below. I try to put these pictures in so that you can click on them and can get a larger picture. So try that, and the mountains you see going from the left to the right are Three-Fingered Jack, the South Sister, the Middle Sister, the North Sisters (these are the three mountains in the middle of the picture), Black Butte and Mount Washington on the far right.

Thanks for reading. See you next time!