Outside Features

James Balog
Wins Rowell Award
The powder returns and luckily there are brave souls to ski it.The Rowell award is given out each
year to celebrate the lives of Galen and Barbara Rowell, who died in a
plane crash in 2002. The Rowells, with their athletic abilities and
adventurous spirits, traveled and climbed all over the world. They
captured awe-inspiring photographs wherever they went. When traveling
through Bishop, Calif., stop in at the Rowell Gallery to take in
hundreds of their breathtaking images. Lupine fields in front of Fitz
Roy in Patagonia, gnarled Bristlecone Pines in California's Sierra
Nevada 'Range of Light,' skiing in the Alaska Range, and cultural
photos of Tibetans, Pakistanis, and Nepalese are just a few of the
images chronicling the Rowells' lives.

Sublime Corn Turns on the Thayer HeadwallEvery year I write down a list of goals to accomplish in the outdoors.
The past two years, climbing and skiing from the top of the Thayer
Glacier Headwall on North Sister has ranked among the top five on the
list. Last season, I was unable to check off the Thayer Headwall, but
not for a lack of trying. I skied into the east face of North Sister
three separate times, only to be denied access to the mountain's upper
reaches due to avalanche conditions. One memorable occasion, after
deciding the avalanche conditions were too dangerous, I witnessed two
big slides tumbling down the east face while eating lunch a safe
distance away.

The Thayer Glacier Headwall is a very natural and
aesthetic climbing route. Looking out my window at North Sister, I have
scanned the face with binoculars hundreds of times eyeing the potential
for ski mountaineering. The route begins just above a tarn sitting at
the base of the east face. It climbs the lower portion of an hourglass
through a constriction, pinching down to only a couple ski lengths
wide, before reopening. Instead of continuing up the upper hourglass,
the route bends to the right aiming directly toward the summit.

Skiing on Broken Top — South Sister and her covered moraine in the background.Spring Corn
We have been fortunate this year to have the
snowflakes fall… and fall… and fall some more. So much snow has fallen,
in fact, that seldom skied areas have seen tracks in the past month.
Ralph Tadday and others made turns on Pilot Butte. Mike McLandress and
Guy Giffin skied Lava Butte on Super Bowl Sunday, and many of you have
tracked up your favorite slopes all across Central Oregon.

A crazy weekend of outdoor festivities kicked off Friday evening with lycra-clad nordies sprinting on a one-block long course.
Competitors went head to head as the sun was setting on a crisp, clear, evening as spectators began collecting downtown to check out the Bend WinterFest. The racers skied down the manicured track between Bond and Wall just getting up to speed before dumping some speed to go around an extremely tight 180-degree turn to sprint back to the finish. Many competitors bit the dust making the hairpin turn.
By the time the final rounds began, the entire length of the course was packed. In the men's final round, Colin Mahood went down at the turn allowing Marshal Greene to glide easily to victory. In the women's bracket, Molly Grove poled out of the gates ahead of Taylor Leach and extended her lead into the finish line. The short track of snow was well used as more than 100 high school nordic skiers competed on Saturday in head-to-head sprint races.

Conservation Alliance
Tackling Maple Canyon In 1989, four main players in the outdoor industry identified a very important need to protect and preserve wild places in the great outdoors. The North Face, REI, Patagonia, and Kelty determined they were providing people with the equipment necessary to enjoy wilderness and wild places, but doing little to protect and save those places. The Conservation Alliance became the solution these companies were looking for - a way for them to give back. The four companies decided to contribute a portion of their profits from the year to a fund for distribution to grassroots conservation efforts all across the country. Since that time, 150 outdoor companies have joined the Alliance and have contributed more than $6 million to conservation efforts. Close to home, Oregon Natural Dessert Association and Deschutes Basin Land Trust have been on the receiving end of Conservation Alliance funds. These monies help protect and preserve lands near and dear to our hearts and soles of our feet.