Outside Features

Back in the early 1970s when the cross-country skiing really began to make an impact on America's winter sports scene, the only way to ski was to make your own tracks. Skiers made them anywhere there was enough snow to open skiing along marked hiking trails. Machine groomed trails were, well, not even considered.
That is until Johannes von Trapp of the Sound of Music family fame saw some groomed trails in Norway and brought the idea to the states. Eventually he began setting snowmobile-groomed tracks to his Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, Vermont. These early groomers were a bit rough but it didn't take long for the groomed grooves idea to catch on and the sportto become highly machine reliant.

The Tug is the Drug.
This bit of steelheading gospel is plastered on the rear bumper of the Ford Ranger hell-bent on passing every car driving less than 75 mph on Hwy. 97 between Bend and Maupin. Through the canopy's dust-covered back window, just visible in the grey light, is a rod holder filled with thick-barreled, cork-handled seven and eight weight rods that are half-broken-down to accommodate their length. Mounds of waders and insulating layers peak above the tailgate. In the cab, two grizzled faces – with eyes looking not at the road, but at the rapidly lightening sky – hover over coffee cups. It's 24 degrees outside, early winter, and a steelhead mission is in the making.
“At this time of year, we're seeing a fair amount of nasty, snowy, rainy, funky weather in Bend, but down on the lower Deschutes it's still absolutely beautiful,” says Damien Nurre, a veteran Deschutes River guide and owner of Central Oregon's Deep Canyon Outfitters. “It's offering some of the best fishing of the season, especially for steelhead,” Nurre adds.

I grew up a dog-loving kid.
I cried for Maggie, the spaniel who was hit by a car before I was born. Fanny, our dutiful golden retriever pulled me through knee-deep snow in our backyard during the bitter Minnesota cold. And though she never responded to a word I said, I cried, too, for Fanny when she died.
Other dogs would come later. First there was Pepper, a mutt that we picked out from a squirming litter of $10-a-head dogs that I spotted in the newspaper classifieds while dad was off on a business trip. He was not pleased. My father finally came around, well as much as you could to Pepper, a thick-skulled and habitually wanderlust dog that had to be bailed out of the pound on more than one occasion. Later we would add another dog to the mix, Rush, a squat Springer Spaniel with so much energy that she seemed on the verge of combusting at all times. It's been years since both of my childhood dogs succumbed to old age.

It’s chanterelle season in the Pacific Northwest. You can find the apricot flavored mushrooms at every store in town. The prices range from $15.99 to $19.99 a pound. And, most of the mushrooms are from Canada. Which seems a little steep considering if you have a day and love nature you can get them local and free.
Last weekend I drove 50 miles to the Sahalie Falls area on the Santiam Pass. I spent the next few hours wandering through the forest enjoying the sounds of the McKenzie River and the smell of Douglas fir trees. When I left I had over ten pounds of the best mushroom I have ever eaten.

You know you're in trouble when one friend, a respectable schoolteacher, concedes quietly over dinner, “it's like crack.” Days later, another trusted friend, who, for the record, is a functional member of society, uses “heroin” to describe the unnatural pull of oneself to cyclocross racing. I'm not that good at it, I don't have a lot of extra time or money, but I'm full on hooked
And it's become not enough to race locally. With the renowned Cross Crusade races, the largest cyclocross series in the country – so eminent they have their own Wikipedia entry – within a gas tank's distance from Bend, I find myself pulling on big girl pants to go mix it up with the largest amateur women's field in the U.S.

If you're a dirt junkie, chances are you've been eagerly watching the skies and the weather forecast, hoping for rain. Although real rain, not the kind that seemingly disappears before it hits the ground, has fallen in the past few weeks, and the trails are being described as “money” and “tacky-licious” on Twitter, we're due for more.