Outside

THE METHOW
The Methow- Mecca for Nordic skiersWe arrived in the Methow during a Christmas Eve snowstorm.
Our hosts, Belinda and Mark, had thoughtfully stoked a fire in the
woodstove inside "The Shed," their 100-square-foot cabin outfitted with
an electric tea kettle, a collection of coffee mugs and a string of
Tibetan prayer flags. Unloading our gear for a long weekend, I found it
hard to fathom that Belinda had actually lived in the tiny Shed for
five years while building her house at the base of Lucky Jim Bluff. But
it was a perfect home for four days of idyllic cross country skiing in
this tranquil valley.
The 55-mile-long Methow Valley in north
central Washington is home to only about 4,000 residents, but it's
jammed with tourists during summer when it serves as the eastern
gateway to North Cascades National Park. During winter, however, when
the highway connecting it to Seattle is closed due to snow, it becomes
a secluded Nordic skiers' Mecca. The Methow's 200-kilometer system of
meticulously groomed X-C ski trails is second only to the 330
kilometers at Royal Gorge near Lake Tahoe and puts Mt. Bachelor's 56
kilometers (depending on how you count them) to shame.

CONTRIBUTE TO
THE MEISSNER GROOMING EFFORT

Have you skied at Meissner Sno-Park this year? Have you parked in the new lot, checked out some of the new trails or warmed up in the new shelter? If you have, you are the beneficiary of the tremendous efforts of the Tumalo Langlauf Club (TLC).
Unfortunately, the grooming at Meissner is in peril of being discontinued before the end of this month for financial reasons.

WINTER TRI
Iced up at Bachelor.Some people just don't learn. Which is why it looked like
a reunion of Masochists Anonymous when I showed up at the start line
for the 2009 USAT Winter Triathlon National Championship last Sunday at
the Mt. Bachelor Nordic Center. Most of the faces were familiar from
last year's event, also held at Mt. Bachelor, with competitors flying
in from places like Colorado and Alaska to vie for berths for the World
Championships in Gaishorn, Austria coming up in February. One new face
in the crowd was Ned Overend, the first ever world mountain biking
champion, which was pretty cool.
Conditions were much better this
year for the run/bike/ski event, with a bike course that was firmer and
more rideable. Brian Smith from Gunnison, Colo. finally dethroned
perennial champion Mike Kloser from Vail. Local professional bike racer
Carl Decker, who had been sighted actually running in a velour warm-up
suit earlier in the week, took third place. In the women's race,
Olympic Nordic ski racer Rebecca Dussault, also from Gunnison, won
handily. Sarah Max was the top Bend finisher in fifth place. I got
passed by Kloser's 15-year-old son Christian during the bike leg. Nice
genes.

Happier days in the MBSEF Nordic camp.BANG! That wasn't the sound of avalanche blasting at Mt Bachelor. That was the sound of the MBSEF Nordic program imploding like a bad New Year's firecracker over the holidays. Unfortunately, the proverbial Swix hit the fan for the Bend Nordic skiing community.

To some degree, the drama began on December 6, when MBSEF Nordic coach Brenna Knowles presented a written statement to MBSEF Executive Director Chuck Kenlan regarding her working relationship with her supervisor, MBSEF Nordic Program Director Ben Husaby.
According to Knowles, "Mr. Kenlan and I met in the fall of 2007 to discuss ongoing issues with Mr. Husaby. Over the course of the year, I was not satisfied with the way that Mr. Kenlan handled my concerns. So, when Mr. Kenlan called me into his office in early December and encouraged me to list all of my issues with Mr. Husaby, I was glad that he was taking another look at my work environment. Unfortunately, a few days later, Ben and I had a disagreement. That night, I hastily drafted a letter containing seven years' worth of complaints and presented it to Mr. Kenlan the next day."

Feeling out FernieWhy did you move to Bend? If you're like most people I know, you took a paycut in order to have Phil's Trail in your backyard or to get in a run along the River Trail at lunch. You're now drastically underemployed so that you can ski midweek at Mt. Bachelor or climb Monkey Face on a regular basis.
But Bend has changed a lot since you moved here-our real estate still qualifies as some of the most overvalued in the country, there's more traffic on the roads and the trails and more subdivisions between you and the forest. Some other communities, fearful of becoming what Bend is now, have printed bumper stickers like "Don't Bend Walla Walla." Some Bendites, discouraged with the changes, have searched for the "next Bend" - the next great place with a similar outdoor lifestyle, but without all the hoopla.

KAREN & ROB'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE
Lining up the Chandalar River in Alaska Have you seen "Fuel" yet? The Sundance award winning movie, currently playing at the Regal Pilot Butte, is about our addiction to oil and is getting rave reviews. One Bend couple has their own alternative to oil - chocolate.
It all began 10 years ago with a four-month mountain biking trip from Seattle to La Paz, Bolivia. That experience was enough to hook Karen Holm and Rob Walker on human-powered adventure. In 2000, they built two wooden sea kayaks in Glacier Bay, Alaska and paddled 1500 miles to Lopez Island in the San Juan Islands of Washington. In 2004, they spent six months traveling 1850 miles of Chilean Patagonia by sea kayak.
Last year, they dreamed up the Three Rivers Traverse, a 3-month, 1403-mile multi-modal odyssey. It all started in Skagway, Alaska. The plan was to canoe 4.5 miles to the Chilkoot Trailhead, pack up their 40-pound folding canoe and hike 33 miles along the old Klondike route to the headwater lakes of the Yukon River, re-assemble their canoe, paddle 1000 miles down the Yukon River and then up the East Fork of the Chandalar River to its source, traverse the Romanzof Mountains in the Brooks Range and follow the Okpilak River across the coastal plain of the Artic National Wildlife Refuge to the final destination of Kaktovik. Whew, now there's a run-on sentence.

PHEW!
Let It Snow!Patience is a virtue. Not one of mine, but sometimes you have no choice. As Tom Petty used to croon, "The waiting is the hardest part." We can all breathe a sigh of relief now that the long wait is over. A beautiful full moon snowstorm finally blew in last Friday night, dumping 23 inches of fresh powder on Mt. Bachelor over the weekend. Both the alpine and nordic areas opened Sunday on a limited basis. On the downhill side, the Pine Marten and Sunshine lifts went into action, while the upper trails and Woody's were groomed on the X-C side. With frigid single digit temperatures and more storms predicted for the remainder of the week, it looks like winter is here to stay. Kind of like a new boyfriend who turns out to be a couch surfer, just remember how much you wanted it when it's still lingering around come May.