A Slice of Paradise

I think I've finally chosen my favorite place.  Timberline Lodge, OR, where you get ski runs like this entirely to yourself:

Day 1

Allow me to walk you through my family's one-night stay at the Lodge (a Christmas present to me...).  We arrived Thursday morning and started skiing through the snow.

We had a great day of skiing through fresh powder, although we all got pretty wet because the snow turned to light rain at times.  I spent some time skiing through tree glades, which I may talk about in a future blog post.

Here's a route I took, in an effort to understand the appeal of deep powder on a deeper level:

By the end of the day, the conditions looked like this:

Meanwhile, the view out of our hotel window:

As the sun set, we hung out at the Ram's Head pub.  I worked on my laptop, we got dinner, I got a couple glasses of Timberline's own wine, and we played card games.  Out of the window, the sun set over Mount Jefferson and a sea of clouds:

After dinner, we went in the outdoor hot tub and swimming pool under a dark, cloudless sky.

Day 2

I slept restlessly.  Not because the bed was uncomfortable -- on the contrary, the feathertop mattress and mound of pillows was ridiculously comfortable.  Instead, I had resolved to be on the slopes at 9am when the lifts opened, and I kept having dreams in which my alarm didn't wake me up and I slept in until 10.  I woke up twice when it was still pitch black, once when the first hint of light was in the outside world, and finally once again at 7:40am, when I decided to just wake up for good.

The view out of my window:

Not many morning views that can beat that.  If you looked at the right angle, Mt. Hood was framed by ice:

I got dressed and went out to the main lodge area.  I first noticed the view out of the Ram's Head pub.  A picture of the Ram's Head has been my desktop photo for the last 2 months, and I've been wishing I was there for a while.  Tables in the Ram's Head (my happy place):

I found Mom, and we got some coffee from the following coffee pots (notice the background):

Then, after getting Cole out of bed, we all got breakfast.  The selection of waffle toppings caught my eye, so I prepared the ultimate waffle.

Thoroughly stuffed, we hit the slopes, which brings us back to the groomed packed powder.

Unlike the previous day, the weather was dry.

My skiing buddies, Dad and Cole:

Solo shots:

We had a great day skiing.  We skied low on the mountain...

...and high on the mountain.

Here's a path near the top of the Magic Mile chairlift I dubbed "Joy's Cutoff."  Very smooth skiing.

I learned a new skiing trick this day!  Dad taught me how to spin in a circle while skiing, without stopping.  Well, I have to slow down, but then I can spin 360 degrees and keep on skiing.  With time, I became an ambi-turner and could turn both left and right.  Dad's been able to do this for ages, but I'd never gotten it until this second day at Timberline.  With a bit of practice, I could string consecutive spins together.  I would be skiing down the mountain but spinning continuously in circles until I got dizzy!  Since I was feeling silly, I decided to call it the Mayan Infinite Spiral.

We continued skiing until the lifts closed at 4pm.  Near the end of the day, the routes were glowing golden.  Cole and I were both reminded of the course "Golden Forest" from the classic Nintendo 64 snowboarding game "1080."

The last run of the day featured some very smooth snow for me.

Then we returned to the lodge and went in the hot tub one last time as the sun set.  I bought a couple bottles of the Timberline wine, and we departed for Portland as the sun set over Oregon once more.

I just returned from the mountain 6 hours ago, and looking at these photos makes me want to go back already.

Epilogue: First World Problems

I'm going to France for Christmas, and I will be going skiing in the French Alps.  Some of my friends have been laughing at me and giving me quite a bit of trouble for grumbling that I won't be able to spend Christmas at Timberline.  "Joy, Joy, Joy," they say.  "That's not even a first world problem, that's a zeroth world problem.  'Oh no, I can't ski in Oregon, I have to ski in France.'  Come on, be reasonable."

I hope this blog post has given you a slight idea of why I grumble.  I am sure France is going to be awesome, and I am very excited to ski in the Alps, but... it's hard to top perfection.

This morning (day 2 of the trip described above), I woke Cole up briefly at 7:40am and told him to look out of his window.  He looked out at the sunrise reflecting off the mountain, and said, "Wow, that's pretty nice.  Okay, fine, you're allowed to complain about France."