News from Jules | 01.08.2023 | The Sky's The Limit
I came for snow, for mountains, for skiing, for a full-fledged winter.
The day after last Thanksgiving—and just over a month after returning to Central Oregon—I drove the three and a half hours back to Bend after seeing my family in Portland, and moved into employee housing at the Campfire Hotel. This also would have been my first day of work for the season at Mt. Bachelor Ski Resort—if it had opened.
But, it didn’t.
And, after a brief and exciting opening day just over a week later, it closed again for several days, thus my first shift was actually two weeks later than expected. The pavement on Cascade Lakes Highway was bare for almost the entire 30-minute shuttle ride up to the mountain on that first day.
This was not why I came back to Central Oregon.
I came for snow, for mountains, for skiing, for a full-fledged winter.
The 10 weeks that I spent in Portland while I was home for the holidays a year ago confirmed mild winters that felt more like a really long fall no longer pleased me. I used to love that I could go for a run on bare pavement in regular leggings and a running jacket, while only adding a hat and maybe light gloves, anytime I wanted at any time of year.
But, after falling in love with mountaineering in 2021, I longed for that brisk air, that clean smell of snow, that clear canvas of fresh white powder in deep winter that one just can’t get at sealevel.
So, when fate offered jobs and housing in the mountain town of Bend, I gladly accepted and excitedly started anticipating living in a winter wonderland: Trudging across town through feet of snow in my hiking boots, long brown puffy coat, and thick mittens to get to a coffee shop or my shift at REI or the shuttle stop up to the mountain.
I realized recently that I came here with some preconceived notions—an opinion or preference formed beforehand without adequate evidence or perhaps just ignoring the evidence. For instance, this year’s El Niño winter.
To be fair, I haven’t lived in Central Oregon during the winter before, so I guess my imagination just looked for the file of memories labeled “winter” and used what I knew:
I remember spending weekends swooping through the snow-laden trees while learning to ski on Mount Hood in middle and high school.
I remember getting so snowed into the house during the winter I lived in Boston after college that the neighbor kids had to use makeshift shovels of garbage bin lids and their sleds so that I could get out through the front door.
And I vividly remember brisk hours snowplowing and shoveling the driveway where I was housesitting here in Central Oregon this past March and April, as one storm after another prolonged winter well into spring.
Thus, this December felt surprising, confusing, sad, and a bit regretful. Of course. Those are the well-known, yet so quickly forgotten, unpleasant byproducts of expectations.
As if those don’t feel bad enough, they breed the opposite of expectations—a sense of doubt and disbelief at best, and impossibility at worst.
So, there was an immense rush of relief and excitement when my weekly adventure buddy and I glided off our first lift ride on the Pine Martin Express in mid-December. We found a smooth, easy run we liked and cruised down it over and over, ogling at the snowcapped Central Cascade mountains nestled together over our shoulders every time we rode up the lift that bluebird day.
You still got this, girl, I couldn’t help but squeal like that adorable little dinosaur snowboarder who’s always popping up in my Instagram feed, as I swooshed to a hockey stop at the bottom of my last run that day before we headed off the mountain for an après ski soak in the hot tub at the Campfire Hotel.
Two weeks later, I rode the same lift up with one of my best friends and her 9-year-old son. This was where he learned to ski, but I’d only been the once since his mom and I skied here on our high school ski trips. Cutting sharp turns behind them, I followed along as they showed me around the mountain before I headed to work.
As the three of us rode up a quad lift with a stray snowboarder, he asked if we had any New Year’s resolutions. I responded with a long-ish spiel about intentions versus resolutions, the calendar year versus the natural year, and how I was still in my current growth cycle, while my bestie quickly and more astutely quipped her resolution: “Embracing imperfections.”
For instance, skiing around still-exposed rocks and across icy patches on a mere 24” base of snow in late December.
Waiting for the perfect winter conditions of soft terrain, low wind, warmer temps, and blue skies was like me coming into an El Niño winter with my memories of Nor’Easters and the significantly cooler climate of the 1990s. High and unrealistic expectations.
Perhaps I would set a New Year’s resolution this year: Just to ski as much as possible.
Last Friday, not only was I excited to wake up healthy after several days of a low-grade flu, but when I looked outside at the hotel parking lot, the ground was white, not grey, for the first time!
It was better than the joy of an unexpected snow day in the city, it felt like the beginning of the season. Maybe we would have a full-fledged winter after all!
I immediately started getting ready and texted some coworkers that I’d be on the last morning shuttle up before our shift. Unlike my bare-pavement, city-slicker roots they grew up in the mountains. One coworker is a local from Bend who competed in snowboarding before deciding to go to college instead of turning pro, and another is from Leadville, Colo., the highest incorporated city in the U.S. perched up at 10,158 feet of elevation.
They were used to riding no matter what.
See fun photos from skiing and working at Mt. Bachelor on Instagram.
After changing in the locker room, we set off for a couple of hours of fun, fast, and hard riding, before a long lunch break, and then our night shift together. Because I was there early, I was picked to clean Pine Martin Lodge, situated at 7,800 feet of elevation and overlooking the neighboring Three Sisters, Broken Top and Tumalo Mountain. We rode the lift up and then later on we’d ride down in the Snowcat while it groomed the very same runs I’d skied earlier that day.
While I vacuumed the large lodge and listened to my Fearless playlist on Spotify, something red caught the corner of my eye. When I stopped and looked out the window, it took my breath away.
As the sun was setting the bright pink clouds looked like flames radiating above the dark mountain range far off on the horizon. I looked around, but it was just me receiving the gift of this moment—a sense of confidence and belief at the minimum, and a sense of possibility at the most.
How lucky was I to be one of the few people still up on the mountain, in this snowy winter wonderland, and able to see that far out on the horizon?
I am where I’m supposed to be.
Winter is here.
And the sky’s the limit.
May you defy your own expectations this week.
Love,
Jules