By Walter J. Sperling | Posted: Thursday, March 27, 2003 12:00 am
For Mid-Valley Sports
Last year's Spring Break destination was to be southern Utah, where they claim March is never murky and the hiking is terrific.
Alas, like many, our household, economy was a little bushed, so wisdom seemed to urge a somewhat less costly jaunt.
Consulting map and checkbook, we elected to extend our sporadic exploration of The Oregon Territory with cross-country skiing in the northeastern mountains, where they claim the snow is fresh, the roads are not crowded, and beef is what's for dinner.
Thirty minutes on the Internet uncovered an appealing, reasonably priced bed and breakfast in the small town of Elgin, northeast of LaGrande on the road to Wallowa Lake. A few more cyberspace minutes assures us there are plenty of nearby cross country trails. And, as everyone knows, it's always sunny out there.
We depart Saturday of spring break under bright skies. Rolling through the gorge, with the Columbia River preternaturally calm and luminescent, I congratulate myself for our wisdom. "Jeez," I intone to my spouse repeatedly, "did we figure this weather or what?"
The gods of spring break must have loved that one. Half an hour west of Pendleton it starts to rain, fifteen minutes east of town it starts to snow and shortly thereafter we are climbing into the Blue Mountains playing slush-and-spray rodeo with speeding eighteen-wheelers. By the time we make it to gritty Elgin, back in a steady gray drizzle that would do the Willamette Valley proud, my worthy skiing companion is ominously silent, a sure sign she thinks we (actually, I) have miscalculated again.
Her pessimism is quickly reversed by our arrival at Pinewood Bed and Breakfast, a hand-hewn log cabin standing bright and cheery amongst - what else - the pines. Outfitted with all the creature comforts, down to bedside chocolates and a Jacuzzi tub, our spacious and nicely appointed accommodation is even better than advertised.
Day two of our vacation dawns - to use the word abstractly - in continued heavy drizzle. The map says there are mountains out there, but the clouds clinging to the floor of the Grande Ronde Valley prevent confirming it.
With any desire to cross-country ski thus suppressed, we turn to that other great spring break pursuit, overeating. Our hosts, Dan and Anndell Thompson, provide enough breakfast to serve a pregame meal to a high school basketball team. Setting a pattern that will repeat itself for the rest of our stay, we work our way through an assortment of delicious fruit dishes, pastries and main courses at breakfast, fashion a picnic lunch from the leftovers, then set the rest aside to have with dinner. (There is a small kitchen with microwave and toaster oven so you can cook dinner, although Elgin and LaGrande offer nearby restaurant choices.)
The remainder of this gloomy day is given to exploring Baker City, where we catch a cribbage tournament at the restored Geiser Grand Hotel (wish I'd known beforehand, because I've never lost a cribbage game), visit the Oregon Trail Interpretative Center five miles outside town, and explore back roads through the small villages of Union and Cove on the way back to Elgin.
Incidentally, whatever good you've heard or read about Baker City's Oregon Trail Center, double it. It is outstanding.
By the next morning our weather luck has improved - it holds for the remainder of the trip - and we are off to begin exploring what is a veritable smorgasbord of Nordic skiing choices. First stop is Horseshoe Prairie, a seven-mile loop system that departs from Andie's Prairie Sno-Park 20 minutes north of Elgin. The guidebook is a little sketchy on this one, so we plan to check the area map which the state invariably mounts near sno-park restrooms. Happily, locating the restroom at Andie's Prairie is easy, because we can see the top of the exhaust stack peeking out from an otherwise unbroken expanse of snow. There is, in other words, a lot of snow here.
Not to worry. The trails are well marked, they've been skied just enough that we don't have to break trail, and they meander through forests and meadows on a beautiful ridge top. Trees glint and sparkle, shedding their light coating of ice in a warming sun that soon has us skiing in T-shirts and sunburning our noses.
Monday of spring break, fresh snow, warm sun and three cars in the Sno-Park when we return. We haven't seen anyone, except the family sledding nearby, and we never heard a snowmobile. Eastern Oregon is looking like a very good choice, indeed.
The following days it looks even better. We head to Wallowa Lake on a spectacular drive, stopping at the Forest Service Visitor Center on the edge of Enterprise - a must - to look at the large diorama of the Wallowa Range and, even better, stare across the valley at Traverse Ridge and jagged Sawtooth Peak. Since we're the only people there, we have time for a leisurely and informative chat with the congenial staff. Try this in summertime.
Our skiing adventures start with a run up McCully Creek Basin, south of the Ferguson Ridge Ski Area on Tucker Downs Road, off the route from Joseph to Imnaha. (Ferguson Ridge, operated by the all-volunteer Eagle Cap Ski Club, is open for downhill skiing on weekends and holidays.)
For several hours we ski toward the basin on Aneroid Mountain, looming spectacularly in the distance. Numerous trails and roads branch off from our route, but we stick to the tracked main route, which narrows to a trail through the woods. At a fine, albeit partial, view of the mountain, we turn back for the welcome downhill run to the car and a late lunch.
Near the car we acquire another entry for our "Clueless Champions" scrapbook when we encounter two guys in a jeep, Gazetteer in hand, who have driven miles up a narrow, snowy road toward a visibly massive mountain range so they could ask us, as they peered at the looming snowpacked peaks, "Can you get back to California this way?" Really, it happened. I'll take the polygraph.
A dozen miles beyond the McCully turnoff is the Salt Creek Summit Sno-Park, the heart of Wallowa area cross-country trails. Options at Salt Creek range from the just-more-than-a-mile Summit Loop to much longer circuits. At 6,000 feet, Salt Creek is also a main access for longer trips in the Wallowas. Wing Ridge Ski Tours in nearby Joseph rents log cabins at Aneroid Basin and tent shelters at Bonney Lakes, Big Sheep, and Wing Ridge to back-country skiers. Wing Ridge also offers guided tours and instruction in avalanche safety, essential for anyone going into the back country basins out here.
Our horizons are a little lower, the trails at the summit and the two-mile Devils View trail that promises fine sightings of the jagged Seven Devils range which, alas, turn out to be blocked by clouds.
Back in Elgin each evening, it's a hot tub on the outside deck and a glass or two of vino. My wife notes that had we jetted off to Utah canyon country we would have neither the hot tub nor the vino. Good point.
Homeward bound, we stop at the top of the Blue Mountains for a quick loop at Meacham Divide. With 20 km of trails, Meacham claims to be the second-largest cross-country area in Oregon. True or not, this pleasant area merits further, less hurried exploration.
It's a long drive home - six and a half hours - but that's just around the corner by Eastern Oregon standards - and only about twice as long as we'd have stood in line for spring break airport security. We've stayed in a comfortable, affordable bed and breakfast run by friendly people. Not once did we have a big SUV tailgating us - try that on spring break runs to Santiam Pass or Willamette Pass - and we never skied on a trail iced from overuse.
Nor have our few days in Eastern Oregon begun to dent the available ski tours. There are groomed trails at famed Anthony Lakes, 60 miles from Elgin, and also at Spout Springs Ski Area located just past our first day's ski at Andie's Prairie. The Sumpter Area, south of Baker City, reportedly offers miles of trails. And you'd need another lifetime just for the Wallowas.
So I'm trying to convince my wife that Wing Ridge's back country trips sound appealing for spring break next year. I wonder if they serve a good breakfast?
For More Information:
Pinewood B&B: 1-888-731-8889 or www.pinewoodbb.com
Wallowa Whitman National Forest: Visitor Center 541-426-5546 or www.fs.fed.us/r6/w-w
Umatilla National Forest: www.fs.fed.us/r6/uma
Wing Ridge Ski Tours: 1-800-646-9050 or www.wingski.com