Two snowfalls worthy of hiking for turns kicked off what we thought was a promising pre-season in October, but was soon followed by three weeks of drought. When the skies once again turned grey and Whistler began receiving an abundance of snowfall, Oregon harbored a dose of rain, With each storm freezing levels rose and hopes of snow were quickly erased. With Thanksgiving and opening day for Mt. Bachelor fast approaching, speculation on skiing began to grow. That was until this weekend. After more healthy systems of unseasonably warm storms, the temperature finally dropped and it began to snow. Although it wasn’t the typical Cascade dump, by the time the skies cleared there was over a foot of new.

AJ De Saint Phalle and I decided to forgo the masses hiking Bachelor’s Cinder Cone, and headed to a patch further up the mountain. We quickly realized that hiking with camera bags and tripods is highly overrated. After a few hours it was time to reap our efforts. With dry, blower snow on top of snow left over from last year, our worry of hitting lava rocks ceased and are efforts were well worth the journey. After many hikes to obtain some one-turn wonder photos, we headed back down to the car. Several realizations popped into our minds in the drive back to Bend, the foremost being that chairlifts are definitely easier, but hiking to get turns without a soul around isn’t so bad. Opening day was today for Bachelor, but we already got ours.