Snow Terror grips Central Oregon !

at least that's what it seemed like last night, with 40 inches of snow expected over the next 48 hours. Planned to go up skiing early the next day, which was made easy by my son waking me up at 5:45 am. Checked the Mt. Bachelor website : 7.5" of snow overnight, with another 5" that morning - not bad, shouldn't be too crazy driving up there. I packed both my skate and classic skis, figuring the grooming might not be skate-worthy due to the big dump, and drove off just before 7am in pouring rain.

Ten minutes later I was out of the rain and into the snow-zone. Soon it became thick slush, and the car was starting to slide around. Visibility was getting bad, and there were blizzard-like wind gusts. As I ascended, the slush on the road gave way to a more consolidated snow surface, but visibility was getting worse. I decided to turn off at the first snow park, rather than driving all the way up to the mountain. But when I got there, a 3-foot high wall of snow from the snowplow blocked the entrance, so I kept going. Next snowpark...nope, not plowed at all. So what the heck, keep driving.

Now the road surface was actually getting better - recently plowed and much colder snow. I was able to increase velocity to about 50 mph, and got to the Mt Bachelor parking lot shortly. Couldn't see much, but didn't look like the lot had been plowed. Headed towards a group of 3 or 4 cars that had already parked, going through about a foot of snow. I saw the car in front of me was stuck, so slowed down and went around, but then I got stuck too ! The snow was so dense, that my 6" or so of clearance wasn't going to cut it. Tried going back and forth with the stick, attempting to rock it out - no way, all tires spinning. An SUV came in to park, and it got stuck too - even with way more clearance than I had. So got out the shovel, and started digging the snow out from under the car, and a path to where I wanted to park - about 30 feet away. This probably took 20 minutes, and then I was able to lurch ahead and park. Briefly contemplated just getting out of there, but I'd probably get stuck again...and if I ski for an hour or so, maybe the snowplow will have cleared the lanes.

So had a great ski for over an hour, and when I returned the snowplow had done a bit of work. Was able to get out relatively easy. Could see people shoveling and pushing cars all over the place, what a mess. The snowplow was way behind the number of people that needed to park. Driving back, the road had deteriorated, but still tons of people on the way to the hill - they don't know what they're in for ! Some more sketchy driving through deep snow and slush, but made it to work only a few minutes late. Tomorrow more of the same probably - what will I do ? :)