A Morning on Tumalo Mountain

Last winter, I took a morning of our vacation to snowshoe up Tumalo Mountain, across Century Drive from Mt. Bachelor. It’s a beautiful hike in the woods, ascending 1400 feet to a bald summit and a beautiful panoramic mountain view.

As the morning sun touches the upper branches, little ice nuggets began to loose their grip on the trees to which they have clung. Falling to the snow below, they begin their journey—their seasons long, spring-feeding, crop-soaking, salmon-ecologizing journey—to the Pacific.

As the chunks of ice fall from upper branches, many of them hit dead branches below – the muffled sound nearly lost in the snow. First there was one, then another … a trickle, and finally a torrent until I was surrounded by the sound of a thousand Brazilian rain sticks.
I wondered if this concert was an every-day occurrence, or performed only for guests (If an ice chunk falls on a snag in the woods, and nobody is there to hear it …?).
The chorus from time to time was punctuated by the snap of a desiccated snag; the remains of an old sentinel, ghostly manning his post on the front lines of climate change – held together now only by the rigidity of the ice. The rising warmth—so welcome throughout the forest—robs his frame of its last resistance to gravity, which he surrenders, to the tune of a broken-bat single.


The dappled sunlight glints off snow crystals like a million twinkling stars – or flashbulbs at a nighttime Super Bowl. As I continue the climb, the lightshow follows. No matter where I stand, they all flash my direction. What can this mean? I mean the climb is hard, and fraught with danger, but it’s really not a big … sure, I’m making good time, but … Wow! You like me. You really like me!


I try to stay off the established tracks, in favor of the untracked forest powder. There’s really no need for a trail – just use your senses. On the way up, just do what your thighs beg you not to; keep going uphill, and you’ll end up at the summit. And to find the parking lot on the way down, just keep your eyes on Mt. Bachelor. It’s not too hard to do … she’s a butte!

At the top, my reward awaits – a 360 degree view of the Central Oregon Cascades. To the west and Northwest, it’s like you can reach out and touch the South Sister and Broken Top, and the view looking back at Bachelor is priceless. Time for a quick drink, a snack, a few pictures, and it’s time to head back down.
Picking my way through the top section of the hike down is pretty tricky. Snowshoes are great for climbing, but awkward for descending. I passed tree wells the size of Volkswagen beetles. If you fell into one of those, it’s not hard to imagine being trapped until the spring thaw – by which time you’d be skinnier than you are now.

After about the top hundred feet or so, the going gets much better. Deep-stepping through untracked powder, and staying oriented to the lift lines across the road, it’s a bounding, pleasant—if not particularly graceful—descent through the lodgepole and jack pine woods. Back to the car and down the hill to the icy beer that awaits me.