Snow day

Bundled up the brood and packed into the Element this weekend for a trip up to the snow. It's been snowing late at night in our neighborhood: fat, fluffy flakes falling fast....but they've melted pretty quickly and left no traces by morning, despite my hopeful alliterations.

So we got the sleds and snowboots, and drove about 90 minutes up into the Santiam Canyon east of Salem, past Detroit Lake and southeast toward HooDoo. This is from near the SkiBowl Sno-Park along that way. We pulled off and trudged up the trailhead about 25 feet from the parking lot, where we spent the afternoon sledding, hucking snowballs and lying in the powder.

It's amazing how quiet and pristine the woods were. The snow was easily 5 feet deep off the trail, and I sank in several times up to my waist and had to dig out. The kids both wore themselves out and ended up just sitting about 10 feet apart in the drifts, eating snow off their mittens and soaking up the moment. It was getting cold out, but they didn't want the day to end. - Isaac