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by Ross Peterson |
It all started with a last minute change of plans. A small posse of folk
from Tahoe were supposed to go on a cat boarding trip with some Bend locals
in Oregon, but the cat blew up. Unfortunately, the clutch of people had already
hit the road when the photographer Angie Silvy called home to get the news
about the cat operation. They decided to continue on to Oregon anyway and
see where the adventure north would take them. I was lucky enough to join
them and record our adventure.
THE PLAN
Angie Silvy, Tom Gillis, Brian Reilly, Jim Kelly, Arthur Kreihble, and Dave
Norehad arrive in Bend with no schedule for a week. Jason McAlister and I
join them for breakfast and then we go back to our place for a brainstorming
session. After an hour and half of watching Chris Farley make a fool of himself
in "Tommy Boy," 20 minutes on the internet, 18 phone calls, and one stop
at the gas station for three tanks of gas, we are on our way to McCall, Idaho
for some cat boarding at Mount Brundage.
Big rocks mean high drops. |
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The road there takes us through Eastern Oregon and to the disbelief of some,
the crew discovers that Oregon isn't all green. That's the beauty of travel,
it shows us places we'd love to live and others where we pray to God we'll
never have to stop.
Upon arrival in McCall, Artie's charm lands us an upstairs suite next to
the river. Sleep comes late that night and everyone wakes up hungry for a
home-style brunch. We are led across town to a place called The Pancake House
where we're befriended by our waitress Theresa. We later learn that she owns
the only pink Harley in the state of Idaho, interesting. This is the kind
of joint where we can only find room to sit in the non-smoking section. Phillip
Morris would be proud.
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All greased up on the largest cinnamon roll ever, we spend some time cruising
around McCall checking out the ice sculptures left over from a winter carnival
the week before. We find ourselves surrounded by life size replicas of trains,
dragons, Indians, dinosaurs and just about everything in between. Why is
it that when I see stuff like that, I think of how fun it would be to run
the statues over and smash them all to pieces? Must be some sort of male
thing that only surfaces when we see something neat that probably took a
long time for someone else to make.
Angie and Artie have some business to take care of at the Mount Brundage
Ski office. It is located right next to a lot where someone has strung a
hose up a tree and dripped water for the better part of three months. Needless
to say, there is as a giant pile of ice nearly 30 feet high that glows green
when lights are shown on it. The people here are a creative bunch with more
than their fair share of free time. After a little of Angie's friendly Australian
accent mixed we are booked for a snowcat trip on Friday.
An ornamated tree stump. No, actually it's the
Idaho posse. |
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If it's cold enough to make ice sculptures, this usually means the roads
are pretty icy, and Tom quickly finds this out planting the Ford Explorer
up to the hood in a snow bank. After digging out, our evening is spent at
the McCall Brewery in the game room trying to conquer the Twilight Zone pinball
game. McAlister puts down the all time record for one ball: 237,543,340 (he
gets the replay at 250,000,000). We fall asleep back at the suite at round
two with Chris Farley. Black Sheep is on the tube.
...Continued
SOL | Snowboarding Online |