Appeal Tribune
| WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021 | 1B
SPORTS
Ray Benson offers skiing training ground
In this second installment, I ramped
up the difficulty — but just a little. The
route featured here includes parts of
South Loop, Brandenburg Shelter Trail,
Two Buttes Cutoff and finally the North
Loop on a 7.5-mile trek that makes for a
more challenging adventure.
There are bigger hills and more of
them, but there’s no black trails — “most
difficult” — just quite yet. But stay
tuned.
Zach Urness
Salem Statesman Journal
USA TODAY NETWORK
Snowshoeing is a great way to get
outdoors during the winter, but over the
past two seasons, I’ve become increas-
ingly bored with it.
If you’re new to winter recreation,
snowshoes are the best introduction to
the sno-parks and backcountry areas of
Oregon’s mountains because they’re
easy and safe.
If you can walk, you can snowshoe.
They're also great for sketchy or more
dangerous terrain.
But on a normal winter outing, snow-
shoes can feel like slowshoes, plodding
and tiring, and I've often found myself
wishing that I was speeding down hills
as opposed to trudging.
So this winter, my pandemic hobby
has been improving my cross-country
skills, something I've dabbled in for a
few years but never focused on. It brings
all the upside of snowshoeing — snowy
forest, mountain views — but adds a
speed and thrill that was missing previ-
ously.
Luckily, I live within a morning drive
of Ray Benson Sno-Park, perhaps one of
the best places to get your skis under
you in the state.
Not only does it feature stunning
views of Mount Washington and Three-
Brandenburg and Two Buttes
route
Views from the South Loop / Two Buttes / North Loop ski route at Ray Benson
Sno-Park on Santiam Pass includes views of Mount Washington, Three-Fingered
Jack and snowy forest. ZACH URNESS / STATESMAN JOURNAL
Fingered Jack — with three warming
shelters to boot — but it has 70 miles of
trails with difficulty levels ranging from
fairly easy to more challenging.
This winter, my plan is to ski all of
them, on a journey to becoming a half-
way decent Nordic skier.
I started off on the South Loop, the
easiest route, and then added a trip to
Brandenburg Shelter, which requires
navigating some blue trail — or “more
difficult” terrain. That trip, which I
wrote about earlier this year, is 6 miles
total.
This route begins from the parking
lot at Ray Benson and follows signs and
blue diamond trail markers on the South
Loop and then to Brandenburg Shelter.
It’s three miles I wrote about previously,
but as always, enjoy the sweeping views
of Mount Washington and Three-Fin-
gered Jack and be sure to stop at the
shelter to warm up refuel.
The second part of the trip is what’s
new in this edition. Follow South Loop
to a junction with Claypool Butte, but in-
stead of turning left, head straight north
onto Claypool and Two Buttes Cutoff, a
scenic, quiet and rolling trail with lots of
ups and downs that will challenge you.
I carefully edged my skies up to the
top of two particularly narrow and steep
See TRAINING, Page 2B
Top 25 ... of the last 25
North Salem's Rebekah Miller crosses the finish line to bring the Vikings a first place finish with a time of 47.99 in the 6A girls 4x100 meter relay race at the 2018
OSAA Track and Field State Championships on Saturday, May 19, 2018, at Hayward Field in Eugene. MOLLY J. SMITH / STATESMAN JOURNAL
Who are the best athletes ever from the
Mid-Valley? Here are some possibilities
Pete Martini and Bill Poehler
Salem Statesman Journal
USA TODAY NETWORK
Thousands of stellar athletes have
walked the halls of high schools in the
Mid-Willamette Valley in the past 25
years, but a few are truly special.
When Evina Westbrook arrived at
South Salem High School in 2014, she
helped bring the girls basketball pro-
gram to a level no one knew possible by
leading the team to two state champion-
ships.
Dante Rosario revolutionized what
many thought possible from a small
school athlete by the time he graduated
from Dayton High School in 2003 with
three state championships in football
and basketball.
At Sprague, R.J. Pena was one of the
most dominant athletes in the state,
winning four state wrestling champion-
ships and resetting expectations for
wrestlers all over.
The Statesman Journal is putting to-
gether a list of the Top-25 male and
Top-25 female athletes of the past 25
years in the Mid-Valley.
We are considering athletes who
played for a Mid-Valley high school be-
tween 1995 and now.
Here is an initial list of athletes. Let
usf you would like us to consider an ath-
lete not on the list, or if you want to em-
phasize a particular athlete already, on
the list, contact us at pmartini@states-
manjournal.com or bpoehler@States-
manJournal.com.
See ATHLETES, Page 2B
Sprague's R.J. Pena wins his third straight championship, this year at 140 pounds,
on the final day of the OSAA state wrestling meet at Memorial Coliseum in
Portland. Photographed Feb. 16, 2008. THOMAS PATTERSON / STATESMAN JOURNAL