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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 1, 2022)
E AST O REGONIAN TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2022 FOLLOW US ON TWITTER @EOSPORTS | FACEBOOK.COM/EOSPORTS A11 Appreciating snowshoes — by not wearing them TigerScots make HoF inductions IF YOU GO To get to Phillips Reser- voir, drive south from Baker City on Highway 7, toward Sumpter. Between mileposts 35 and 34 (the numbers get lower the farther from Baker City), and just at the top of the grade next to Mason Dam, turn left onto the access road for the Mason Dam boat ramp. There’s ample parking. The shoreline trail starts just above the restroom. There is no fee to park or to use the trail. JAYSON JACOBY ON THE TRAIL T he best way to appre- ciate snowshoes is to leave them in the car. Best, of course, is not always synonymous with smartest. In this particular episode, in fact, the words were much closer to antonyms. The second Sunday of 2022 — the ninth day of the year, to be more precise — came on sunny and cold. This was the pleasant part of the month, before the tempera- ture inversion, a not uncom- mon phenomenon hereabouts in January, left some of our region’s valleys to marinate in a dank miasma. My wife Lisa and I, with our kids, Olivia and Max, drove the 17 miles or so up the Powder River along Highway 7 to Phillips Reservoir. Olivia, who’s 14, indulges Lisa’s and my affi nity for hiking in all seasons with vari- ous degrees of acceptance. But she’s unequivocal in describing her favorite sort of route. Flat. The word is inevitable in every pre-trip conversation, most often in the form of a question: “Is it fl at?” Our part of the globe, of course, is quite often decid- edly not fl at. But among the nearby options, the shoreline trails at Phillips come nearest to satis- fying Olivia’s chief criterion. Fortunately the short road leading from Highway 7 to the boat ramp on the north side of the reservoir, near Mason Dam, is plowed, aff ording access for people hoping to pull some rainbow trout or yellow perch through a hole in the ice. Or, in our case, people interested in fl oundering through the snow. That wasn’t my goal, of course. Our four pairs of snowshoes were scattered helter-skelter in their customary place, the back of our Toyota FJ Cruiser. They spend most of the winter there, dripping meltwater onto the thick rubber fl oormat. As we parked, Olivia asked whether we were going to put on the snowshoes. Lisa Britton/Baker City Herald Black Mountain rises above the southeast corner of Phillips Res- ervoir on Jan. 9, 2022. Although her disdain for strapping on a couple square feet of plastic to her boots isn’t as palpable as her feelings about steep trails or roads, suffi ce it to say that her ideal hike does not involve snow- shoes. I noticed, as I looked at the slope where the shoreline trail winds between the ponderosa pines, that there was suffi cient snow for snowshoes. But neither was it espe- cially deep. I was in that fateful moment rendered insensible by a combination of two powerful forces — naive optimism and the desire to grant the wishes of a teenager. Individually, either of these can potentially lead to blun- ders. Combine them and it’s certain. I agreed that we could have a go without snowshoes. I convinced myself that, after several days of dry weather, the snow that fell the fi rst week of the new year likely would have solidifi ed somewhat. I mustered quite an internal argument in favor of this proposition, based on the idea that because the trail mainly follows south-facing slopes, the snow would have melted a bit each afternoon in the weak winter sunshine, and then refrozen each night, facil- itating the fi rming process that would render snowshoes, if not superfl uous than at least not mandatory. As we strode away to the west, toward Union Creek Campground, this concept didn’t seem wholly fantastical. The snow was indeed compacted in places, so much so that my boots barely breached the icy surface. But snow is treacherous. It can’t be trusted. We hadn’t hiked more than a couple tenths of a mile before we started occasion- ally to plunge into snow up to mid-calf (or nearer the knee in Max’s case; at 10, he’s both the youngest and shortest member of our quartet). But this wallowing didn’t even have the dubious advan- tage of being consistent, and thus predictable. The vagaries of terrain and trees and exposure to sunlight had conspired to create a sort of minefi eld eff ect. Some- times we would take a dozen steps without sinking in. Then we would hit a patch of softer snow and slog for several paces. More often, though, there was no regularity, no rhythm. One boot would stay on top while the other thrust through clear to the frozen ground, creating an unfortu- nate and awkward stance that my aging hips don’t cotton to at all. I understand the obvious question here. Why didn’t we just go back and get the snowshoes? I have no answer — not a cogent one, anyway. All I can off er by way of explanation is the same pathetic plea that people tend to give when they put them- selves in a position over which they had total control. By the time it got annoying it just seemed too onerous to turn around. Olivia, who is savvy enough to not complain in such a situation, in fact declared the hike a success. She also off ered the clever, albeit obnoxious to her parents, suggestion that since we didn’t wear snowshoes we got more exercise. I couldn’t deny this claim on purely cardiovascular grounds. But I pointed out that had we worn snowshoes we could have gone consider- ably farther, getting even better views of the spectacular winter scenery and ultimately burning a comparable number of calories. On the way back we detoured down to the reser- voir. It’s a much longer detour than usual, since the drought dropped Phillips to its lowest level since it fi rst fi lled in 1968. The ice, based on the remnants of a few ice-fi sh- ing holes, was several inches thick. I thought, as I inevita- bly do on the rare occasions when I’m standing on a frozen body of water, of the scenes in “Grumpy Old Men” of the temporary towns of ice fi sh- ing shanties that spring up each winter in the frigid Great Lakes region. Our ice-fi shing culture isn’t quite so formal, but Phillips is a fi ne spot to pursue the pastime. As we trudged back along a well-trodden path to the park- ing lot, Lisa and I agreed that it was a beautiful place to spend a couple hours of a January day. And that we would never do it again. Not without snowshoes. ——— Jayson Jacoby is the editor of the Baker City Herald, part of the EO Media Group along with East Oregonian and others. He also is an avid outdoors enthusiast. ST. ANTHONY HOSPITAL & OREGON HEALTH AUTHORITY WEDNESDAYS 11AM TO 2PM ST. ANTHONY HOSPITAL 2801 ST ANTHONY WAY - PENDLETON NO APPOINTMENT NEEDED ESTIMATED RESULT TIME 2-4 DAYS Walla Walla Union-Bulletin ATHENA — Weston-McEwen inducted its 2021 Hall of Fame members between the Tiger- Scots’ girls and boys games on Friday, Jan. 28. John Huntsman, Deborah Glover and the 1973- 74 and 1974-75 W-M girls basketball teams joined the ranks of other TigerScots sports elite. Huntsman was a coach and teacher in Athena for 40 years, both at the junior high and high school levels, where he taught Spanish, algebra, driver’s education, physical education and health, and coached football, basketball and track. He already had been inducted into the Athletic Hall of Fame at both Ricks College, which he attended after graduating from La Grande High in 1965, and then-Eastern Oregon College, which he attended after returning from a two-year mission in Argentina for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Glover attended Oregon State University after graduating high school in Hillsboro in 1967 before transferring to then Eastern Oregon College, La Grande. She participated in crew for the Beavers, and fi eld hockey, basketball and track at Eastern. Glover joined the Weston School District after graduation in 1972, and became Weston-McEwen’s fi rst girls basketball coach. She also coached volleyball and track during her tenure, and has been the Athena-Weston Middle School volleyball coach since 1982. The Weston-McEwen 1973-74 and 1974-75 girls basketball teams were the fi rst for the school. The 1973-74 team was undefeated and won district, though there was not yet a state basketball tournament for girls. Glover led the team, which included senior Kathy Jackson; juniors Tammy Sams, Jodi Salter, Georgiann Licht, Susan Hesketh and Denise Snider; sophomore Lori King; and freshmen Liz Cahill, Paula Newbold and Susan Warren. The 1974-75 team again won district, and then placed fourth at the state tournament. The team included the 10 members of the previous season’s team, along with Karla Hooker and Teresa Kaup. Pat Campbell stepped in as head coach with Glover on maternity leave. ON THE SLATE TUESDAY, FEB. 1 FRIDAY, FEB. 4 Prep girls basketball Umatilla at Vale, 3 p.m. Bickleton at Echo, 5 p.m. Pendleton at The Dalles, 5:30 p.m. Enterprise at Stanfi eld, 5:30 p.m. Hermiston at Kennewick, 5:45 p.m. Nixyaawii at McLoughlin, 6 p.m. Pilot Rock at Weston-McEwen, 6 p.m. Prep girls basketball Stanfi eld at Union, 5:30 p.m. Chiawana at Hermiston, 5:45 p.m. Echo at Sherman, 6 p.m. Heppner at Enterprise, 6 p.m. Griswold at Elgin, 6 p.m. Burns at Irrigon, 6 p.m. Nixyaawii at Wallowa, 6 p.m. Weston-McEwen at Pilot Rock, 6 p.m. Vale at Riverside, 6 p.m. Nyssa at Umatilla, 6 p.m. Hood River Valley at Pendle- ton, 7 p.m. Prep boys basketball Umatilla at Vale, 4:30 p.m. Bickleton at Echo, 6:30 p.m. Pendleton at The Dalles, 7 p.m. Hermiston at Kennewick, 7:30 p.m. Nixyaawii at McLoughlin, 7:30 p.m. Pilot Rock at Weston-McEwen, 7:30 p.m. WEDNESDAY, FEB. 2 Prep girls basketball Spray/Mitchell/Wheeler at Echo, 6 p.m. Prep boys wrestling Pendleton at The Dalles/Dufur, 6 p.m. THURSDAY, FEB. 3 Prep girls basketball Joseph at Griswold, 6 p.m. Nixyaawii vs. Crane, Baker High School, 6 p.m. Prep boys basketball Joseph at Griswold, 7:30 p.m. Nixyawii vs. Crane, Baker High School, 7:30 p.m. FREE C OVID D RIVE -T HRU T ESTING (S ELF A DMINISTERED ) OPEN TO ALL Prep boys basketball Hood River Valley at Pendleton, 5:30 p.m. Stanfi eld at Union, 7 p.m. Echo at Sherman, 7:30 p.m. Chiawana at Hermiston, 7:30 p.m. Heppner at Enterprise, 7:30 p.m. Griswold at Elgin, 7:30 p.m. Burns at Irrigon, 7:30 p.m. McLoughlin at Baker, 7:30 p.m. Nixyaawii at Wallowa, 7:30 p.m. Weston-McEwen at Pilot Rock, 7:30 p.m. Vale at Riverside, 7:30 p.m. College women’s basketball Eastern Oregon at Walla Walla, noon College men’s basketball Eastern Oregon at Walla Walla, 2 p.m. College baseball Eastern Oregon at Linfi eld, 2 p.m.