FOUR-PAGE SPORTS PULLOUT INSIDE
• B SECTION • FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2021
THE REGION’S HUB FOR
OUTDOOR ADVENTURES
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and more — as well as features from outdoor
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SNOWSHOEING
Jefferson
viewing
shelter is
worth the
climb, wind
BY BRIAN RATHBONE
The Bulletin
Distance runner John Stoltz, of Bend, uses screws in his shoes to provide traction on ice and snow.
Dean Guernsey/Bulletin photos
Don’t let the
snow stop you
BY MARK MORICAL • The Bulletin
R
unning is a year-round
sport in Central
Oregon.
Sure, some runners
prefer a treadmill or an elliptical
to dealing with challenging out-
door conditions, but winter can
be an exhilarating time to be out
logging miles on roads or trails
across the High Desert.
“There’s a lot of people who
just will not run in the winter, or
they run on the treadmill,” said
Max King, a professional run-
ner and longtime Bend resident.
“I think it’s beautiful. I think it’s
nice running in the winter. The
best is that inch or two
cumb to the indoor
of fresh snow with no
monotony of a tread-
tracks in it if you get
mill have plenty of
out early. The snow just
options for traction.
packs and sticks.”
Within the Central
The problems for
Oregon running com-
TRAILS
runners arise when
munity, “screwing your
that snow gets packed down
shoes” seems to be the most
or freezes and thaws and turns
popular.
into ice. The current snow-
The process includes drill-
storm blanketing Central Ore-
ing eight to 10 screws into the
gon means runners might need
sole of an older but still usable
traction devices over the next
pair of running shoes. It works
few days or weeks, as they did
with regular, quarter-inch sheet
when snow covered the region
metal screws or with carbide
last month.
steel screws.
See Snow / B9
Runners who refuse to suc-
See some traction
options inside
Mother Nature is a regular
negotiator. Take last Saturday,
for example, when she agreed
to allow cloudless, blue skies
and season-
ably warm
temperatures
on the con-
dition that
those seek-
MOUNTAINS
ing outdoor
adventures
agree to deal with heavy gusts
of wind.
My dog, Rodger, my mother,
Janet, and I took the deal. We
made the trip from Bend,
through Sisters and to the Up-
per Three Creek Sno-park. A
first-time visit for all three of us.
Snowmobiling, snowshoeing
and cross-country skiing are
all available at the park located
11 miles south on Forest Road
16 (Elm Street) in Sisters. From
Upper Three Creek, snow-
mobiles are able to connect to
most of the major snowmobile
trails, and there are 14 miles of
groomed nordic skiing trails
with multiple loops available.
After the Pole Creek Fire
burned about 40 square miles
in the Deschutes National For-
est in 2012, the forest filled
with trees burned down and
created ungroomed trails in
addition to the 14 miles of
groomed trails to explore.
“After the fires, there are a
bunch of unmarked trails,” said
John Fertig of the Central Or-
egon Nordic Club, who used
to work for the Deschutes Na-
tional Forest before his retire-
ment. “Skiing (at Upper Three
Creek) is a lot of fun ; you don’t
need to stick with the trails.”
But Saturday, it was the snow-
shoeing trails we were after.
Specifically, the one that leads
to the Jefferson Viewing Shel-
ter. According to alltrails.com,
the trail is a moderate 4.9-mile
trek, which was all uphill to the
shelter and all downhill back to
the parking lot. The trail’s web-
site was littered with glowing
reviews highlighting the ease of
the trail and scenery along the
way to the shelter.
One thing we knew was that
we would not encounter any
skiers on the snowshoeing trail.
“Central Oregon is one of
the few places that has desig-
nated snowshoe trails . I think
they started doing that in the
early 2000s,” Fertig said. “That
has been one of the most pos-
itive things — is having sepa-
rated trails.”
Indeed, we did not encoun-
ter skiers on the snowshoe
trails, however, we did run into
a small group of people de-
scending the hill that we were
just starting to climb. They
painted a grim picture of what
we were getting ourselves into.
See Jefferson / B10
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