One of the primary reasons for spending time in Bend and a reason that we live there are the amazing outdoor sports all year round that are on offer.
A little Tonya Harding
Given the weather and time outside was short the first couple of days we decided to hit the ice rink for some fun.
Given that my lung capacity didn't amount to much I was not exactly Apollo Ono out there, let's say that! I did manage to keep up with Hayley which was no easy task in itself. The kids had been doing some ice skating at the Swiss International school in Basel so had become quite accustomed to balancing in boots mounted on razor sharp blades of steel and then going on to a surface not known for its stability.
My goal was to return after an hour of lapping and weaving between other yahoos on the ice without any new bruises or a concussion. I achieved both, success! The kids obviously did and also managed to avoid colliding with myself too.
Lindsey Vonn and Bodie Millar in the making
During this years Christmas break we visited Mount Bachelor a number of times.
The first occasion was with visiting friends from Menlo Park the Gafkes - Ryan's best buddy Gavin was passing through.
Almost everyone was up for tubing at Mount Bachelor resort with Ryan and Gavin forming a pair hitting the runs at the same time. Jill and Jeff also had joined for this outing and were having a blast. Hayley didn't want to stop even at the end of the 2 hour session.
Here are some distance shots taken by the coughing and wheezing invalid at the side of the slope!
Here are some ski photos from are revisit to Mount Bachelor a couple of days later. The weather was superb for skiing.
Snowshoe Thompson
Here are some of trekking in snow shoes on the trails around Mount Bachelor. These skirt around some sledding locations at the snow parks. We discovered an ice snow man with an interesting hat and an ice heart. The heart is hard to see in one photo but look closely and you will find it. Thanks to Jill for capturing a close up which shows it very clearly.
Running Wild
There are bike and footpaths that run right alongside are playhouse and often we take off running straight from the patio and go by the Deschutes river. Needless to say, hard core crazies that we are, even in the icy depths of winter will still head out run 6 miles or so. Why wouldn't you? To help navigate the icy conditions you need to use yak trax which are a form of chains for running shoes or screws. We have used both and now have settled on the screw option.
Here are a couple of close-ups of my shoes with the additional screws.
The best thing is that the shoe is unharmed in the process and once the weather warms up the screws are easily removed and away you go once more.