Wine Tasting in Willamette Valley/Snowshoeing at Mt. Hood

President's Day weekend, February 2006

I wanted to go on a road trip. Be a ski bum for a weekend or something, but just go SOMEWHERE for the three-day weekend. I asked Randy if he wanted to go. He said OK, let's do wine country. I said, OK, then let's snowshoe. So we did.

We headed to the Dundee area of Willamette Valley Saturday and hit six wineries - Ponzi, Argyle, Archery Summit, Domaine Droughin, Domaine Serene and Bergstrom. Below is Domaine Droughin. You can barely make out Mt. Hood in the distance.

After a day of tasting about 15-20 wines, we visited Calamity Jane for ridiculous food, like bloomin' onions and fat burgers covered in bacon and avocado. We ate at the one on the left but wish we had eaten at the one on the right, which we came across a couple hours later on our way to Mt. Hood.

And how could you NOT stay at a place like the Mountain Air Motel? You can never go wrong with the rustic feel - with chili pepper curtains, TV on the kitchen table, a well-loved LaZBoy couch and a giant poster of a lovely summer mountain scene.

Sunday, we headed to Trillium Lake Trail, south of Mt. Hood, with excellent views of the mountain and lots of recreation. There obviously hadn't been fresh snow recently because everything was a bit iced over, so it made for some interesting traversing, but we bounced off the trail a few times and got in some glissading and onto semi-fresh powder. The trail was about four miles long, so the map said, but it didn't feel that way. He just got his brand new snowshoes and this was his first time trying them out.

Cool trees with moss and greenery.

The view of Mt. Hood from Trillium Lake (covered in snow - the lake that is).

We look like we know what we're doing with our gear and cameras but we really don't.

Timberline Lodge - One of the big places to go skiing, as well as where mountaineering-types typically start their ascent of Mt. Hood, which is about a 5,000 foot climb from the lodge. After doing the Trillium Lake Trail, it was 3:30 and decided we still had some daylight for another few hours and wanted to get in some more snow time, so we headed here to traipse around a bit. It turned into an aerobic workout, in which we climbed up about 1/3 of the way from the lodge to the summit before we decided we were tired and headed back to the car.

The drive up to Timberline.

The view of southern Oregon from the lower parking lot. We're located just below 6,000 feet.

The view of Mt. Hood from the parking lot, facing north, in the afternoon.

nifty outcrop.

We kicked ourselves for not bringing our cameras on our hike, as the view of the entire southern Oregon Cascade range was sprawled out before us but the view of the mountain in the evening sun (when we got back to the parking lot) was almost just as good.