Cheap Thrills

As I write I am enjoying a "Cup of Noodles," a glass of water, and a can of PBR. Their prices, respectively are $.33, a fraction of a cent, and $.58. This is a perfect end to a day of cheap thrills. Rather than "shred the northwest gnar under the lifts" as one of my too large shirt wearin,' pants below the butt coworkers says, I earned my turns the cheap way. By hiking. Across the street from Mt. Bachelor is a mountain called Tumalo. It's a popular place to showshoe and snowmobile. My homie Wil and I snowshoed to the top (we decided snowmobiles were for wimps), enjoyed the awsome view, ate a cold burrito and snowboarded down. The whole way down you weave between trees and try to make a line toward the parking lot. As my first real backcountry snowboard experience, it was very surreal at first. On a lift-served mountain, you can basically just point downhill and be confident that you will end up at a lift eventually. In contrast, when snowboarding through a forest with only a few openings, your choice of path can have much greater consequences. Simply getting used to the fact that there are no runs, or the whole mountain is a run was great. The best part is that you don't have to pay for a lift ticket.

On another note, the bidding continues. Skjersaa's claims they can get me a whole new snowboard set up for free. Very enticing. There will be much mulling to do in the next couple days.