Group Members: Rod Jacobson, Mike Casey & Richard Sale on snowshoes & Jim Wells on AT skis.
The weather the day before & the day after our climb was cold & snowing - on Sunday (the 23rd), it was raining (just above freezing) & windy.
Everyone met at Rod's at 11am, loaded our gear into the back of Jim's truck (thanks Jim), and departed Bend around 11:15am. We reached the Sunrise parking lot around 11:45am. Our packs were already soaked before we got started, due to constant rain on the way up. Our climb started at Noon at ~6450'. We followed the ~groomed trails up Sunrise East to the bottom of Summit Lift. By this time (1 hr., 7400'), not only were our packs wet, but so were we.
At this point we were out of the trees, hence unprotected from the wind. The higher we went, the colder & windier it got. After another hour of chugging along, we reached the top of Summit lift (9000'). Winds were a constant 50mph, with gusts to 70mph. This wouldn't have been a problem if we weren't completely soaked to the bone by now. Everything in my pack, including my spare gloves & cell phone were soaked (I wanted a new cell phone anyway). Neither Mike's (Verison) or Richard's (Sprint) cell phones were able to dial out. One of my main gloves was so wet that I had to take it off & wring it out. Everyone was extremely cold & numb (did I mention this fact yet?) & had hard times getting our hands back into our gloves after taking them off. We headed back down after a short break, dropping 1700' in 25 minutes.
Now, back down in the temperate zone, we were able to slow down & enjoy the rest of the trip. The whole way down I only saw 5 skiers & 2 were Mt. Bachelor employees (check out the pic of the parking lot & the empty chairs on the lift)! This is a testament to how miserable the weather was. Keep in mind that this was the Sunday before Christmas. We were back to the parking lot 55 minutes after starting our decent. However, this was not the end of my adventure.
After asking a Bend snowboarder to shoot a group shot of us, his 2-wheel drive SUV got stuck in the 1.5' of slush in the parking lot. I felt obliged to help out, cutting my finger on their vehicle, in the process. They barely made it out. Jim had a 4-wheel drive & we just made it out.
In summary, I learned to pack things that I don't want to get wet in Zip-Lock bags & to weather-proof my boots & clothing at least once/year. Ironically, we would have been warmer if it would have been colder.
I was never so happy to get home to a hot shower. The quote in the CM November Newsletter was on my mind this whole trip - good find Dave.
Trip stats: 2 hrs. to the top, 3 hr. 20 min. total, ~2800 vert. feet, 3.85 miles round trip.