I spent this past weekend down in Central Oregon. On the first morning of my trip I always go for a run along the Deschutes River Trail. The Benham Falls trailhead was inaccessible, except for vehicles with high clearance. I had to begin my run from the railroad tracks about one quarter of a mile before the trailhead. The run was on packed snow for the whole route. I ran this trail on the first weekend of April last year and didn't encounter any snow. What a difference a year makes.

After my run I quickly changed gear and headed off for a quick snowshoe up Tumalo Mt.. What an absolutely beautiful day in Central Oregon.

Here are some photos from the weekend.

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Trailrunner

What a great area to play.  That must be the Bachelor resort lift in the last pic?  That's funny you can get to 5000 feet without much snow, in contrast to coverage on the Cascades.   Tumalo seems like it would be a great snowshoe.  Do you start at a sno-park?  A couple shots it looks like you had tracks to follow most of the way.

Tumalo is a great snowshoe.  I start from the Dutchman Flat sno-park.  The trek is really a no brainer; head straight up, then turn around and head straight back down.  I would guess this is one of the more populated trails off the Cascade Lakes Hwy so there are usually tracks and people to follow.  If you did happen to come down off track you would end up on the Hwy and could easily follow the road back to the sno-park.

I was surprised at how few people were out this weekend.  I thought with it being spring break and a holiday weekend that there would be mobs of folks out, no such mobs were found:) 

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Trailrunner