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At least once every winter, snow lovers must spend a weekend in the mountains to soak in (literally) a good dose of white cold stuff before it melts away.
The Evergreen Wanderers Volkssport Club (home-based in Tacoma) provided the opportunity to do just that with a volkssport weekend in South Cle Elum. They sponsored two events -- a cross-country ski and a snowshoe -- on the John Wayne Trail in the Iron Horse State Park.
The John Wayne Trail is a rails-to-trails conversion that runs over a hundred miles along the I-90 corridor. For the South Cle Elum events, the cross-country ski trail went out-and-back three miles from the Iron Horse B&B and the snowshoe went out-and-back three miles in the opposite direction, providing a nice sampling of this flat, easy hiking trail.
Weather is always an iffy concern when it comes to planning a weekend of snow sports. Setting out Saturday morning, we were concerned about reports of a winter storm that was due that weekend. Thoughts of becoming snowbound in Cle Elum were not encouraging. We went anyway.
As it turned out there was barely enough snow in Cle Elum for Saturday's events. We chose to ski that first day, and the trail had just enough snow to make that possible. The John Wayne Trail was perfect for novices like us. After some initial struggles we hit our pace and had a lot of fun. The ski portion of the trail went through some lovely scenery, with a river flowing next to us at the end. The turn-around point was a trestle bridge over the river -- a magical spot where we experienced the first (and only) actual snowflakes of the day.
Saturday evening we enjoyed a relaxed dinner with several club members who had also taken on the mountain adventure. Steve and Connie, Edla and her grandson, Aaron, and daughter, Marianne, joined us for dinner at the wonderful Mama Vollone's.
On Sunday we awoke to several inches of fresh new snow. We hit the snowshoe trail early -- a good idea, as it turned out, since it began to rain heavily, turning the wonderful new snow slushy by the time we finished.
On the way back over the pass -- which was bare and wet despite all the dire warnings -- we felt each and every new muscle we'd challenged over the course of the weekend. What a fun change from the usual volkssport event! It left us wanting more, more, more winter volkssports!
-- Jane & Bob Holmes
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