Hwy 372* closed

My water-loving brother-in-law says that one winter day many many years ago ODOT closed the road to Mt. Bachelor. I can't remember why. They closed the road after about 500 people had arrived in the parking lot. It was like the 500 had their own private mountain. The weather was fine, the snow was new. Fresh tracks for everyone!

*

This morning -- for only the second time in the family's memory -- ODOT again closed the road to Mt. Bachelor. My husband didn't believe it. He saw the note on both ODOT and Mt. Bachelor's web sites, but it hadn't been updated for two hours. We could see clouds to the west but at our house the sky was clear, the wind silent. So we did as we had planned, rushing through breakfast and gearing up and then dropping Sasha at her grandmother's house at exactly 7:50 and then heading up for Blake's first ski lesson...

...and were stymied by a huge digital sign just past the final Century Drive traffic circle: HWY CLOSED 5 MI AHEAD.

Hrm. Amazing. It's still closed.

Artist Sister-in-law lives in one of those new subdivisions along Century Dr., so we stopped by. It's really closed! Isn't it amazing? Why is it closed? What does the web site say?

Artist Sister's husband cooked breakfast while we exclaimed and watched the ODOT channel and hit "refresh" on Mt. Bachelor's web site. Artist Sister fielded calls on her phone, my husband on his cell phone. Is it still closed? You're in line at the roadblock? The line is how long? Well come by! So Artist Sister's husband made more coffee as various colleagues U-turned out of line and stopped by to give us updates, rumors. They said the wind blew so hard last night that the groomers had trouble grooming. They said the wind blew so hard it covered the roads as fast as the snowplows could plow. They said the sky was white, that in places along the road visibility was close to nothing.

Finally at 9:30 the web site said GET READY and some of our visitors dashed to their cars. We waited for them to report back. At 9:45 the web site said LIFTS ON STANDBY -- the three most insignificant lifts on the mountain. Just past 10am our friends reported that another lift seemed to have opened, but that the parking lot was not at all well-cleared, and we sat for awhile speculating on what a godawful mess it must be up there. Should we brave it? I don't know, I don't know...

*

No, no, we didn't take Blake up there. His class was cancelled. We went ice skating instead. And no, the ice skating did not stop him from whining about how much he would rather be skiing!

* Surprisingly fascinating article about Hwy 372 on Wikipedia.