Tumalo Falls snow hike

We ventured out today for another adventure, a 6-mile snowy hike up to Tumalo Falls. I was so proud of the kids for making it without complaint (well, almost.... the first mile is always hardest), and for the fun we had en route. We parked at Skyliner Sno-park and took the creekside trail up to the falls, picnicked there, and then walked down the (closed) road to the parking lot.

The creek trail was lovely - a hardpacked narrow trail through the woods, with many opportunities to detour into the trees and to sled down small hills and along the trail. We had so much fun sinking into the waist-deep snow, making and throwing snowballs, and eating snow. Poor Jasper is not a fan of sledding and frantically barks at us, physically tries to block the sled with his body, and even tries to grab onto the sled or children's arms with his teeth to slow them down. We have to resort to tying him to trees on steeper slopes - he tolerates slow runs.

 The kids ate a lot of snow... Seb said it was the only thing that kept him going. :)

The views across the creek to the cliffs on the other side became increasingly striking as we made our way up and deeper into the forest.

 Jump!

Liesl loved this view and asked me to take a photo of her in front of it. The creek is right on the other side of a steep dropoff here, and we could hear it gurgling as we walked.

And then, less than half a mile from our destination (3 miles into the hike), we ran into a bridge problem. Snow had fallen onto a narrow wooden bridge, creating an even narrower snow bridge 6 feet in the air across a rushing tributary of Tumalo Creek. It was a little slippery, but not terrible, and we humans made it across just fine. Jasper would not come -- he got his front paws on, but then when he felt the width with his back paws, he backed up and sat down. He barked, he whined, he could not be tempted with treats (not even cheese!). We tried and tried and he got increasingly upset. We tried to find a way across downstream, but the snow was too high to get down to the water and back out the other side. Sebastian then suggested going across a snow bridge upstream -- snow had fallen on some logs and was suspended in midair. We had no idea how strong it was, nor how many trees/logs of what thickness were under the 4 feet of snow crossing the creek. But Liesl and I were really upset at the idea that we wouldn't make it to see the waterfall, so Seb got me a big stick, I poked at the snow bridge, and then shimmied my way across on my behind, Jasper following behind. I made it, he made it, all was well, and phew!

 Tumalo Falls!!! Yay!!!

 The view of the falls from below and then from above, and then looking down the river valley at our path.

We ate some lunch on the hillside and did some sledding on a nice open hill at the top, happy that we'd brought the sled the whole way. And then we looped down along the road, which is closed to traffic in winter. It was wide open and sunny, and there were lots of people -- very different than the trail -- Liesl rode the sled a good part of the way down, with Sebastian acting as her motor for much of that time.

We were back home by midafternoon, tuckered out from the exertion and adventure. We cuddled up on the couch to watch the movie Christopher Robin, played some games, read some books, and got take-out for dinner. Even Jasper was tired and happy to curl up and sleep.