May 30, 2010. Mt. Bachelor, Oregon

Every year Memorial Day rolls around and I spend hours on the weather channel trying to figure out where it might actually be sunny in the Northwest, and every year it seems like Bend is the only option. So the wife and I threw the skis in the car and off we went with Mt. Bachelor as our destination (the ODOT website still listed the Cascade Lakes Highway as closed, otherwise we might've tried the South Sister which has been on my list for years). The mountain is still packed with snow. If it were a little colder, there's no reason the mountain couldn't still be open for operation. As we started up, the clouds started to break and it looked like we'd have a clear skin to the summit. The snow was a bit sticky, but nothing too bad. Unfortunately, after we gained about 1000 feet, some nasty clouds started to roll in and the skies opened up. Not wanting to become lightening rods, we hurried down back to the car and retreated back to Deschutes for some brews. Monday's weather looked pretty poor when we woke up so we threw in the towel and drove back to Seattle. Anyone else sick of the rain? I can't escape it wherever I go.

Brian