Yellow Jacket Sno-Park.......................

December 29th, 2012 came along with some beautiful weather in the Mazama area....broken blue skys and a nice 21 degrees.....with my little brother and his wife up visiting through the holiday season we ventured out to play in the snow.....We originally headed up to snowshoe the Cedar Creek trail....but Hwy 20 wasn't plowed past the first sign at the bottom.....and when we came across the Early Winters bridge we could see trucks and cars parked on both sides of the road....somewhere between 25-40 rigs.....lots of snowmobile trailers.....we decided that we needed to locate another snowshoeing spot with a little less traffic since my brother wanted to do a little snowboarding if possible......so we headed to Yellow Jacket Sno-Park....Large parking area with just a few vehicles parked....we strapped on our gear and headed up the trail....nice easy hike up a groomed snowmobile track....lots of places to step off the trail and explore...we pretty much stuck to the trail on the way up...my brother tried a few side hills for snowboarding....made a few runs.....beautiful views....the ponderous pines are lovely....bright orange-red trunks in the snow.....as we ventured farther up the trail the skies continued to open up and show more blue.....really enjoyed the trail and the folks on snowmobiles were extremely polite as they made their way by us each time.....at one point we found a track down through the trees...pretty clear and seemed an excellent place to snowboard down...we headed down and found a few natural jump areas for my brother to wipe out on his board...pretty amusing to watch......at one point we were standing in snow that was pretty close to 3 feet deep of soft powdery snow....lovely....made for a soft landing.....Ended up being a fabulous day out in the snow...perfect weather for snowshoeing....not to warm and not to cold.....the views and the trees are simply beautiful.....I am sure we will venture out on this trail again before the winter season is over....lots more area to explore....as we headed back thru Mazama the little town was hopping with folks....lots of cross country skiing going on there.....the trails were busy....by this time it appeared like the snowplow had made a token run up the highway to get most of the fresh snow off the road.....this time of year....Mazama is truly the end of the road....but what a wonderful place to be on a winter day.

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