Tubing! — Darkroom and Dearly

My very favorite weather is cold and sunny. There's something magical about a crisp breeze, a sapphire sky, and the sun glittering off freshly fallen snow. I love a good snow day, and I am obsessed with mountains (in case you hadn't noticed) so playing on Mt Hood in the winter is a wonderful treat for me, especially when the weather is fair.

Tanner, tragically, is not a big fan of skiing (or snow sports in general) but I finally discovered one pastime that got him motivated to go to the mountain with me: tubing!

I don't honestly think I've been tubing/sledding since I was quite young. My sister and I used to sled all the time as kids, but on the east coast, snow is rare and I didn't get much of a chance to enjoy it in my college years.

So, last weekend Tanner and I hauled ourselves up to the mountain, jumped into inflatable tubes down a slick, icy hill, and you know what we discovered? Tubing is freaking scary.

I mean it. As a kid, the thrill of the ride completely overshadows the fact that you might hit something and die at any moment. As an adult, suddenly you have 100 more pounds pulling you down the hill, and a tame joy ride turns into the Cool Runnings Olympic luge of DEATH.

I'm not saying I didn't enjoy it. Because, damn, it was fun. But I'd be lying if I said there weren't moments where I feared for my life.

After tubing the kiddie hill for a while, Tanner discovered that there was a hidden "epic upper hill" where few ventured... it was a 45 degree slope with moguls and chunks of iceburgs in the chute (just for fun.) The tubing attendant told us, "two rules: you have to lie down on your stomach, and don't put your feet down before you get to the end." Screw that. If I'm going face-first down a vertical drop, my feet are most certainly going to be acting as brakes the whole way down the ice.

I made it through two runs of that before retiring back to the kiddie hill. (Sorry, you thrill-seekers. I'm not a roller-coaster fan, either.)

At the end of the day Tanner and I finally discovered the joy of two-person tubes. By this time I was enjoying the speed of my one-person tube, and was even trying to race unsuspecting six year olds down the mountain. (I was totally winning.) A two-person tube adds extra weight to the ride, which equals more speed down the hill, and many small children left in the proverbial dust.

At any rate, for $25 at Ski Bowl, it was an afternoon well spent.