Snow Trekking

Oregon Wild leads free outings in January and February, mostly for beginner-lever snowshoers

A group snowshoes at Twin Lakes, which will be the first destination for Oregon Wild on Jan. 9.

Take a walk on the wild, and white, side this winter.

Beginning with a Jan. 9 hike to Twin Lakes, the conservation group Oregon Wild will be holding a series of eight, mostly beginner-level, guided, interpretive snowshoe outings.

"We are very kind to first-timers," said Sean Stevens, a communications associate with the Portland-based nonprofit. "The cool thing about snowshoeing is that you can go on a hike that really is for mixed abilities. And we try to make most of our hikes friendly for the first-timer.

"I think we're leading maybe one that's more challenging this year. But most of them are for beginners."

The shortest hike, a Jan. 23 outing to Diamond Creek Falls, is 2.5 miles.

The longest are four to five miles. And the typical elevation gain/loss for most is 500 feet.

All trips except the Jan. 30 Tamanawas Falls outing are free. That one is $9 or $6 for Oregon Wild members.

"Most people who do a fair amount of hiking usually have no problem putting on snowshoes and trying it out," Stevens said. "But it's definitely, you know ... slogging through the snow can be a little bit tiring.

"So you want to make sure you're in reasonably good health and good fitness to do it, especially since the conditions can be more harsh than in the summer."

Sites are selected for their beauty and to help spread Oregon Wild's conservation message, Stevens said.

"Our hikes are a little different because we are a conservation group," he said. "So we like to take people out and tell them about the places, about the ecology, about what's interesting about them and what they can do to help protect them.

"There is a little bit of advocacy mixed in. And we like to think that's what makes our hikes a little bit unique."

Leaders like to keep the group size to a maximum of 15, and 12 is the maximum for hikes in designated wilderness areas.

Carpools depart from Portland, Eugene and, for one Central Oregon outing, Bend.

"And if there are a handful of people coming from the Salem area, we would help facilitate them meeting up together and heading up to the location together," Stevens said. "It's usually trying to figure out who's in the group and what's going to work best."