Snowboarding was my first real experience with snow & I guess it was destined to become a big part of my life.
Our son, Alex was 4 years old when we first came to Central Oregon and it was a place that appealed to something deep inside both Toni and I. It was the space…the wide-open space that attracted us to begin with, or maybe the forests of Pine trees, the clean air, the high desert, it was probably all of it. For me, first with Oahu and then for both Toni and I with Maui, rapid growth and development drove us to find someplace with more empty space. Bend seemed perfect especially after a snowboard trip during the week between Christmas and New Year’s in 1993. That was the biggest snow year in the past 20 years since we came and never left. But every year has been extra special and over time, all of us, Alex included, realized this was a place to put down roots. People used to often ask us, why we would leave Maui and we would look at them and think they probably had not been to Bend or if they had, then they hadn’t been to Maui recently. It isn’t that one was bad but more a matter of what a person was looking for in life or, simply, in a lifestyle. I guess Bend was what we found.
Mt. Bachelor frozen wave | Andy Tullis
Mt. Bachelor wind lip | Kirk Devoll
Shaping room | Bend, Oregon
Shaping room | Bend, Oregon
Deschutes River yoga paddle
Tom Servais