We weren’t prepared for this. Not really.

This was one of those early adventures the kind you launch into with more enthusiasm than sense. Oregon in winter is a strange beast. It looks soft and welcoming from the warmth of your car, but step out and the snow will eat you alive if you hesitate.

Big Springs Sno-Park greeted us like a cathedral carved out of ice. Snow weighed heavy on the trees, bending them into ghostly shapes, hulking figures frozen mid-dance. A forest full of sleeping monsters. And we? Two idiots strapped into snowshoes, stomping into the quiet with cameras and caffeine pumping through our systems.

At first, we tried to talk, small jokes, nervous commentary, the usual “look at us out here in the wild” banter. But the deeper we went, the quieter it got. The snow absorbed everything. Our voices. Our footsteps. Even our thoughts started to dull under the cold weight of all that white.

It didn’t feel like walking anymore. It felt like floating.

Click. Click. Click. I took shots as we trudged, hoping to catch the strange angles of trees draped in snow, the sharp contrasts of shadow and light. But my focus kept slipping. The camera didn’t matter as much out here. Out here, the forest was alive in a way that didn’t need documentation.

There’s something about snowshoeing through a place like this that makes you feel small in the right way, not crushed, but humbled. No politics. No deadlines. No noise except the soft crunch of snow underfoot and the low hum of your own breath.

And then… the blue hour.

That creeping light as the sun fades and the sky turns electric, casting everything in a surreal glow. The road home stretched ahead like a tunnel through another world. I snapped one last shot through the windshield, knowing the photo could never hold the feeling.

For a moment, the madness stopped.

We were just two specks in the white silence, and it felt good.