<I><BR>Contributed photo</I>Glen Johnston and his daughter, Brianna Murphy-Johnston, ski in Italy in 2003. The Matterhorn is in the background. He has had to resort to man-made snow a few times. His biggest challenge was finding places to ski while he and his family spent a year in England in 2002.

JOHN DAY – Glen Johnston, a logger who has lived in John Day since the 50s, goes skiing at least once a month all year.

“It’s not a problem during the typical winter time,” he said, “but once most of the ski areas close, I start hiking. Last Saturday, we drove up to the trailhead for Strawberry Mountain, on the south side, and hiked a quarter mile. There’s a patch of snow there, that I’ve often hit before, that’s often still there in July, so that takes care of July for this year.

“I have two buddies who live in Bend, who have been doing it, who are about to have their 20th year anniversary.

“Those two guys, and another guy who lives in Bend, and myself originally started doing this. I don’t even know why,” Johnston said.

Two of his friends, who go skiing on Labor Day weekend every year, decided that if they could ski then, they could ski all year long.

“So they started doing it, and they told me about it, and I thought it sounded like kind of a fun thing to do. We always skied together quite a bit. Generally the toughest month is October. I don’t remember which year it was, but it was one of our drought years, myself and one of the other guys had to walk into the caldera of Broken Top. We found a little patch of very dirty snow, with a lot of rocks in it, up on the side of the hill, it was very steep – it was kind of dangerous, actually – and we got a few turns in on it.”

He has had to resort to man-made snow a few times. His biggest challenge was finding places to ski while he and his family spent a year in England in 2002.

“I was really thinking that I was just going to have to give up on it, because I checked, and it was going to be impossible for us to afford for me to go to France every month and ski in the Alps,” he said.

They lived in a costal town, and one morning while he was walking by a fish market, Johnston saw a pile of ground ice that was used to pack the fish.

“So I thought I could get a bunch of this from these guys, first thing in the morning, run down to the beach, spread out the snow on the beach and make a little ski area and ski on that,” Johnston said.

Johnston’s wife, Peggy, found out that there was an indoor ski park in a town called Tamworth; so Johnston didn’t have to pack ice down to the beach. Instead, he took a four-hour train trip to Tamworth.

“It was kind of weird skiing inside, but that took care of September,” Johnston said. He was able to ski each month during the whole trip. One time he even found natural snow, on the northern-most part of Scotland.

So is this some kind of competition, or does Johnston have his eye on the Guinness Book of World Records?

“I don’t know if it’s competitive, but nobody wants to be the first one to give up. It’s actually an excuse for us to get together,” Johnston said.

Johnston has not missed a month in more than 19 years.