Not a complete loss

We did see this on our central Oregon tour. Not too shabby.

The Hoybook Alpine Start

In the mountaineering world, you have to get up super early (like in the middle of the night early) to start climbing. It's called "getting an alpine start" and it involves rolling out of your tent anywhere between 12am-ish and 4am-ish (give or take a couple of hours), shivering into your gore-tex and scarfing down a power bar for breakfast. Usually, it means you get to climb on solid snow the whole time and the trip is much safer, not to mention enjoyable. So, in theory, it would make sense that this tactic should be applied to all trips and adventures.

Well, apparently, we have decided to adopt the Hoybook Alpine Start. This does not involve rolling out of the tent between the hours of 12 and 4am. In fact, it involves rolling out of a nice warm bed around 9:15am, making waffles, surfing the web, taking a shower and then heading out the door around 11:30am. Hmmm, I detect a discrepancy.

The original adventure plan for today included a stop at the John Day Fossil Beds, Painted Hills Unit in central Oregon. Are you aware of how far it is from Portland? Well, it's so far away that you'll get about 75 miles away and then realize you are quickly running out of daylight so you'll just say "screw it" and watch the sun set over the Cascades before you finish the day with Mexican food in Madras. Then you'll say "screw it" again and just drive home.

The H.A.S. gets us every time.

De-bunking theories

So far this year, the Huskers had only lost two games-- Virginia Tech and Texas Tech. Coincidentally, the only two games I've been able to watch. So, naturally, I thought it was me.

Well, Saturday didn't go so well and I had to work so I didn't see the game. Nebraska 7. Iowa State 9. Ouch. But, on the bright side, it's not me right?

Oregoniversary

Last Wednesday was the six year anniversary of the day I first set foot in Portland. Kristina and I celebrated with Thai cuisine at Pok Pok, which got me thinking....

Before I moved here, I had never eaten Thai food before. As a matter of fact, there are a lot of things I didn't do before I moved here. Like climb mountains and kayak rivers and grow my own garden and ride my bike to work and drink chai tea and ski black diamonds and eat brussels sprouts and actually like them. When I look back at the past six years, it is easy to reflect on the big, wonderful things that have happened to me. Like all of my new Oregon friends and my great job and of-course, Bryan. But, it's the little things that matter and make a place a home and I now feel like that's what Oregon is. Home.

Happy 6 years Kristina! This whole moving to Oregon thing? Totally your idea.

Let loose on the Palouse

Palouse. n. pl. Palouse or Pa·louses

1. A Sahaptin-speaking Native American people formerly inhabiting an area of southeast Washington and northwest Idaho, with present-day descendants in northeast Washington.

2. A major wheat producing agricultural region of the Northwestern United States.

Top 10 Best Things about our weekend on the Palouse

1. The temperature reading on the thermometer on Saturday morning: 12 degrees!

2. The Moscow Farmer's market. Bin after bin of apples and potatoes and boxes of every variety of pepper you can think of.

3. The smell of our peppers roasting for free at the market.

4. Hearing Grandpa say, "Now tell me, what is this tweeter thing?"

5. Hiking Kamiak Butte with our personal P-town tour guide, Claire-- felt like we could see the entire palouse.

6. Video-chatting with Craig and Bridget.

7. Dinner on Saturday night-- good food, even better company.

8. Playing Cantelope the way it deserves to be played: uber fast and competitive.

9. The beautiful curve of the golden wheat fields. Strange but interesting lack of trees.

10. Listening to my grandparents tell story after story and soaking it all in, trying to remember every detail.

A small dose of crack

Every once in awhile, the vendors that supply REI with goods like to kiss up. They want to show off the new stuff they have coming out so we are more inclined to sell said stuff to our customers. Usually, they like to schedule a time to come in, bring the staff donuts and coffee and sit down to discuss their new wares. Sometimes though, they set up demo days and let the staff come out and actually use the products. One such day was just this past week and Marmot was our host.

I wasn't planning on going, but realized I had Friday off so I said "what the heck" and talked B into it. "You could take photos of something..." really was all it took and he was game. So, after rolling out of bed just a bit late, we headed east, bound for Trout Creek, a climbing area in central Oregon.

With directions that included the phrases "if you've hit the railroad tracks, you've missed the turn" and "go under the trestle, then through the tunnel" and "the road dead ends at the river", Trout Creek is a haul and a half to get to. We rolled in right around noon and started looking for the climbing. And really, all we saw was the Deschutes river. Hmmmm. Lucky for us, two fellow REI employees came walking into the campground.

"Hey," I said, "how do we get to the climbing area?"

"Oh," they replied, "it's up there. It will probably take you about an hour to hike in. Have fun!"

"Up there" meant the columnar basalt at the top of this hill:

Yikes.

After a mile down a gravel access road, we stumbled upon the trail up to the climbing. Yes, that's right, I said up. Trails made by climbers tend to be very... direct. One thing I have learned about climbers is that they don't like to waste time, they just get there. However, the real treat was at the top, where we climbed over, around and through a boulder field to get to the wall.

That's when I realized that all the climbing to be had here was crack climbing. Ugh. I really don't like crack climbing. You have to cram your hands, elbows, shoulders, knees, feet into anything that will hold you and sort of boost yourself up the wall. It hurts and it's super tiring. And, after the boulder field, I was done. So, no climbing for me.

But, the view was spectacular and B had a great time shooting landscapes and some of the climbers. That's Tommy Caldwell up on the wall. He's pretty much the Kobe Bryant of rock climbing. He's good, real good.

When it comes down to it, technically, we drove four hours round trip to hike to the top of a rock outcropping and sit around for two hours. Aren't demo days the best?