Mt. Hood Hoo Ha bike ride - 18 August 2007

Mt. Hood Hoo Ha from Ripplebrook Ranger Station.
69 mi., ~5000 ft elevation
TZ=3:00

Wallowa Backpacking trip - Aug 3-7, 2007

Mtn Bike Oregon - July 27 - 30, 2007

Mountain Bike Oregon in Oakridge, OR.

Les and I camped out with Paul and Jared Gryko.

Friday - We rode 28 miles on the Middle Fork of the Williamette trail starting at Timpangos Lake.

Saturday - Rode 22 miles, 15 miles on the Alpine trail. Fantastic downhill made all the sweeter on the Specialized FSR Epic that I was demo'ing

Sunday - Rode Lairson Rock trail. Short but a lot of fun.

Methow Valley Ski Trip March 9-12, 2007

It was a rather rainy weekend but the Methow is a beautiful area and we had a good time.
We stopped at Leavenworth WA on the way home and enjoyed some a good German lunch and beer. Its not quite Bavaria but pretty close.

Ghost Ridge Snow camping - Jan 20-21, 2007

Bruce Allan, Travis Johnson and I skiied into Ghost Ridge which is just west of the Pacific Crest Trail from the Barlow Pass Sno-Park. We skied in on Saturday morning and found a good spot to build snow caves about 12:30 pm. Bruce and I commenced digging while Travis set up his tent and relaxed. The weather was grey with a few glimpses of Sun. Temps were about 32 degrees.

Bruce and I dug till about 3:30 when we decided that we should go to plan B ...sleep in tents. The primary lesson learned is that building a snow cave goes much faster with two people. You need a mole to do the inside work and someone to keep moving material out of the way. There is also the safety factor. It gets pretty claustrophobic when your digging through all of that snow and things get tight. We also were deeper than we needed to be. When we measured our roofs were 4 feet thick. Two or three feet would have been enough.

So lessons were learned. Bruce and I set up our tents and we started cooking in the nice cooking area that Travis had made for us. Saturday morning dawned clear and bright and about 32 degrees. No wind and Mt Hood was magnificent from that vantage point. After an easy ski out were headed up early.

Skagit River Bald Eagle Trip Jan 12-14, 2007

After visiting my sister in Olympia WA, Leslie and I drove to the Skagit River area which is about 100 miles north of Seattle. The temperature was very cold in the mid teens. But the skies were clear and we saw quite a few eagles. We spent the night at the Skagit River Resort. Its rustic and our cabin was very nice. The restaurant was kind of medicore. I'm not sure how they screwed up blueberry pie but it was pretty bad.

The eagles were magnificant and the Eagle Watch volunteers were great. They are very helpful and have lots of information. There were 3-4 eagle watching stations and each had a spotting scope that was always pointed at an eagle. We also toured the fish hatchery where they breed several kinds of salmon plus steelhead trout.