Happy 25th anniversary

Gone but not forgotten.

What we built

Lakeside step building:before

Volunteer work done for the day

My afternoon tea ritual in an exquisite place. The fact that I've helped to build a set of rock steps to mitigate lakeside erosion, as well as helped to dig out a new and badly needed toilet to stop hikers littering the forest with toilet paper (and worse), well, I'm walking the walk as well as talking the talk about my love of hiking. Good company with fellow hiking enthusiasts on the Back Country Response Team simply makes it enjoyable.

Trail work with WTA

Back country latrine building: something I've never done before.

Thursday Evening from Summit Lake

Somewhere

Heading home through John Day

I drove home via an at-times sketchy dirt road from the Painted Hills unit of John Day Fossil Beds, to Ashwood. The scenery was pretty good, but everything is bone dry and ranches few and far between. That's what happens when you turn too short of your destination and you're trying to avoid all the post-eclipse traffic coming at you. Thank goodness I've just spent 6 weeks driving the often rough roads in Alaska. I was able to keep focused and drive all the wash boards, even when it wasn't fun anymore, and the ruts and stream crossings got a bit scary.
The things you do for fun...



Sent from my iPhone

Exiting the totality

A strange, other worldly twilight.

10:22am

The temperature dropped enough to put on a sweater, Venus came out, there was a 360 degree sunset, and all the eclipse chasers parked up and down Hwy 26 to Mitchell were hootin' and hollering. For a brief moment before the sliver of the "new sun" emerged, you could see coronas.
Wow!

10:20am Monday August 21

Totality!

Day 2,Dispersed camping Ochoco National Forest

So, exactly where are all the naked drug addled itinerant out of state eclipse chasers so feared by the locals? On the way here, I drove by the turn for Big Summit Prairie, 18 miles down a side road, and location for Eclipse-stock. At 2pm on Sunday, there was nary a car, psychedelic or otherwise, in sight. I guess the traffic jam in Prineville reported on the news last Wednesday was "it."
The only music I hear is the wind in the Douglas firs.

A gift from the USFS in Sisters

Wild camping on Saturday night

Solitude, tall trees and minimal smoke from forest fires burning in the Three Sisters Wilderness 1.7 miles off Hwy 20. Quite the find as my goal is the eclipse zone of totality somewhere around Madras, OR for tomorrow's hyped event.

Where are our greatest generation members who can put this nonsense to rest?

My old dad, WW2 vet, would have had a few choice words for a president who seems to neither know nor care about history.

Journey's end

A blisteringly hot day in Eugene to wrap up a week's riding.

Near Low Pass

A piece of Oregon rural history well worth saving. I remember whizzing past this structure 2 years ago on the last day of my Pacific Coast ride. Winter hasn't been kind to it.

Nelson Mountain covered bridge

Off Hwy 36.

Borrowed view in Mapleton

Artist statement for quilt

One of the pleasures of stopping in one of Oregon's independent coffee shops.

Artwork in Caffeination cafe, Mapleton

Sea glass stained glass

Lovely window in the Homegrown Pub, Florence, OR

In Florence

Yachats covered bridge

A few miles off the Yachats River Road.

How the tourist bureau sells it

Yes, the Pacific Coast scenic byway is dreamy, and the best way to see it is on a bike. Traffic is just too fast and busy for this dream to be really true for drivers, irrespective of the marketing.

I'd rather be biking

Final descent to Sand Dunes of Florence

Heceta Head

The lighthouse keeper's house.

Tomorrow's route

I recall this from my own bike trip in September 2015.

Concert? Hallucinogenic get together?

Beats me. Decorating the Green Salmon coffee house.

Combinations yet to be co-opted by by Starbucks

In Yachats. Not meat involved in the "Bolognese" but definitely fungus in the Shroom cocoa. It's Oregon, for Pete's sake...

Under the Yaquina Bay Bridge in Newport

Cue the Faye Wray.

Eclipse-O-mania

A local Depoe Bay business trying to cash in on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Of course, it's the Oregon coast, known for fog...

How route marking is done

Covered bridge

In Harris.

Barn #3

Another lovely Oregon barn.

Barn #2

Barn

On Summit Hwy.

Eisele Summit Trestle on Hwy 180

Will be ridden on Day 2.

Day 1 enroute to Eugene, OR

I left Seattle at 2pm and 3.5 hours later, traffic was so goddamned awful, I'd not done even 100 miles, so I stopped in Vader at Country Kitchen restaurant to eat something and unkink my knees. It's the sort of overdone country twee that you find everywhere in the US, down to the country music on the audio system.
I try to avoid Seattle traffic on a Friday afternoon but sometimes you have no choice. I'll find somewhere to camp between here and Eugene. It's a pity I can't count on Alaskan long summer nights this far south. But packing the car again with hiking, biking and camping gear felt normal. I'm working an Adventure Cycling bike trip on the Oregon coast for the next week. I hope it's as lovely as September 2014, when I first rode it. Three years ago, I was a different person. I remind myself as frequently as I can just how far I've come since then. Actually, it feels good to be on the move again.

Download time

On Blackcomb

My first time this summer to see the sub alpine flower meadows. It always raises my spirits and brings such happy memories,

Excellent antipasti on Blackcomb

It's a pleasure to find a restaurant where the food is as good as the location. Barely 75 miles from Vancouver it's hardly surprising.

It's a long way down

Peak to Peak gondola

Considering my options

Visibility is poor due to smoke and it's 32 degrees at the Top of the world summit (7160 feet) and, like every tourist here, I'm dressed for the 90 degree day back in Whistler village, so I'm considering my hiking options.

Biking by gondola on Whistler Mountain

Taste of home

The moment I walked into this bakery, Pure Bread, I knew there had to be an Australian connection. The extravagant baked goods arranged by a master merchandiser, and the cute name with its pun, told me: Sydney! It's in Function Junction, a light industrial mixed neighborhood south along Hwy 99, away from the sky high rents of Whistler Village, and near what appears to be an entry point for Rainbow Sproatt Flank Trail, an intermediate level single track mountain bike route, that's connected to several black routes: Industrial Disease, Cheap Thrills and Danimal. I can only imagine what they're like to ride...
I'm sorry that I have a damaged,now arthritic right knee, otherwise I'd give these sorts of rides a try. (Or at least go look at them).