tings will probably be delayed. After working a lot of trades in the late spring / early summer I have stockpiled enough to have a pretty entertaining summer. My truck basically will serve as a mobile recreation unit / hotel for my summer, equipped to carry 2 kayaks, two bikes, multiple rubbermaid tubs, and a canopy cover with a memory foam mattress. My first trip started off with a trip to the Bend, OR area, particularly Smith Rock State Park, a renowned rock climbing area. It was a last minute decision to go there, as I was originally planning on going to Banff, but due to bad weather forecasts decided to head south. None the less, Smith Rock has been on my list of places to go for quite some time now. I am traveling with Amanda, who will be my partner in crime for many of the trips this summer. We spent our first night in the town of Bend, a town strikingly similar to Coeur d' Alene. The rest of the time we spent camping and climbing at the State Park. It was pretty hot for climbing during mid day, but we had great weather the whole time. We also did some mountain biking. We of course sampled some of Oregon's finest and famous microwbrews, including a tour of the Deshutes Brewery.
Our next notable trip was a camping / climbing trip to Koocanusa Reservoir in Montana, a favorite childhood camping spot. The name may sound a little funny, as it was named after a combinatin of the Kootenai Indians, Canada, and USA, taking the first three letters of each to form the name. We
went headed over with some friends from Coeur d' Alene, Dylan and Megan, and met up with Marcus and Lav at the campsite a day later. Being midweek, we basically had the entire camp we chose to stay at to ourselves. Dylan and Lav both brought their dogs that had a great time swimming in the lake and running around enjoying their freedom. Lav's dog Quinn even sprained his tail from swimming so much. We kayaked over to a giant sandy beach one of the evenings after rock climbing all day. We had a fire right on the beach. Marcus could only join us for an evening due to his 6-12 work schedule, but was a trooper and camped all night with us and headed off for work the next day. We had a couple days of great rock climbing on the cliffs that overlook the lake. I think I may have even made Lav poop in his pants a little bit, as one of the climbs feels like you are going to swing right into the lake resting 500 feet below the cliff when you let go. Amanda and Megan are both in summer school and had to run into the nearest town for a day to find some Wi-fi in order to post some information about their classes. Apparently life goes on outside of traveling and camping??? On our second to last day, a huge windstorm came through that blew sand just about everywhere you could imagine, and we had to chase a few camping items around the camp as well. All in all, weather was good and we all had a great time.We chose to spend the 4th of July weekend hanging around Coeur d' Alene. We had a bbq at some friends house and watched the fireworks downtown on a buddy's boat. A nice relaxing four days off, as pretty much the rest of my summer while I'm not working will be spent on the go somewhere.
This brings me to my most recent trip, which I am currently on, as I'm sitting in a coffee shop in Canon Beach, Oregon. This annual trip I have named "Mountains and Microwbrews", as it's my third year in a row coming to the central cascades to climb mountains and sample microwbrews, among many other random things each year with no specific itinerary. We kicked it off by driving all the way to the base of Mt. Adams on our first night, after a brief burrito stop in Hood River, and a stop in Trout lake to obtain some climbing permits. We didn't get to the camp until 11pm that night and stayed the night in the truck. This is the first time Amanda has ever been on a climbing trip of the sort, and was full of excitement / anxiety. With weather looking good as forecasted, we headed up the next day to a high camp on the Crescent Glacier called The Lunch Counter. This part of the trip is a long, not overly exciting, slog up to the high camp with a pack loaded full of gear. Although becoming a bit tired and frustrated by the end of the day, Amanda made it up to our high camp like
a champ. We did of course stop for many snack breaks along the way. At high camp the weather was good and we watched an awesome sunset while we prepared some dinner and gathered water for the next day. We set our tent up behind a protected rock shelter that was already built by previous climbers. After prepping the packs for the next days summit push we were off to sleep with the help of a few Benedryls to assure a good nights rest in a noisy wind blown tent. When morning came for us at 3:30 Am, we awoke to a perfectly clear night with no wind. We left camp about 4:30 after some breakfast and donning some crampons. The climb up the south spur route went really well, which is the standard route up the mountain. We kept a good pace and had great weather the whole time. Amanda was feeling top notch like the energizer bunny and I nearly had to chase her up the final stretch to the summit. With a clear view from the summit we had great shots of all the surrounding cascade volcanoes. We rested for a while on the roof of what's left of an old shack at the summit and then descended back to our base camp. The snow had softened up enough on the descent to allow for a lot of glissading (which for those unfamiliar with is sitting on your butt and sliding down the glacier in chutes that have already been slid down before by previous climbers, or creating your own route). Amanda got quite the kick out of this, as it's kind of like being on 2,000' long amusement park slide, and makes descending much quicker and more enjoyable than walking. After we packed up camp
we descended all the way to the truck that same day. This makes for a really long day, which kind of made Amanda forget about all the prior fun she'd had and was basically ready to just kill me by the time we reached the truck. I'll leave some of the quotes out for those sensitive viewers out there, but you could imagine. None the less we were both happy to be back at the truck and she was quite proud of the accomplishment of summiting a 12,276 foot volcano. Fish and chips and an ice cold beer had never tasted so good as when we got into Hood River to relax for the night. We stayed at a local RV park for the night and messed around in Hood River watching wind surfers and kite boarders and resting our legs then next day. We were off to the backside of Mt. Hood the next day. We camped in the Timberline Lodge parking lot and made dinner on the back of the truck. Amanda was going to sit this one out and was happy to be in a warm sleeping bag when 3:00 rolled around and I had to get up to climb. I was planning on doing a ski descent of hood. I'd sworn to myself last year, while descending Mt. Hood down the Timberline ski resort watching skiers pass me doing 35 miles per hour as I wobbled down the run with crampons, that I would never climb the south side of Hood again without bringing skis. While packing skis and boots slowed me down a bit and added a lot of weight to a fast and light trip, it was well worth it. I left at 3:30 Am with clear skies and unusually warm weather, literally T-shirt and shorts weather. After an hour an a half of climbing I had reached the permanent snow line, and ditched the skis about 1,000 feet from the summit. This made the last stretch of the climb up the hogsback and the final pitch to the summit much faster. Once you reach top of the mountain you have to traverse a very narrow ledge with a lot of exposure on both sides in order to reach the true summit. I reached the summit at 7:30 (see picture) and spent a little time up there visiting with some climbers from Seattle. When I returned to where my skis were stached, the glacier was still icy on top and made for a slow ski decent to the top of the ski lift, but was much better than walking. Once I was on the groomed runs, it took me five minutes to ski down to the truck from the top of the lifts, what to
ok me an hour and a half to walk up earlier this morning. It was a nice morale booster and I was feeling great! I got back to the truck at 9:30, making it an exact 6 hour round trip. We ate some bfast burritos at a tiny ski lodge at the bottom of the ski hill and went to hood river to meet my parents, who were coming over to the area for the weekend. We camped that night near the base of Hood, as my dad was looking for anywhere to get out of the blistering heat of Hood River. My mom was excited to try out a tent that she'd never used before. We made burgers and had a fire and a nice evening by the river. The next day we had booked a rafting trip down the White Salmon River with my parents. My mom was quite nervous about the whole event, as while she's probably read about it, has never been on such an adventure. I think my dad was just as nervous about having to wear a wetsuit, or as he refers to as a "one of those skin diving things". I think they both felt a little out of their element, but Amanda and I were much looking forward to the trip. After a big breakfast and much talk about how this may be my moms last meal just to help get rid of any pre-float butterflies, we were geari
ng up at the Wet Plantet headquarters who we'd booked with. We were floating in 6 man rafts plus a guide. We were joined by a mother / daughter party from Wisconsin. The river comes directly from some Mt. Adams Glacier run-off, so needless to say it's beautiful, milky, ice cold water. The stretch we were running was all class III to IV rapids, i
ncluding a 12 foot (optional) waterfall drop of Husum Falls to top it off. Once we got the rafts in and had floated through our first few rapids, everyone was having a great time and all the nervous butterflies were gone. We rafted a beautiful stretch of river. When we got to Husum Falls, even my mom, who was timid to even set foot in the raft and was shaking so nervously she could hardly put her wetsuit on before the trip, was feeling stoked about running the falls. Our two guests opted to walk around the falls, which left my parents and Amanda to make the drop. We had a very comforting guide who went over a set of very clear instructions for dropping the falls. We set a perfect line and our drop went perfect! We were all pretty excited. So proud of ya ma! After the Falls was another set of rapids that is called Rodeo, noted for people sitting on the front of the raft trying to hang on while one hand is in the air as if to be riding a bull. My mom jumped up and was the first to volunteer to sit up on the bow to ride the bull. Who is this lady haha! We all had a great time rafting and had dinner at a brewery back in Hood River to celebrate. We camped in the same spot that night, but were all pretty tired, which made for a pretty uneventful night. Yesterday, after watching some skateboard championship racing down the streets of Hood River, and saying farewell to the folks, Amanda and I headed off towards Mt. St. Helens with a 2 o' clock Bungee Jumping trip planned. I had booked this when Amanda had made mention she's always wanted to bungee, and this was the closest place I found in the pacific northwest. She didn't want to talk about it all week until the day came, and I think she was ready to jump out of the truck at anytime on the way there. She went from exctited, to laughing, to nearly in tears before we even made it to the bridge. I'm sure it helped that I told her sometimes people lose all bodily functions on the way down : ) Nervous as could be, the time went quickly and before you know it she was standing on the platform, with no turning back, and was leaping into space. I was taking pictures so didn't watch most of the ju
mp, but I knew she had gone because I heard a bloody murdurous scream for about 30 seconds. I'm pretty sure she was still screaming when the entire bungee had stopped bouncing at the bottom of the bridge. She came up quite proud and excited though! I jumped after Amanda, but being my second time going, didn't have quite the nervousness and had a really enjoyable jump. The high from the jump seemed to stick with Amanda the rest of the day, and she notified me every time we saw a bridge, .........or didn't see a bridge, that "I bungee jumped today!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!". It was awesome. We worked our way over to Canon Beach for the night on the coast. Today we are just relaxing and checking out the town with no schedule or itinerary in mind. More to come on Mtn's a
nd Micros, stay tuned.
