the 90's are alive in Portland

Well, the first thing we had to do was get sunhats to protect us at the brew fest. The sun was out in a wonderful way and the beer was a'flowin. I met a lot of Kelly's friends from school. I also did A LOT of tattoo watching, it will be hard to resist getting many many tattoos while we're there. I think that Portland will be good. It's a good feeling to not feel so lost within a city. I'll take you on a bike tour when we get there.




this was the bike corral at the festival, thought it would make you smile.









And here's me tonight. Post shower and post ramen noodle. I'm a sleepy bear and may lay in bed reading cannery row until I fall asleep.

and here's a surprise, I'm listening to Josh Ritter: "Time love, time love, it's only a change in time"

Fullbeards and the 7 utes

Here's the crew. they've been aweseom. We went on a little hike on our first full day together. This is us in front of Clark Mountain, near Ranger Lakes. They worked their butts off all week, so we took them to Vedauwoo for some R&R.

Here we are eating lunch at the North Sand Hill dunes, near Walden, CO. Colleen is the cheese ball.

Here's the view from Green Peak in Vedauwoo. this is one of my favotite places I've been to yet. I can feel the good energy in this place. It's like Joshua Tree with pine forests and a little gnarlier rock.

Here's the crew on top of Green Peak in Vedauwoo. It was a nice 2.5 mile hike from the campsite. Henry found a hawk feather and a raven feather. We scrambled to the top and ate lunch.

On Sunday we went to a nearby reservoir. The water was perfect. We found this sweet jumping rock and played around for a bit.

Thelma and Louise style.

Zander has won costume contests for dressing up as Napolean Dynamite and Abe Lincoln. I don;t know why Wyoming has a monument for Napolean Dynamite, but I can see the resemblance.

Alright, I only have an hour in the library before they close, so I'll try to get this all in. This was the most beautiful sunset I've seen yet. Purples, oranges, pinks and reds. Afterwards there was a huge thunderstorm which was awesome until it kept me up all night.

Full moon over Steamboat Lake

This is the Super Crew--all leaders and assistant leaders. We pretty much came and kicked ass all week. We hiked up in the Zirkel Wilderness searching for the elusive Three Island Lake. I'm still unconvinced of its existance.

Don't fear the mullet. Jimbo showing off his guns.

This is where we ended our hike,. It was a 20 foot waterfall in a narrow canyon. Pretty cool. We tried running the last quarter-mile, but found out that steep hills covered ion snow at 10,000+ feet was too much. So we mosied the last bit.

Cape Alava and Sand Point

[Sand Point beach ^]
Erin and I set out for the Peninsula friday after work, we had to wait a while for a ferry and by the time we finally got there it was about 11:30. Our trail was the only one and I knew it was mostly boardwalk, so I convinced Erin to night hike in. At work today it sounded like she was less sure about that than it seemed at the time, but I led the way and we made it to the campground in no time.
[a pool in the rock during low tide]
At Cape Alava the first night on one of the big islands you could hear but not see probably 50 seals barking all night and all day. I wonder what they're doing. That morning we took a beach walk at saw 2 bald eagles, and some sea otters! they even cracked a shell on their bellies. The tide pools were lovely with anemones and hermit crabs, and purple crabs.
All three sections of the trail are about 3 miles. Dr. Adams told me today that one time she hiked all 9 miles in a day and in her exhausted sleep a dream person came to her and told her to name the clinic One Sky Wellness.
Everyone had warned us about raccoons that will steal your cheese. But all we had to fend off was a cheeky chipmunk who tried to get our oatmeal. He was not actually afraid of me at all, i almost had to hit him with my wooden spoon to get him to not try and eat it. He thought his adorable stature would weaken me to give him an oat, but I held strong. Lucky he wasn't a kangaroo rat. But it was a lovely vacation, with lots of reading, poking in tide pools, naps and food. I hope you get to see this place someday! Now my sights are on biking the San Juans, think Eric would rent me a bike trailer?

Bike Ride!

Boats at Golden Gardens
I had a lovely bike ride out there, and then ate at Paseos-- I think it's better I haven't eaten there until now, I would be 300 lbs of pure cuban slow roasted meats, carmelized onion, pickled jalapenos, and garlic aelioli sauce. so good.

Crew Leader Training...Sort of.

We spent the first part of our training hitch near a town called Hot Sulphur Springs. The Hot Sulphur Springs were covered by about four feet of Cold River Water, so we didn't have a chance to partake. It was real pretty there--a little arid, but nice. Ifound some cacti that were ready to pop. Also saw my first Indian Paintbrush and Lupine of the year. I love these two little plants and have seen them in the Mojave as well as up in Rainier.

The first work project was to build raised boradwalk/bridges over sections of the trail that had been flooded by the Colorado River, which was super high from all of the snowmelt. We used generators, power tools, and milled lumber--which we will most likely never get to use again--but it was fun work. We also humped about 10-12 cubic yards (equivilant to the bed of a a pickup) of gravel and sand. Doug was our project sponsor and was the nicest most accommodating guy ever--which is also probably setting our expectations too high, but oh well, take what we can get. Here is the crew with one of the finished projects:

Some of Doug's mottos are: 1. Safety first, fun is a close second; 2. Your mom is not here to tell you no. This led to his teaching us to fire his .308 rifle and .9mm Glock. Here's Doug going over some important gun tips, including how to look stylish while firing a weapon. Of course, I hit the target every time.

Later on in the week, we got to work in Blacktail Canyon, replacing rotten catwalk planking with slightly less-rotten planking. The catwalks were above culverts that were part of an irrigation system that was dug in the late 1800's by a homesteader. If we could get the water from the creek to the land that he wanted, then it bacame his. He hand dug and blasted his way through 1.5 miles of granite and cliff side to get to it. Here's Zander hard at work: