Photo Dump #3

Been pretty busy, but have thrown in a few adventures over the last couple of months. Been on the bike more than I'd like though. Here's the proof.

Punchbowl Falls

This was an urban adventure of the boozy kind. I mean this was a work trip...

Ghost Bar - the Palms

Doing a little fly fishing on the Rogue

A little cyclocross action with Andrew

The pain cave 

Spent a lot of time muddy

Deschutes River Trail - Turkey Day 2012

Have to announce that I found an un-opened PBR on the ride. Sometimes you get lucky!

Another urban adventure - Holiday Ale Fest

Sun Valley Day 1: Lodgepole Gulch

We all slept in this morning in order to recover a bit from the previous day's journey. Adam, Andrew and I spent the morning pulling thorns and goat heads out of each of our tires and before finally inserting new tubes. Lange and the rest of the gang made bfast and lounged around in preparation for the day's activities.

We all finally made it to the trailhead by 1pm. Yup, late start as usual. We set our sights on Cow Creek, Lodgepole Gulch and Greenhorn Gulch. Before we even left the trailhead, Adam rear tire went flat and we had to patch a mystery hole. All nine of us started up the singletrack, adding to the longest mountain biking train I had ever seen. It was great to have us all chugging our way up this hill. Near the top, Adam's rear tire went flat again and Lange broke a link in his chain. Out list of mechanicals was slowly growing. Once all patch up, we ripped some single track down to Greenhorn Gulch, where we split into two groups. One group headed to the car to get dinner ready while the rest tacked on the Lodgepole Gulch Loop onto the ride.

The descent back down to the car was awesome as we passed birch trees in their full autumn grandeur and tore through open meadow with traces of lingering, stubborn wildflowers, not yet ready to succumb to winter's grasp. We toasted our ride with a round of victory beers and headed back for dinner.

That night Andrew and John arranged a blind IPA taste test, as we had a regionally diverse array of 6 growlers. Andrew was beyond confident that his beloved Sockeye IPA would win hands down. The range of beers included Sockeye's Dagger Falls IPA, Lucky Lab's Super Dog IPA, Barley Brown's WFO IPA, Boundary Bay Imperial IPA, Boundary Bay IPA and Madison Rivers's Hop Juice.

Much to everyone's dismay, Andrew's addiction to the Dagger Falls materialized in the rest of us as it took 1st place overall. Yes, Andrew did not stop talking about this for the rest of the evening and had his fare share of birthday by the end of the evening to celebrate.

Overall results:

1) Dagger Falls
2) WFO IPA
3) BB Imperial IPA
4) Super Dog
5) Hop Juice
6) BB IPA

However, I am certain that we did not put Portland's best foot forward due to the proximity of our PDX dwelling. It was easily the best choice to represent Portland.

That night we stayed up late polishing off all of our growlers except for the Jalapeno Cream Ale. We all got to bed very late and were severely dehydrated in the traditional fashion, but good times were had regardless.

Andrew closed the night with the soon-to-be ritual of declaring: To Bed Men! For we Ride at Dawn!


UNT

Bryan

Sun Valley Prologue: Echo OR and the HexaFlat

Adam, Andrew and I packed up early last Thursday morning and pointed Clare towards Sun Valley, ID. What was in store was three days of epic mountain biking with our best friends. This year our crew jumped up in numbers from 5 to 9 dudes with the addition of Sean, Adam, John and Jo Jo. Good times to be had for sure.

On our journey over to SV, the Oregon contingency stopped at Echo, Or to stretch the legs a little bit on the trails of Echo. They are nothing special, but the change of terrain, foreign environment and remoteness of the trails made them attractive. Echo Or is just outside Hermiston, Or and hosted the Echo Red to Red mountain biking race this past year. Overall, we had a great time spinning around the trails in windless conditions, and spent a good deal of time shooting some video and a few photographs.

Unfortunately, our fun was short lived as on the way back to the car we hopped back on the central fireroad to save some time. By the time we all reached the car 3 mins later. Andrew had flatted on both tires, while Adam and I had managed to get back to the car without flatting. As I examined our tires, they were littered with goat heads and mutant burs. In the end, all six tires went flat (christened the HexaFlat!), and we would spend the next morning pulling goat heads and thorns from our tires for over an hour! It was the craziest puncture-fest I had ever seen. Definitely makes me hesitant about coming back to Echo anytime soon.

We packed up Clare and continued East towards Baker City, where we picked up a growler of WFO (Wide Freaking Open) IPA from Barely Brown's Brew Pub. Their award winning stout was unfortunately tapped out. Bummer! But they were kind enough to let us in through the back door to fill up with WFO during none business hours.

We swung through Boise to say hi to Andrew's family and to pick up a massive batch of homemade deer chili before continuing with our final leg into Sun Valley. Miraculously, everyone but the Salt Lake Crew arrived within minutes of each other. Lange and Jo Jo, the Bellingham WA crew arrived last and the Portland crew pulled in minutes after Joel man, from the Bozeman MT solo party, arrived.

That night we gorged ourselves on deer chili, cornbread, Wasatch Pumpkin ale and Wasatch Jalapeno Cream Ale. Stories were swapped and games were played before the inevitable Sleep Monsters took everyone down.

UNT

Bryan

3 day Timeout at the Ranch

This past Memorial day weekend, Kerrie, my dad and I headed down to our family cabin on the Rogue River called Timeout Ranch. We needed to do some major yard work on the property to get it ready for summer use. We arrived late on Friday night and promptly got the fire pit roaring and beers cracked open. The next day my dad and I mowed the giant lawn, weeded, pruned, chopped firewood, and fixed sprinklers. Kerrie and my dad dropped me off at the Upper Table Rock Trailhead so that I could go for a run while they headed into Medford to get some supplies. The trail to table rock is pretty steep so I was sucking wind after spending all day doing yard work. Once on top, I ran through the open wildflower filled mesa to the aircraft beacon, then looped back around on the primary hiking trail. The weather was coming in fast so I had to high tail in back down the car.

View from the top of Upper Table Rock

That evening, we all had dinner with my grandma at the RogueValley Country Club and spent the night sitting around the campfire drinking beers.

Kerrie warming up around the wood burning stove

The following day we did more yard work and laid the pipe for the irrigation system and reinstalled the pump. After that we climbed in the car and headed over to check out Ashland. I really wanted to take a run in Lithia Park, but I didn’t have the time and didn’t want to make everyone wait for me. We had lunch at the Standing Stone Brewery, check out the various Shakespearean Theaters (which Ashland is famous for) then grabbed another pint at Caldera Brewing.

The Outdoor Theater

With all the rain and snow the PNW has had this past winter and spring, the Rogue River was extremely high so we would have to wait to put in the dock till the river went down. This also meant that the fishing would not be so good so I didn’t get another chance to try and check some more trout. After fishing on the McKenzie, I’m starting to enjoy the relaxation and occasional excitement that comes from fishing. And I now know how to clean and eat the trout which makes it that much more fulfilling.

Looking back at the cabin from the river. Ry Dog getting used to his life jacket. It will be good for our rafting trips this summer.

The weather finally cleared up on Monday so we hung around the cabin finishing up some chores and took off back to Portland around 2pm. We proceeded to follow every RV and motor home back up I-5.

UNT

Bryan 

Wildflowers on Table Rock

Aircraft Beacon