Royce Butte Wildfire

Royce Butte Fire, originally uploaded by Hanmi.

Here is a set of images from the Royce Butte fire last month. When we drove around a bend in the highway we saw a small puff of white smoke... by the time we neared Crescent Lake Junction, it was a large white plume. A couple minutes after we pulled over it was a big, black, ominous cloud. In fact, when we slowed down to speak to a state trooper, I could feel the heat of the fire (though I couldn't see the flames) on my face. After I took a few shots we got back into the car, and stopped again at the top of the hill where I took a few more shots. The fire was clearly spreading very quickly. Pretty scary stuff. Click the image to see more.

Road trip with Dad - day 1

Last week I had the opportunity to travel to Mt. Shasta, California to visit a client [and now friend] to climb, learn to fly fish, take some pictures, and get to know each other. Originally Jim was going to come along, but his work schedule is tight and he had to bail. As Craig [my client] is a fly fishing guide, I started thinking my dad might really enjoy going with me. Sure enough, he was game and we took off on Tuesday.
The plan was to drive from Portland to Ashland the first day, with a detour to take us past Crater Lake. The drive ended up being much longer than planned, but our luck prevailed and we narrowly dodged the Royce Butte wildfire (the road was closed 5 minutes after we passed), falling trees, and a lightening storm on our side trip. We arrived safely in Ashland a couple hours later than planned, but had a great meal at the Black Sheep Pub [a discovery on last year's road trip with Jim], and topped it off with a Guinness float. Naturally, I took a lot of photos...
There will be more photos and details to come...

Jayzus it's hot!

Wow... as I type it's 100°F and climbing and the forecast is even hotter tomorrow... My home office feels more like a place to bake cookies than make photos. The chickens are miserable, standing around under the deck panting. I gave them some ice water and some frozen blueberries, but they still look very unhappy. And poor Delilah is molting... although, losing some feathers in this weather doesn't sound so bad. Chickens are notoriously grumpy when they are molting, and she's gone from the friendliest to down right mean. I tell her it will be over soon, but she looks at me incredulously, then tries to take a piece out of my hand. Poor girl.
I'm sure the tomatoes and peppers are enjoying this, though. The rest of us will just have to lay low [like in the basement...] and wait it out. And probably watch a lot of movies.

Garden Box revisited

Well, its time to visit the newest garden box in the front yard. If you look back earlier, you'll see that this box was just built and filled this year. Through the miracle of photosynthesis and time, we're now on the cusp of a nice crop of Poblano Peppers.



As well as peppers, we've have Swiss Chard, Blue Lake Bush Beans and Snow Peas growing in the box, all planted in various phases so that we can harvest them in succession. This means that when the peppers are done, the peas will have more sun. As you can see, the bean plants are getting quite large. As we eat the chard the beans will get more sun to make more beans. Also, the shade the chard receives right now keeps it cooler in the sun, keeping it from bolting and extending the harvest.


It's been a fun little mini-garden to watch. Hanmi has been diligently removing the nasty bugs and giving a good watering every other morning or so. I think we'll create 1 new garden box each year and try different things. Today we saw someone growing corn in theirs! Last year's box is overflowing with pumpkins and soy beans. Yummy fun arrives in October.

Another weekend at Smith Rock

Smith Rock is a wonderful place to adventure around. We've been there many times over the years. As we climb both new and old routes, with new and old friends, it keeps the air of magic about it. There's always a climb yet to discover, so we jump at the chance to walk along the walls and try something new. This past weekend was no exception.

Friday, we drove down with Gabriel and set up camp and relaxed with a beer. Saturday we climbed in the morning - some easer routes that everyone could have fun on - until the heat sent us down to visit the river. In the afternoon we met up with Claudine and Anwen, catching up along the way with a few other friends also spotted throughout the park. Then we romped over at the Phoenix area, climbing anything open. Everyone had a nice workout and we headed back before the angry skies opened. One remembers why climbing, anywhere, is such a great sport and past-time.

Hanging 'round the campfire. most of us with pants on...

Saturday evening consisted of a fire, a game of capture the flag (where is that thing?) and some delicious food. We took a short walk to Skull Rock, listened to the coyotes, and told many funny stories. I had to sew and small tear in my jeans from a clumsy fence hop (ever the nimble climber). Parties were all-around; someone (hey Chad!) brought a keg. Scout headed off the bed, the youngest climber in our group at 8 months old.

Zack explains how to climb with a newborn.

Tamar tells a story - Scout beams with pride. Jim sews pants.

Sunset over Skull Hollow Campground

Sunday was more climbing, getting everyone "good value" on a tough and exhilarating route - Smith is like that, being almost an outdoor gymnasium. Hanmi and Tamar had fun on Cinnamon Slab and Cry Baby, while we played on Lion's Jaw, Moonshine and Heinous, Ginger Snap, Easy Reader, Five Gallons and Light on the Path.

Tamar, Hanmi, Scout, Jim, & Gabriel mug for the camera

Alisha and Gabriel both seemed to get crash courses in cleaning and belaying. I'm happy to report that they didn't let anyone down. Great job! Gaby is visiting from Argentina for just two weeks and was especially adventurous in joining us, as well as helpful in helping to carry gear. Thanks for holding me up on that hard route, buddy!

Cinnamon Slab area at Smith Rock

We ate on Sunday night at Terrebonne Station, we were offered the "20-inch brown" - which I declined, not asking exactly what that meant. Hanmi was asked about a drink, the exchange went like this:

"I'll have a ginger ale."
"You say, a ginger ale?"
"Yes, please."
"Ok, you'd like a ginger ale?"
"Yes."
"Ok" [pause while he writes something on his pad]
.."we don't have ginger ale. Would you like something else?"

We all did a silent double-take.

But waiting tables is tough work, so I won't pick on our waiter too much. I am curious about what he wrote in that split second. Maybe something like "ginge..OOPS"

Spring Thing 2008

Almost every year, many of the climbers of the Northwest travel down to Smith Rock State Park in Oregon and perform a full day of trail maintenance. More than a simple litter pickup or tree planting (although we do that too), this is back-breaking work to construct safer trails on the steep slopes of the park.

Given the delicate desert landscape, having trails is a good way to join both the community and the climber crowd together to promote the park. This little park is a jewel of geological history and of course - it has awesome climbing routes.

The work parties started at 8 on Saturday and spread out across the park, each under a lead that directed the action. The supplies are carted or trucked to the edge of the park or area, but the majority of the work is bucket-brigade or simply walking with a heavy rock, putting it in place, then getting another.

But when the day progresses, finally wrapping up in the early afternoon (the hot afternoons shut everything down), the trails look amazingly new. These events are a great way to meet new climbers and catch up with old friends.

Also, the bolts that have gotten notices about being ready for replacement are all checked and replaced. This is especially reassuring, as the rock qualities at Smith are touch on any fixed gear, due to the high thermal expansion cycles of the desert and the rock actually being a "welded tuft", a form of petrified volcanic ash.

These pictures aren't a great way to capture Smith's expansive vista, especially from the top, where the majority of central Oregon's lower Cascade mountains are visible across a green blanket of farms and small towns. I believe Oregon to be one of the most beautiful places on earth, but you'll just have to take my word for it. No picture would suffice.







Smith Rock is located centrally in Oregon, not far from the larger town of Bend. It gained popularity in the 1980's as "this birthplace of American Sport climbing", which is to say, some local climbers cleaned the loose rock , bolted the walls into very tough routes, and invited the world to try the climbing. The entire process was bumpy in a few ways, including getting a community used to a new tourism feed in their area, and getting a climbing world used to a few "new school" techniques of putting a climbing route on a wall without always starting from the ground each time.

Many times, routes were so difficult that they demanded a series of "practice sessions" of small sections until they could all be linked up into a single, highly gymnastic sequence. This was new to the world of climbing, where a more mountaineering atmosphere was the norm ever since "traditional climbing" broke into a sport of its own decades prior. During the 1980's, "sport climbing" sought to create or find routes that didn't achieve a goal height, attain a peak, or adhere to a crack-based, naturally protected route. Instead, stone anchors were drilled into the wall and thus every face, however devoid of features, become yet another "project". When records for difficulty appeared at Smith (5.14b), it finally attained status world-wide as a place to visit on every climber's list.



We climbed later that day, in the shadier areas, then met up again that night for a party of beer and burritos. A slideshow, a few movies of some outrageous climbing from around the world (shown by attendees of the party) and the highlight of the evening, an auction and raffle of some great donated gear. This year, a huge amount of gear seemed to appear from some new sponsors.



We're very happy and thankful to get an opportunity to join in with our friends and help make a park a bit prettier and a lot safer for everyone to enjoy. I recommend anyone who has time to visit that park, and a few others, here in Oregon. And if you can find a way, throw some donated labor into your community. It feels great.

Back to the Front Page

Thanks to some prodding from friends, we're back to blog more regularly. Aw - you guys are great. So there should be a few posts appearing more often than the usual "every blue moon." In this post, I'll catch you up on whats been news lately.

If you've not heard the old news, flip back and read about our trip through Patagonia, which wrapped up in January. Since then, I've switched jobs - haha, yet again. I decided to recognize that tougher times are just around the corner and picked up a full-time position at an old client. They're a good shop and have their eye on the long-term, instead of what seemed like very short-term thinking in some other places I've seen. Plus, the people are wonderful.

On the home front, we're still fuzting around with our bathroom remodel - slowly picking through the final pieces and putting them together now and again. We've definitely fallen into the "long tail" finish of this project. There's around 5 things left, its all going well though. We use everything in the room and it all works great.

We overhauled the "back 40" on our lot and tilled the yard up, spread compost everywhere and planted a mix of grass and wildflowers. It's been a cool, wet Spring so the sprouts are slowly coming along, but there's a peach-fuzz of green across the yard.

The chickens have been moved to the side yard. They don't like this area as much since their view is obscured and their sunlight is more limited. However, it gives the back yard time to revitalize and allows us to set up the garden without worrying about their scratching and pecking at all the sprouts.

I'm learning to bake bread! We don't have a bread mixer or a bread machine, so I'm perfecting the use of the food processor (the "chopper") for some initial mixing. I'm quite impatient so the "rising" portion of the making sometimes gets cut short. I still don't know what a second rise is all about, so I skip it. The first loaf was horrendously bad, as I didn't understand the purpose of gluten. (Imagine an all-gluten loaf of gum) The second loaf was better, but it was a little dense, as my yeast poured right through the chopper's center hole (note to self: turn machine on).

Han has been out in the nicer Spring days on paid shooting gigs. She's also picked up a very fun assistant position as a web designer for a sustainability blog. She's quite busy when those schedules converge, and the post-processing is a big job.

The bikes have been tuned up for Spring. I performed my first "brake job" on the mountain bike the other day - it was tricky but when finished, the lines have no bubbles and I could flip over the handlebars as easily as my first day. I rode to the new job yesterday and it was one of the most magical, wonderful routes I've ever enjoyed on the way to work. It's close to 15 miles each way, with a few steep hills, so the evening was a hot bath in the gigantic tub.

Hanmi set out the sprouts and our first round of garden plants are just about ready to go in the ground. She also prepped the plot and sowed seeds directly last weekend. I'm very excited. After a break last year from tomatoes and similar plants (peppers) - we're back with a full-range of vegetables: Potatoes, Cucumbers, Peppers, Tomatoes, Strawberries, Blueberries, Swiss Chard, Cilantro, Basil, Oregano, Sage, Spinach, Snow Peas, and 2 different kinds of Beans. The lots of Carrots and Brussel Sprouts, Mustard Greens, Kale, Lettuce, Chives, Onions, Garlic and other stuff are all around the house in planters. We also have a fig tree and a persimmon tree we planted last winter that will hopefully bear fruit this year. Should be interesting!

The eggs are arriving steadily, about 3 a day. We have given a lot away lately, which feels good. We received a cute Thank You note from a small child (and family) that walked by to "visit" the chickens, since they are now visible in the front yard. The chickens are quite friendly, almost to to point of being nagging in their quest for food, sunlight and attention. Riding on shoulders is a common sight when we're in the yard. We let them out to clean the front yard of slugs now and then. It's a fun, carefree feeling to relax with chickens napping on your legs on a lounge chair on the porch.

We are harvesting rain! The first 2 rain barrels are in place and full already. I'm slowly adding delivery pieces to the output side of the system. Our barrels are "nonstandard" in their storage, so that I could fit them under the back deck. But after a few tests everything seemed to work out. I'm very happy with it. We'll have the garden on a pH-balanced and filtered water system, run off a battery timer, flowing every morning for an hour or so. It's drip irrigation so there's not a lot of waste. The pressure from the gravity feed, with 110 gallons about 2 feet about ground seems fine.

We've played a lot with the numbers and the space we could devote to this concept. We have room for 6 more barrels for a total of ~400 gallons (about 3200 pounds!). I've been imagining some neat uses for all the water in later phases (toilet, basement sink, bird feeder, etc). For now, I've been advised to finish some older projects first. Wise, those unnamed advisers.

all decked out... and no where to go!

If you climb, and you hear the word 'decked'... it is not, as Martha would say, a good thing. Essentially, it means you fell, and you hit the ground. This past weekend, while climbing at Smith Rock with Jim, I did just that.

It was a stellar day--beautiful weather, great friends, and uncrowded routes.


We started the day at the dihedrals, scaling cinnamon slab's 2 pitches before rapping down the backside to climb Spiderman.

The first pitch there was dull, but the second pitch rocked. just past the first belay anchor was a tough spot where I really had to wrestle with a nut to get it out. after that I climbed back down to a good foothold to rest up before attempting a layback. Then I took a deep breath, gripped the left side of the crack and used the entire right side of my body in unison with my hands and feet to shimmy up and over the bulge. that felt amazing. The next interesting part was a roof with an undercling that took you out to this bizarre layback move. it took some thinking and
some arms to get around, but I managed to do it smoothly on my first shot.

I was super stoked because I finally felt like I was climbing efficiently. at no point were my arms pumped out or my legs shaky... I didn't hesitate or spend a lot of time looking for the right move. I was just having fun!

Once I got over the crux, Jim told me he'd saved me ‘a little’. I noted that he'd built a trad anchor and left about 15 ft to the bolted anchor at the top of the route. I already had all the ‘big’ gear from cleaning the route below; so after taking a swig of water I took off on my very first trad lead. I placed 2 cams and the biggest hex in the rack before clipping the anchors and belaying Jim the rest of the way.

I was on top of the world!

We did some 4th class scrambling around the top of the buttress before making our way back to the anchors above cinnamon slab and rappelling down to our gear. there were people all over most of the routes there, but one remained empty. I asked Jim to let me lead what turned out to be 'easy reader'. Rated at 5.6, it was a very easy sport climb. it was almost disappointingly easy... at this point we had a little more than an hour of daylight left, and after a bit of discussion, we decided to go to Lion's Jaw.

Now mind you, I was feeling VERY confident... okay, 'over' confident... at first I said I couldn't lead lion's jaw, as it is a trad route. Jim said I could, so I said okay without giving it another thought... had I been thinking, I would have realized that I probably wasn't at the top of my game--tired, hungry, feet sore... but I wasn't thinking. I was jonesing like an addict.

I tied in, placed a cam at the bottom as a directional, and started up the smooth dihedral. at the first solid footing, I placed a second cam and gave it a good yank in every direction. satisfied that it wasn't going anywhere, I clipped the rope and headed up. this is when I first sensed I might be in trouble. it took a while to get the cam into a good spot and my right foot was especially fatigued from holding the position. Jim, concerned that I maintain a good level of protection, was instructing me to place gear. I get a bit literal when I’m tired, so I started trying to place a nut right where I was... my footing was crappy, though, and I knew I wouldn't be able to last there long. I pulled off a 1" nut and tried to slot it in the crack... it was too small... I put it back on the ‘biner… at this point Jim suggested I take the whole carabiner off my gear sling and try slotting until I found one that fit... I started to take the ‘biner off, but realized my foot was going to pop at any minute, so I down climbed to the ledge next to my last piece of gear.

I rested there for a minute then headed back up, but stupidly stopped in the exact same place I was in before... finally, I realized I need to climb up, that I just couldn't stop where I was... unfortunately, I realized it a little too late... sensing my feet were about to go, I jammed both hands into the opposing cracks and scrambled around with my feet looking for anything to stand on... the wall to my left was impossibly smooth--I couldn't even get traction smearing. and then my left foot slipped off the wall entirely. the jolt caused my right foot to pop off the tiny nubbin. the crack was too smoothed out from years of climbing and all at once I was sliding straight down the wall... I don't know when my hands came out of the crack. I do know that I looked down between my feet at one point and saw what looked like high-speed film running backwards... truly bizarre. I waited for Jim to catch me at the second piece, but I don't even remember slowing down. Chances are good I actually kicked the 2nd cam out on my way down... I don't even remember hitting the ground. I remember, albeit vaguely, sitting down. Jim kept telling me I was all right and had his arms around me... I thought, 'what is that sound? who's screaming?'... then, as if waking from a dream, I realized that I was the one screaming bloody murder... and then the full brunt of the pain in my left foot took over... I screamed to have him take the shoe off. I knew in another minute or two the swelling would be so bad that they'd have to cut the shoe off... of course, the slightest touch made me scream louder.