I've been having a nice vacation from work over the last week. In Portland, the weather has been pretty darn good, and I've been doing a lot of cycling. I rode up two of Portland's extinct volcanos, Rocky Butte (which is also a climbing area) and Mount Tabor, where my friend Jenn thinks she might get married. Speaking of Jenn, I also biked up and over the hills of Washington Park to go visit her place the other day.

I also did some biking in Forest Park (pictured below) with Phil, who was visiting this week. I had a great time with Phil. We talked a lot about books, and played an epic game of Risk for new years. It was awesome. I've never played Risk before. Phil is lots of fun, it's great when old friends visit :)

And now for some pictures of Oregon.

This is Beacon Rock (actually, I have to admit that it's in Washington). Heres me climbing it:

And my friend Dan, which gives more of a perspective view:

Here's Anna at an Oregon vineyard. Oregon has lovely vineyards and good beer :)

Here's Forest Park, previously pictured on this blog:

And back by popular demand, a picture of my cat. He is clearly very clever:

Anna and I tried to go out to "French's Dome" a rock climbing crag near Mt. Hood. Although the town it is near, ZigZag, was plenty warm and had no snow, I didn't realize that 6.2 miles away was 6.2 miles that went up hill, and so by the time we got to the crag the road was impassable due to the snow.

We turned around and went to Salmon River Slab instead, which is very nearby. It was lower elevation and warm enough to climb. It was really nice, but it was a bit wet. There was a 9+ that I climbed which I felt was more like a 10+. It was a nice challenge, as I had to find a different route to avoid the wet.

It's Jenn's birthday tomorrow, so we're going to go to dinner with her & Carlos. Hurray!

pax.

Mark and I went out to smith rock to do some climbing this past weekend. The weather was absolutely beautiful, often sunny and a bit hot, but who can complain.

We headed out on Saturday morning, climbed for a while, slept in our tents on Saturday night, and then climbed again on Sunday. I didn't bring my camera the first day so that I wouldn't be constantly thinking about taking photos. I just trusted in the idea that the weather would probably hold to take photos on the 2nd day. I wanted to be sure to experience it before trying to record it.

Smith is a striking place. The rocks and surroundings are just lovely, as you'll see from the photos. They don't capture the enormity and complexity of it, though.

The people were also great. On Saturday night, we hung out in a pub, had some dinner and just chatted for a few hours. There are some great folks in the Portland climbing community.

There were even some horses :)

Small versions of a couple of the best photos are below, but there are more high resolution photos. Check them out. If you want to see even more, there are some repetitive and less interesting photos here.

pax



This is me:

I went for a bike ride in Forest Park in Portland today. This park is great; huge and very nearby. Today I finally got around to taking some photos.

This is how most of the park looks. It goes on for miles and miles like this with a dirt track. There are side trails too where you can walk or horseback ride. Haven't seen any horses there yet. Photos of the park usually don't seem to turn out too well, because you're just surrounded by trees, and I'm not a good enough photographer to capture it.

Portland is a bike friendly city

But I'm sure shapr will be pleased to know that it's a unicycle friendly city as well!

My friend, Co-worker, and climbing partner Mark took me biking today. It was up-hill both ways and completely exhausting for me, and he kept going after telling me how to get home, but it was awesome.

Today was a really beautiful, sunny day with great visibility. We saw Mount St. Helens with what looked like a little plume of smoke (though looking now at the camara online, I don't see that). A few minutes later, I saw Mount Hood. Mount Hood is also a volcano, but since it doesn't do anything, I guess it doesn't have its own web cam.

I also saw what looked, at first glance, like a normal bike-lane maker, but was acutally a unicycle with a guy juggling.