PNW Weekend Warriors

Paddle to Seattle

noreply@blogger.com (pnwweekendwarriors) — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 23:23:00 +0000

Paddle to Seattle Trailer from Ben Gottfried on Vimeo.

Imagine you and your best friend paddling 1300 miles from Juneau, AK to Seattle, WA in handmade, homemade pygmy kayaks that you built together in a bond of brotherly love. The trailer above captures what that may feel like if you are Josh Thomas and J.J. Kelley. Running across whales, bears and the unsuprisingly occasional northwest rain shower the two make a movie that explores both each other, their friendship and the beauty of the shoreline that exposes North America's only rainforest

Adventure "Vandals" Add More Single Track in Forrest Park

noreply@blogger.com (pnwweekendwarriors) — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 15:18:00 +0000

With 5100 acres, Forrest Park, within the city limits of Portland, OR, is one of the nations largest urban forests. The park has an amazing variety of natural fauna and wildlife including a native Cutthroat Trout population and 63 mammals including including a population of Bobcats. A mix of old and second growth forest, this park has been a key player in helping to establish Portland as one of the nations Mecca's for green living and outdoor adventure. With this being said, it came as a surprise to me this morning when I heard that "Portland Officials" were now "hunting" for a group of mountain bikers who have taken it upon themselves to build a new mile of single track mountain biking trail within the boundaries of the park.

To the "Portland Officials" credit I do believe that it is imperative to keep this park alive and healthy but to what extent do we limit the creativity of the people using the park as a place for safe and environmentally friendly recreation. The argument that the officials make is that in their creation of the trail these bikers have disturbed the native wildlife and destroyed some of the natural fauna including the habitat of the Northern Pygmy Owl and the destruction of multiple western red cedars.

I don't know how realistic it is that the "Portland Officials" will ever actually apprehend the trails creator/creators but with more and more people in Portland taking it upon themselves to enjoy the unique beauty of an urban temperate rain forest I doubt that this will be the first altercations of recreation vs environment that we hear about in the near future.

The New Energy Messiah

noreply@blogger.com (pnwweekendwarriors) — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 15:15:00 +0000

In approximately one day the company Bloom Energy will be unveiling it's supposedly life changing solution to the worlds energy demands. After a little research on Bloom the company and it's idea do seem to carry a bit more clout then the normal energy god send. The product was developed by a gentleman named KR Sridhar who before getting the funding or the time to develop the Bloombox worked for NASA and developed a machine that would create sustainable oxygen stores out of the air on Mars. After completing his project he developed an idea about a product that didnt produce oxygen but used it and sought capital through the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins. If this firm rings a bell it's because they are the same firm that funded Google, Amazon, Inuit, Netscape, Verisign and Sun Microsystems when they were technology start-ups. Currently the Bloomboxes are being tested at many high profile locations and have had very minimal problems. Google, Ebay, The City of San Francisco, Wal-Mart and the CIA have all allowed Bloomenergy to place a number of it's Bloomboxes at some of there facilities. With Colin Powel on the board for Bloom they seemed poised to show us something revolutionary when they reveal there new product publicly tomorrow. In other words, this small gamecube sized box of silica wafers painted with two patented substance are stacked on top of each other and when a combination of oxygen and a hydrocarbon hit the surfaces they create a chemical reaction which can easily power the average American home for 7 days a week 365 days a year. Using the gas created naturally in our landfills this box has a very small carbon footprint and is considered a new green energy that as of tomorrow just may revolutionize the way we power our world. Take a look at the video here.

Weather

noreply@blogger.com (pnwweekendwarriors) — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 18:43:00 +0000

WOW.. all I have to say is that I hope this weather is permanent

Speaking Bike-n-eese

noreply@blogger.com (pnwweekendwarriors) — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 16:23:00 +0000

Approximately 14 days ago I bought a road bike. A Scattante R-330. If you know what that means you know more about bikes then I do and if you don't know what that means you still probably know more about bikes then I do. Living in Portland, I have an opportunity not many people in big cities have and that's a substantial amount of bike friendly lanes, bridges and corridors to commute to safely commute to work. I, like too many others, live on one side of the city (SE) and work on the other side (Beaverton). I drive an dilapidated 98' Dodge Dakota that needs a number of repairs that I can no longer justify paying for, so instead of spending another $400 dollars on some new plugs, wires, wheels and flux capacitors this time I gave the $400 to a 20 something who lives in an upscale apartment under Broadway Bridge and seemed to have received a fairly decent bike from his parents which he posted on craigslist at a substantial discount in order to afford a trip to Vegas (true story).

In the past two weeks my inability to justify my carbon footprint has only been exacerbated by the Portland City Council and Mayor Sam Adams proposal to apply $20 million dollars of the cities transportation budget to improve upon the bike-ways of PDX. To put this in context the average mile of road costs $6 million dollars to complete and the overall cost of the construction of the bike-ways of Portland so far has been approximately $6 million. The city believes that this increase in infrastructure will help to cultivate the PDX bike culture and raise the approximate percentage of the city residents that are bike commuters from 5% to 25%.

Mining the Moon: Energy for 10,000 Years

noreply@blogger.com (pnwweekendwarriors) — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 13:58:00 +0000

10,000 Years Worth of Potential Energy in Moons Helium Reserves

In 2004, then President George Bush announced his vision to send another manned mission to the Moon by 2020. To many, the Presidents interest in the Moon, like most of Mr. Bush's interests seemed almost childlike. Most when thinking about the excitement of the lunar landing remeber the space race, as the United States and Russia struggled to demonstrate who's ideologies would be at the forefront of world adoration. Until last Monday, July 20th, the anniversary of the first lunar landing, I had forgotten about Mr. Bush's adolescent day dreams and the excitement of the space race. So began my research into potential reasons that another trip to the Moon might actually prove worthwhile. I knew of little that could be accomplished from such a mission other than a few nice pictures and the stroking of the American pride. To my suprise, I stumbled across information on Moon mining and what seemed like an L. Ron Hubbard esque substance that could potentially yield enough clean energy to power the world for 10,000 years called Helium 3. Scientists believe that this substance laying in the soils of the Moon is potentially pollution free and would generate only slight amounts of radioactive waste. Being dubbed the, "second Moon race" it seems there may be more players in competition for this clean relatively everlasting resource . Since Oct. 4th 1957 when Russia put Sputnik into orbit the United States, France, Japan, China, UK, India, Israel, Ukraine, Russia and Iran have all sent rockets into space. With enough energy to cleanly power the world until the year 12,000 the seond trip to the Moon may shape up to be more then a sight seeing tour.

Opening the Lens to Sustainability

noreply@blogger.com (pnwweekendwarriors) — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 18:51:00 +0000

Ed kashi -Nigeria, 2006 Series: Curse of the Black Gold: 50 Years of Oil in the Niger Delta

The Prix Pictet is an award presented each year by former head of the U.N. and Prix Pictet Honorary President Kofi Annan. The prize symbolizes the best in combining artistic photography with contemporary sustainability issues. From deforestation to famine the award recognizes images that hope to inspire compassion and action aimed at educating the world on the scars being left on the face of the world by humanity.

Bush Era Loggin Expansion Halted by Obama Administration... Hip Hip Hoooray

noreply@blogger.com (pnwweekendwarriors) — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 13:38:00 +0000

Northern Spotted Owl 1 - Bush Administration 0

Among the many duche-bag moves the Bush administration made one that hit very close to home was the WOPR or the Western Oregon Plan Revision. This WOPR's direct goal was to open 2.6 million acres of land from Salem to Roseburg and over to Coos Bay for logging. The old growth forest of the Pacific Northwest were at even great risk until yesterday when Interior Secretary Ken Salazar noticed that the proposed plan broke the law. What the federal government has come to discover is that the science of the proposed logging "revision" had been purposefully and illegally skewed by the former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife Julie MacDonald. If it was that easy for a former Deputy Assistant to revise scientific information for personal and political agenda you can only imagine what the more powerful decision makers have had there fingers in. This decision not only comes to the defense of some of the most beautiful old growth temperate rainforest in the country but it also comes to the defense of the endangered Norhtern Spotted Owl.

To read a more detailed article click here.

The Lost Coast

noreply@blogger.com (pnwweekendwarriors) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 03:24:00 +0000

Lost Rocks

Moonstone Beach

The Promontory (in the foreground to the right)

July 4th afforded Alyssa and I the opportunity to venture south. Having heard from Aaron and Keri about the great bouldering next to the Humboldt county surf we made our way Thursday night to Golds Beach campground in Prairie Creek Redwoods National Forest. The campsite was of great demand and to our dismay but not our surprise the first come first serve campground was full-up with Oregonians, Wash-a-tonians and Californians. With a little luck we snuck my little truck into the single parking spot left and transferred our supplies to the cab laying 0ut our sleeping pads in the bed and spending the night in the truck, out of the sight of the pesky rangers.

Waking the next morning to the sound of the surf inspired us to venture about 5 miles north on highway 101 to the beach directly south of the Klamath River delta, Klamath Beach aka Lost Rocks. Being early enough out to the beach we were the first to hit some classic problems made famous by Joe Kinder and Chris Linder in Spray. The fog stayed on strong throughout the day but the rock miraculously stayed dry. We spent the majority of the day taking in the scenery napping on the beach and climbing some great problems.

That evening we ventured inland to the Kamp Klamath campsite where we were surprised to meet our new friends Brian and Maria. Both of whom were also from Minnesota and had attended the University of Wisconsin River Falls. Sharing a campfire we talked for a few hours as elk rustled in the woods not far away.

The next morning we headed for Arcata to spend some quality holiday time in style. Fortunate for us we found a hotel on the town square and spent the day at the local fair and the night watching fireworks. Arcata is an interesting town, as a seaside industry hub and settling ground for the die hard hippies of the sixties it makes for an interesting mix of art galleries and warehouses.

On Sunday we decided to briefly visit Moonstone Beach. Known as much for its surf as its bouldering we started our day with some great climbs and good views of the local swells. Unfortunately, Alyssa's cold had gone from bad to worse and we decided to call it quits and make the journey back home. On our way we pulled over to look at what was to be the icing on our cake The Promontory, a sport climbing spot just off of 101. We both decided it was a good reason to come back and continued the seven hour hike back to Portland.

The foggy weekend was one of the most gorgeous we have ever had. The scenery is beyond words and left us both wanting more.

Careers Kids and Poison at Carver Woods

noreply@blogger.com (pnwweekendwarriors) — Thu, 21 May 2009 18:43:00 +0000

Due to the recent struggle for suggestions from our viewers, we have yet to post any new trips.

The Summer is fast approaching and the opportunity for us to experience some new and exciting adventures/ideas are in motion.

We struggled to get the sand boarding underway, but we promise that this will be posted at some point.

I guess the most recent activity we have document was bouldering at Carver. Nothing to crazy, went there after work on Thursday and explored the area as well as sending some routes.
One of the harder routes of the day was a route we named Careers & Kids, rating it a V4, this route had some tricky moves. The difficulty of this route wasn't so much the moves but the area where the route was located.
Situated on top of 3 or 4 other boulders, access to this problem was quite difficult to get to. with very little area to start the route. Crevices on all sides of the boulder dropping about 20ft to the forest floor added a tingling sensation in some areas of the body. The picture won't do it justice at all.

Connor put together this sick sequence of the problem

Trip was successful except for 1 minor thing... Connor broke out with Poison Ivy a few days later.

If you make your Carver watch out for that killer P.I. and also watch out for Edward from Twilight.

-Aaron-

Beach Boulderin in Depoe Bay

noreply@blogger.com (pnwweekendwarriors) — Tue, 12 May 2009 00:39:00 +0000

A late Friday afternoon conversation lead us to Depoe Bay early Saturday morning. A few hours car ride from Portland we set off for what was known as Bob's Creek Wayside, where we had seen a few photos of large seemingly solid rock on a local real estate website. So we headed out and from our car window spied this boulder sitting just about a mile outside of Depoe Bay, OR. Needless to say we never made it to Bob's Creek Wayside. After an attempt or two Aaron made the ascent of what would come to be known as Marry Mo.

Climbing at Smith Day 2

noreply@blogger.com (pnwweekendwarriors) — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 18:35:00 +0000

Smith

Aaron on Breakdown in Paradise

Keri on Cosmos

Connor on Zonkers

With a well rested night spent motel'd instead of camped we headed out with renewed vigor and enthusiasm. A little earlier than the day before we arrived at Smith, with Cosmos (5.10a) on our mind.

The first climb of the day came on the Red Wall where Aaron onsighted a 5.10b known as Breakdown in Paradise. With a suprisingly less crowded day we had no trouble getting onto the climb. The rock proved to be a battle ground for Aaron who worked victoriously through the last two bolts and flew through the first two.

After Cosmos we headed through the pass and found our way to the Mesa Verde wall where Aaron's challenge awaited in Cosmos. With a short wait for a couple of climbers who were ascending the crack above his line Aaron suited up and strapped in flashing the route with grace. Fluidly utilizing the small Peanut M&M like nubbins to pull his way through to the top out.

With this being his last climb and inspired on by Aaron's flash of the 10a, Connor set his sights on the climb directly right of Cosmos. With his cold subsiding he onsighted Screaming Yellow Zonkers 5.10b. This route left aprox. 6 ft of rope to spare and helped to end the weekend on an inpsiring note.

Soon after we departed and made the quiet and relaxing drive back through the desert into the Cascades and onto highway 5 back into Portland.

Smith Rock ----- Saturday April 4

noreply@blogger.com (pnwweekendwarriors) — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 18:05:00 +0000

Days 1st Climb

Days Last Climb Prep

Aaron on the Arete

Aaron Finishing Out the Day

Connor came down with a hellish cold mid week which put our trip in jeopardy, but with a late night decision Friday night we were gonna head out Saturday morning.

After a very interesting car ride down, we arrived at the park. Clear blue skies temps in the mid 70's made for a great start to the weekend

The walls were packed with climbers and routes were thin to chose from. First available wall was a 5.8 crimper. With 3 people in our crew (Connor, Aaron and Keri). We were ready to climb. Leading the climb was Aaron, who flashed up the wall and set the top rope. Next was Connor who flashed up w/ his cold and all and last was Keri. Keri's 1st ascent as a climber.

After completing the climb we packed up and moved on. We were in search of Cosmos a route Connor had suggested that we climb. Approaching the area we noticed quite a few people on the route so
our plan of climbing the 5.10a was spoiled. Another day, hopefully tomorrow.

We started to head back to camp since it dusk was setting in.

Making our way over the treacherous pass, we came across Double Trouble. An arete climb which Aaron craved to ascend. This would be the last climb of the day.

Booo....

noreply@blogger.com (pnwweekendwarriors) — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 18:04:00 +0000

Due to the rainy weather on the coast, we were unable to bust out the sand boards in Florence. Stay tuned.

This Weekend Smith and Florence

noreply@blogger.com (pnwweekendwarriors) — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 16:31:00 +0000

Climbing and Sandboarding are on the agenda for the weekend. Keep checking out the blog to see what happens after this weekend. Until then these below should suffice!

She Will Be Riding In Our Backpacks

noreply@blogger.com (pnwweekendwarriors) — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 16:57:00 +0000

The Newest Warrior: Jocelyn Jean Nooyen

Backcountry Skiing Broken Top Mountain

noreply@blogger.com (pnwweekendwarriors) — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 20:22:00 +0000

Set in the 3 sister wilderness, Broken Top sets itself aside from the aesthetically pleasing North, Middle and South sister by its gnarly peaks. Topping in elevation around 10,000 ft hundreds of years ago, the glacier had eroded to show its volcanic crater. With this crater carved out, skiable terrain is present through the void. With skiable vert around 3600ft, runs seem endless and fluid. Some facings on the slope can reach up to 55 degrees which makes degree of difficulty quite high. With weather deciding the out come of this trip, skiing here could be euphoric.

Vicariously Decide For Us: Florence, OR Sand Dunes

noreply@blogger.com (pnwweekendwarriors) — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 19:09:00 +0000

The largest costal expanse of sand dunes in North America is located on the Central Oregon coast near Florence, OR. The home of the worlds only sandboard park this area is renowned for large windswept dunes that lead one to believe they are in the middle of the Sahara rather than in the middle of the Oregon Coast. These dunes were the inspiration for the classical Sci-Fi novel Dune based on the authors research on the area. The dunes lie at the foot of the Suislaw river a tributary of three seperate mountain streams that over millions of years have deposited mountain sediment from the Cascade Range into the bay where it was again washed up onto shore and deposited to create our next weekend retreat, depending on the votes.

Tom Dick & Harry Mountain 3/7/09

noreply@blogger.com (pnwweekendwarriors) — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 19:15:00 +0000

The View on the Way Up

The Climb up the Face

Cornice Ridge Where We Dropped In

Summit Ridge Where we Reached the Top

Tom Dick & Harry Mountain

As we embarked on our first trip unofficially as the PNW Weekend Warriors, we decided to track into the great backcountry of Tom, Dick and Harry.

We made our way up to Skibowl Resort were we would start this epic journey. Such a journey would make Bilbo Baggins blush.

Estimated time of arrival........8:30am. After getting geared up for the hike in, pack consisting of probe (which was a fold-able tent stabilizer), Beacons (which we borrowed from a friend, who knows if we actually knew how to use them), Shovels (borrowed again), skis, board, agua and of course 1 orange and 1 nanner. Having our other buddy, Ryan, providing the crucial ingredient for survival providing the life saving GPS, we were off.

We decided that we researched the area all week and were confident that we would be familiar enough to leave the map back at the car (Rule #1 - always take the map). From Skibowl parking lot we walked approx 1/2 mile along Rt 26 down to the Mirror Lake Trail head.

Full of spunk and what proved to be very vulnerable life, our short 2 mile hike in, would prove to be a breeze for these 4 strapping gentleman. The hike through the forest was quite breath taking. The snow piled inches thick on each unfortunate branch to grow out from the tree. Being the first trip into the Oregon BC for all for of us the beauty and breadth of the hike surpassed any expectations we had.

About a 1.5 hr hike in lead us to Mirror Lake where we suspected to see what would be our lines. This would have been the perfect resting stop to soak in the views and point out where we would make our turns and routes., but that wasn't going to happen this weekend.
As we arrived at Mirror Lake visibility was close to nill. A snow squall (I don't even know if that's an actual weather term, but whatever it was) rolled in and blinded us from the immaculate ideal we had all pictured in our head days before in our cozy cubicles. As we sat there a lone ski-soldier rolled up and advised us that the snow conditions were to die for, actual quote "I have never skied snow like this before." Even though we couldn't see a few spare cliff lines came into view ahead and we knew that if the snow pack proved safe this would be kilelr. So after a brief discussion as to how/which direction we would take to the summit we started out again.

Following recent tracks from skiers and snowshoers we made it to the tree break. Snow paralyzing our view of the great Tom Dick and Harry Peak did not slow us down. Like a child hopped up on mountain dew we blazed trail up the 35-40 degree pitch for about 3 minutes when fatigue set in, remember we only had an orange and a banana. Blazing trail in untouched snow seemed to slow even us seasoned (ahem) mountain...yes men....

As we arrived at the summit around 11am we started to suit up. At this time and F5 tornado decided to drop in on us, the storm had gotten worse than before and the southern winds blew across the top of the peak with unexpected ferocity. Few photos here few photo there, some lunch (orange a banana, a soggy sandwich that was only half eaten), we dressed and prepared for our descent by checking cornice ridge. Falling into an unplanned line turned out to be some of the best riding any of us had ever had the good graces to experience. Thigh high powder, no wind on the north side of the mountain and the feeling of euphoria made this ONE run an instant classic.

Will finish story..