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January 23rd, 2008
Idiocracy is exactly what you get when you mix the following few key ingredients:
- (2) Delayed Flights
- (720 oz) Vitamin R
- (12 hrs) Sunshine
- (6″) Fresh Snow
- (.5 oz) Trees
- (12 mi) Hiking
- (3) Good Friends
- (1) Oregon
Mike, Chris and Dan flew into Portland this past Thursday evening to find me waiting with a 6-pack of Rainier tall boys and a mason jar of ‘good times’ in hand. It was quite the reception and the fun started immediately…well, after a stop at Burger King. Cross country travel makes you hungry, too bad Lewis & Clark didn’t have fast food along the trail.
Enjoy our first round of Vitamin R…ahhhhh!
Once in Hood River we wasted little time cracking beers and cracking nuts. In fact, I accidentally ball cracked Mike in his left nut. What else would you expect when a ball is being presented OUTSIDE someone’s pants. Silly rabbit, ball taps are for kids!
Here Mike demonstrates his best “Ow My Balls” impression
The next day we headed to Mt. Hood for some unseasonably sunny and warm conditions on the slopes. The entire day was spent under bluebird skies on soft, perfect snow. Upper Heather Canyon was finally open. We spent much of our time playing in the expansive terrain this area offers.
Riding the Cascade Express, blue bird all the way!
Mike took a little spill coming down Upper Heather Canyon.
Stopping to smell the pines in the backcountry of Private Reserve.
Dan carves a nice turn on Yoda Bowl while a white afro wearing tree looks on.
The next day we decided to take a break from the mountain so we headed to Eagle Creek to do a little hiking. The drive through the Gorge was beautiful…as usual. After a stop at Punch Bowl Falls, I decided to take the gang up a near by scramble trail that proved to be a bit sketchy. I’m not sure if anyone aside from April and Dan actually enjoyed this, though I sure did. After all, what’s a hike without a little danger?
Wet and wild, 12 miles of hiking never felt so good!
Chris slowly crosses one of the many side creeks. This doesn’t look tricky, but believe me, it’s extremely slippery. One wrong move and you’re breaking a leg (or worse) and for the record, this IS the trail.
We pushed on to Tunnel Falls which is always worth the 12 miles of effort. A nice dinner and beers was the call for the remainder of the night. We all slept like babies.
The next morning we rose at the crack of dawn and hit the road for another day on the mountain. With 6″ of fresh, dry snow, there was no time to waste. We ended up getting 4th chair and FIRST tracks down one of the trails on the HRM side of the mountain. Effortless floating is the only way to describe the feeling. No time for pictures on a day like this.
The guys left early Monday morning. It seemed like their visit was merely 8 hours. In only 3 days we skied blue bird, warm sunny conditions, hiked in typical Oregon wet weather and skied fresh snow! In between we partied, wrestled, ate like kings, and all became better friends.
Now go away! I’m ‘bating!
tom |
Outdoor Adventures, Personal |
January 10th, 2008
I received a call from my brother-in-law, Jason, today telling me he was watching a bird of prey die in a parking lot in Reading, PA. At first he and I both though it might be a peregrine falcon based on it being seen in a city. Turns out after seeing the photos he sent me, it’s a broad-winged hawk. According to Jason it’s beak is cracked so I’m assuming it must of flown into a building, car or some other man made ‘thing’.
I hate to see such a beautiful predator die like this, alone on a cold stretch of pavement. I’m glad Jason was there to pick it up and give it a proper resting place in the woods.
Buteo platypterus aka Broad-Winged Hawk. R.I.P.
tom |
Personal, etc. |
January 6th, 2008
Another day on the mountain, another foot of snow. In fact, in the past month we’ve only gone 3 days (at best) with less than 3″ of new snow.
The same old forecast. This normally equates to 2 feet per week.
Here’s a shitty video of me skiing down through Yoda Bowl this morning. Click the image to view.
Serb booked another trip out to slide around in this seasons unreal conditions. He’ll be visiting from February 5th – 10th! We’ll be hitting the slopes hard and the bars even harder. Scorpion Bowls will be flowing like gypsy blood.
Only two weeks from now 3 friends from my days at Refinery will be here to visit as well. Things are about to get crazy!
tom |
Outdoor Adventures, Personal |
December 29th, 2007
This year I added a new set of skis to my quiver, the 2008 Salomon Foils. They’re the 182’s and so far have been tons of fun. I’ve skied backcountry deep pow and groomers without a single complaint. They’re flickable in the air and quick underfoot.
All mountain meets big mountain.
My 1080 Gun Labs are now sporting the new Marker Duke bindings. The versatility these bindings allow are unmatched. I’m anxious to skin up and tour on them as soon as these constant PNW storms allow. At 101mm underfoot these are my first choice for deep snow. They float without being a dedicated powder plank.
No more hiking the skis in on my back. With the flip of a switch we’re in touring mode. See ya at the top suckas!
My Gun Labs in their natural habitat…deep and untracked! The early bird gets the goods.
tom |
Gear |
December 27th, 2007
It’s a La Niña year out here in the Pacific Northwest and with it TONS of snow! It’s been snowing on the mountain almost everyday for 3-4 weeks straight, with no break in sight. Every day I look at the forecast and it reads the same: 12-18″ of snow expected. While Oregon is normally known for wetter, heavier snow, this season has been the exact opposite. We’re drowning in light, fluffy, powder…and I’m not hearing any complaints! Especially with a base of 108 inches and growing.
Between storms I caught this glimpse of our best buddy, Mount Hood.
April and I went hiking around up at Post Canyon to see some of the new construction that’s happening. The Gorge Freeride Association started building a beginner jump line, so far it’s looking like tons of fun.
Here’s part of the line, nice manageable jumps with low risk. This is only a small fraction of the entire trail. You can see April standing on the last table top for scale. Fun!
Yesterday April and I headed out to snowshoe to a waterfall we haven’t seen. It was an easy 5 mile hike round trip and well worth it.
April blazes a trail through a huge boulder garden and avalanche slide area.
Trails end. Tamawanas Falls, add another waterfall to our book.
Today we went to Mount Hood Meadows to enjoy the deep snow. April and I took a few warm up runs together as I inched further and further into the woods till finally I just headed into the “Private Reserve” backcountry area of the mountain. This area features very steep pitches, cliff drops, and more untracked snow than you could hope for. It’s also a hike out area so there’s a cost to such great terrain and conditions. However this keeps the traffic to a minimum.
Checking snow depth…drop a pole without stabbing. I’ll take it. 
Big untracked pillows waiting to be violated. I raped as many as I could.
Tomorrow we’re heading back to get the first chair as another foot or two is in the forecast. If the snow keeps up, we might set the single season record!
tom |
Outdoor Adventures, Personal |
November 6th, 2007
With the summer behind us it’s time to start planning for its white counterpart–Winter! Forecasters are predicting a big snow year as La Nina moves through the Pacific Northwest. It’s hard for me to imagine what “big” might mean as the past winter was the most snow I’ve ever witnessed. With over 10 “over-boot-deep” powder days last season I’m very excited for the prospect of what this winter might have in store.
As it turns out, I’m not the only one excited about this coming winter. A few friends from my days at Refinery, now G2, are scheduled for a visit from Jan 19-22 to partake in the winter wonderland that is the Cascade Mountains. Mike, Dan & Chris will be visiting April and I, ready to take on special little things like, Private Reserve, Scorpion Bowls, Heather Canyon, Oregon Green and maybe even some hot springs. I think it goes without saying Hood River will once again be blind-sided from another testosterone filled visit from Philly guys. I just hope no one gets pregnant this time ’round. Judging from the picture above, I’d say there’s every chance the town will “burn”.
Good times.
tom |
Outdoor Adventures, Personal |
July 18th, 2007
It’s summer in Oregon which means there’s very little time to sit behind computers and write drawn out posts about the daily happenings ’round these parts. A lot has been going on, too much to tell in words…so I’ll let the pictures tell the story.
“Even I can’t believe how bad I am at the art of conversation!”
Nunan and I chilling at one of the falls on the McKenzie River Trail.
Nunan crossing a high log on the Falls Creek trail.
Ummmm, beer! Getting hooked on Lost Lake.
Please eat this asshole.
Might wanna lose that full face bucket for this ride…McKenzie River Trail style.
We got an invite to stay at the private Cloud Cap Inn which is owned by the Crag Rats. They’re the guys who do all the search and rescue missions on Mount Hood. Here are a few assholes I work with: Kimballs, Russ, Bryan and Abe.
Glauser came to visit. Here is he getting the ball shocker in the ice cold water.
Chilling at the top of Falls Creek Falls. A nice spring, rainy Oregon day.
Chris and I took Floaty down a section of the Klickitat River. Easy class II whitewater with ease.
The crawdads get perrty big in these parts!
Nothing like chilling along side The Blue Pool along the McKenzie River Trail. It’s hard to believe that this photo wasn’t enhanced in anyway. This water is much bluer than anything in the Caribbean.
We’ve been doing A LOT of fishing this summer. It’s not uncommon for us to have fresh trout multiple times in one week. Here April’s huge rainbow commands the center of the grill. My two 12 inch brookies are pushed to the side.
April’s sister, cousin and niece and nephew came to visit. Here we are hiking on the Cooper Spur Trail on Mount Hood.
Abe and I hiked up towards the Snow Dome on Mount Hood to get some July backcountry turns in.
April and decided to get some landscaping done to the front of the house. We wanted to flatten out the top of the front hill to create a nice yard. Here’s the before shot.
During the placement of boulders…
…and after most of the boulders were in place. I’ll take another picture once we have the sod laid and some trees and other plants planted.
Our garden in the back yard is starting to produce some nice sized veggies. April takes notice.
We just visited our friends Tara and Graham up in Snoqualmie for some mountain biking. We had a great time. More on that when time permits. Back to the playground!
tom |
Outdoor Adventures, Personal, etc. |
June 6th, 2007
Every since all the jackasses left things have been a blur. Summer is here and with it comes lots of activity. I’m going to keep the words to a minimum and let the pictures do the story telling, which always seems to be the better choice.
The New Job
I took the creative director job at Summit Projects a few weeks ago. Things have been going pretty well, no real complaints. It’s been a rough transition from having the freedom of a full-time freelancer to a full-time slave. All in all though it’s been fun and I’ve been traveling a lot. Craig, the CEO of Summit is also a pilot. When we travel, we normally fly in his Jetprop plane. It seats 6 people and is a blast to fly. During a recent trip to Eugene he let me take the yoke to take-off and fly up and over Mount Hood. It was a little scary but tons of fun. It’s amazing flying over such big mountains in such a small plane.
That’s niner-one-eight-three Quebec to you pal.
The New Boat
April and I recently bought a 2 person inflatable pontoon boat that I found on Craig’s List. The guy we bought it from never used it so we ended up buying it for half price. This past weekend we took it on it’s maiden voyage to Lost Lake where we camped and enjoyed the great weather. We caught rainbow trout on almost every cast. It was actually too easy. The boat worked really well and we ate like kings with fresh trout over the fire. Yum.
April as the oarsman with Mount Hood in the distance.
The New Sport
I decided recently to start learning to kiteboard. It doesn’t make sense to live in an area where people literally travel from around the globe to windsurf or kiteboard and not learn one or the other. Russ, a guy I work with and an excellent kiter, agreed to give me some free lessons. I purchased a cold water wetsuit and started learning. We started on a 4 meter kite, on land, and now I’m up to a 7 meter on water where I’m learning body drags. It shouldn’t be long till I’m actually on the board and skimming around. The power of the wind is unreal. It’s VERY easy to drop the kite into one of the “power zones” and allow the wind to pull you off the ground. It’s pretty cool floating around effortlessly.
Russ, me and his crazy dog Drake walking our equipment out to a sandbar on the Columbia River.
Russ showing me “the ropes”. I just got yanked head first into the drink.
Viola! I’m flying the kite successfully, keeping it in the neutral zone.
The Pop-in
When April and I relocated 2800 miles away we never thought we’d experience a pop-in, but low and behold, even Pokerface can find his way to the wilds of Hood River.
Wasssup PF? Doug chilled with us for an evening then split to catch a flight home. He was in Portland working and had some time to kill. It was cool hanging with him for a night, he seemed like a different person. Good times.
The Visitors
Joy and her boyfriend Billy came to visit for a week. While I had to work, April spent her hours showing them around and having some fun. We drove down to the Sister’s area of Oregon and mountain biked the McKenzie River Trail which is always super fun. The next day we went rafting on the White Salmon, the water was raging and Joy got seriously mowed over as seen below.
Joy preparing for the wave.
SPLUUUUUUSSSSSHHHHH!
Only feet.
Resurfaced!
The End
Whewww! So that’s about it for now. Chris Glauser arrives tonight for a week visit, then Nunan will arrive for 2 weeks. Things just keep on getting crazier around here and more fun by the day.
tom |
Outdoor Adventures, Personal, Professional |
May 9th, 2007
The jackass visit has come and gone and things around here continue to move on. The daily temperature continues to rise and with it, the summer fun. It was great having 6 of the greatest friends on earth share my little place in the world, if even for just 5 days. The early morning airport drop-off wasn’t easy…and driving away was even harder. Though with anything worthwild in life…comes sacrifice, which is why we made every second of the 5 days count.
Day 1 (Wednesday): Airport Pick up, Hike, Party
I arrived at the PDX airport to pick up the guys around 11:30am. Spirits were high, even though the van I rented was a bit cramped with all the luggage and snowboards.
7 assholes with gear and luggage in a minivan. Good times.
Regardless, we piled in, some more comfortable than others, and started the 50 mile drive to Hood River. We stopped off at Mr. B’s Lounge (a truck stop bar) for some beers, lunch and a little gambling. Serb quickly won $10 playing some video slots while Davi-t lost everything. After lunch, we drove to Hood River and got settled. Davi-t and Drew shared a bed, Henry some how talked himself into a private room while Pete crashed in the garage, Clarkie on the sofa, and Serb played watch dog on the back deck.
Serb enjoying the great outdoors of 1311 Cascade Ave.
We then loaded into the van and headed across the river to Washington to hike the Falls Creek Falls Trail. We started hiking through the old growth forest along Fall Creek which was running rather quickly from the spring rain earlier in the week.
Davi-t was ready to go, but quickly ran out of steam half way up the trail (as seen below).
The trail is open to hiking, biking and crawling if you’re Davi-t.
The falls are 3 tiers high and a total of 305 feet. We spent about an hour crawling around to the slippery top and bottom of the tiers.
It’s hard to describe these falls in words, they’re just massive!
Day 2 (Thursday): Bike, Party
We woke early as most everyone was still on east coast time. Henry was already in search of his next meal, while the rest of us walked down town to Ground, a local coffee shop for a cup of joe and to see if we could rent the bikes a day early from the local bike shops. Sure enough, the bikes were available so we took them and headed to Post Canyon for a day of riding. Our first stop was at “Family Man” a large loop of bridges, skinnies and other various stunts for beginners or just a warm up.
Our warm up consisted of mostly drinking large quanities of Rainier, or “vitamin R” as it’s commonly know out here.
From here we pushed up to the start of a trail called “8-Track” which is a super fun, flowy, stunt filled wonderland. Many of the stunts we rode multiple times as we were taking our time and enjoying the great weather.
Davi-t givin’ er!
Pete had mucho trouble with this bridge. Notice the look on his face…priceless!
Here I am in super concentration mode.
Serb about to drop a fun little 4 footer. After this drop the trail snakes through 6 perfect berms!
With well over 150 built stunts in these woods, it’s no wonder most of the locals don’t bother making the 7 hour drive to Whistler.
We wrapped up the ride and started drinking back at the house. This quickly turned into madness, as usual, but lots of fun nonetheless.
“Sup!” Every night was a big night with Henry around. Flip cup on the back deck.
Nothing like an unattended fire on the front deck!
Day 3 (Friday): Bike, Party
Day 3 started off much the same as day 2. After some breakfast we headed across the bridge into Washington and 5 miles east to Syncline, a natural geological feature that also serves as a great area to bike. We shuttled to the top, as usual, and started our ride with a head of steam. Once we exited the forest we were welcomed to incredible views, strong winds and miles of wild flower lined single track!
Pete reflecting on his true homosexual roots.
Shocker in the house!
Drew chillin’ and taking in all the beauty…or just trying to avoid the constant ass stench from everyone else.
Drew slides under the tree branch at top speed.
After Syncline we drove back to Post Canyon for another run, though this time we shuttled to the top of the mountain. This is where the huge ski jumps can be found as well as other insane stunts for your suicidal pleasure. The shuttle to the top in the rental van proved to be an adventure in itself. The primitive road isn’t exactly built for minivans, though Pete rallied it to the top like a pro.
“Look ma, no socks!”
The crew taking a break prior to dropping into the lower section of 8-Track.
Serb’s feet after he used his socks as toilet paper. What an asshole.
By the time we got back to the top of the mountain snow had started to fall.
After some dinner at Brian’s Pour House, we headed to The Pub for a few beers before hitting Jack’s for more scorpion bowls.
Chillin’ at the Horse & Hound.
Pete tries his sausages on the keys.
Once at Jack’s, all hell broke loose…as usual. Within 20 minutes we were dumping scorpion bowls on each other, breaking ashtrays, throwing ice and anything else in sight. This is the point in the evening where I started forgetting things. Abe and Michael Chen joined the party though I don’t really remember them being around.
Enjoying a few bowls.
Which lead to this…
…and this…
…and ultimately this. It takes a special kind of asshole to pass out while sitting upright.
Day 4 (Saturday): Whitewater Raft, Party
We woke to a pretty decent sunny day and drove to Wet Planet where we’d get geared up for our rafting trip down the middle and lower White Salmon River. The White Salmon’s waters are fed from the glacial melt water of Mount Adams. This means that the water temperature never gets above 50 degrees or so. In our case, it was right around 40 degrees. Which isn’t bad unless you have to swim. Our guide, Liz, flipped the whole raft over on us as a joke. I’m not sure if we were laughing. This would be a class III-IV run.
Geared up and lookin’ gay!
“You said this was class II right?”
“Even I can’t believe how much of an asshole I am!”
Pete, Henry and I jumped off the bridge to the ice cold water below.
That night we headed back to Jack’s, more scorpion bowls, more throwing shit, more breaking shit, Henry wrestled serb to the ground a few times and some how, through all of this, we never got kicked out. We headed home dazed and confused as usual. This was starting to hurt.
Day 5 (Sunday): Skiing, Portland/Titty Bar
We woke the next morning and got a late start but decided to head to Mount Hood Meadows for some spring skiing/boarding. The weather was perfect, 70 degrees & sunny. T-shirts, no gloves, and lots of fun.
Henry carving up Heather Canyon!
Pete and Henry taking a break. The conditions were perfect!
The crew enjoying some beers and listening to live music at the base. We were in the “Fun Zone”!
On the way home, we pulled off to the side of the road and danced with Mount Hood in the background.
Once home, everyone packed up their things and we headed to Portland for the night. We were going to stay at the Jupiter Hotel which is connected to The Doug Fir Lounge where we ate dinner. From there, we walked 2 blocks to Union Jack’s, one of Oregon’s million strip bars. Hot girls, full nudity, full service bar. What more could you want? How about 10 more weeks of this shit?
Carley and Clarkie chillin’ at The Galaxy after a night at Union Jack’s. Good times.
Day 6 (Monday): Airport Drop-off
As with anything good, it must come to an end. We departed for the airport around 5:00am and we said our quick goodbyes as everyone was running late for their flights. It always sucks watching friends leave, especially when such a great time was had. As I pulled away I smiled at the thought of future visits as groups and individuals. Oregon isn’t going anywhere and neither are good friends. I now looked forward to 3 days of cleaning the ass stink from the house.
Good times.
tom |
Outdoor Adventures, Personal |
