A Quick Trip to Portland
I recently went to visit my good friend Rob who moved out to Portland a couple years ago. I really enjoyed seeing him, and we had quite an action-packed weekend. Having never been to Portland, upon landing, I was greeted with beautiful sunny skies with lifting clouds, a rare site for this time of year. The shuttle bus driver told me he hadn't seen the sun in the past 10 days, so apparently I brought it along from CO. I met up with Rob, and we decided to take a long leisurely hike-stroll through the neighborhood(s). Portland was a green misty earthly breath of fresh air for me. With temperatures hovering around 50, fresh rain evaporating off the damp soil, green grass and many foreign lush looking plants and trees, I was quite impressed and amused. I can handle a winter like this, I think.
As one of the most pedestrian and biker-friendly cities a person can find, this is as opposite from UB as I have seen, besides Thailand, maybe. One thing I like about Portland was that many shops and downtown areas were equally spread out through town, and not in a stripmall like fashion. There were many cute shopping districts loaded with art galleries, coffee shops, breweries, and food-carts. As we sat down at one particular brewery, the server asked us if we had ever been there before, we replied no, and were granted a free round of drinks, impressive!
My rental car I got for $7/day. I had to argue with the rental person that I indeed COULD FIT my skis into this car. And I did, but barely .
The following morning after I arrived, I awoke to a pleasant cozy chilly fog.
Rob and I were both excited to get out of town, and do some exploring near Bend. He had to work the first half of Friday, so I decided to go and do some exploring nearer to town before we headed off on our weekend journey.
Rob pointed me to the Arboretum...which turned out to be a beautiful place for a morning walk. Many, many varieties of trees were planted here 100 or so years ago...Redwoods, Sequoia's, Red Cedar, Himalayan Birch, all sorts of deciduous varieties, and the list goes on. It was a really nice place.
Flowers in January? Wow.
A view towards downtown Portland with Mt. Hood in the background.
After the Arboretum, I took a stroll through the Japanese Gardens. Again, another beautiful green place.
Typical Japanese-garden style structures.
A sunset view of the monstrous Mt. Hood from the highway.
Our first day in Bend we decided to do some backcountry skiing. This shot was taken from the top of Tumalow Mountain, 20 minutes outside of Bend. Our original goal was to climb the South Sister, a much larger mountain, but the winter access road was closed much earlier than we had planned for, making it too far of a trek to get to. So we settled for this mountain, which was still fun and had a nice bowl on the backside. It reminded me a bit of Mt. Peck on top of Monarch Pass.
From the top of Tumalow, South Sister (10,358') is the large mountain on the left, the largest of the Three Sisters.
A view of the bowl we are about to ski into.
After a day of skiing, we spent the next day near Bend exploring Smith Rock, the climbing epicenter of Oregon. All volcanic, this spectacular area reminds me some of arid mountainous areas in Colorado, sort of Creede-like. We packed a few ropes with us and some rock climbing gear, but spent most of the day simply hiking around and exploring the area. It was a very nice day, pushing 60 degrees.
What a nice late January day!
Doing a little scrambling near the top.
Investigating the base of a multi-pitch climb, it was an ominous and curious observation to find rescue baskets stashed all over this place.
Towards the end of the day, we found a nice 100+ foot cliff to rappel off of. We tied our two ropes together and stepped off the ledge. We learned a little lesson on this rappel, a mistake that I've made before and it always comes back to bite a bit. You can see how these two bolts we are rappelling from are placed a foot or so back from the flat ledge. Well, once we both rappelled down, we quickly came to realize that the friction on the rope from the sharp flat ledge to cliff bend was too much to overcome. Our ropes were stuck, and wouldn't budge, and it was just about dark. So we ended up hiking back up, over, around, and down to our ropes to retrieve them from above. By the time we made it back to the truck, it was pushing 7:30, we still had a 3+ hour drive back to Portland, I flew out the following morning, and Rob had class from 8 to 8:30 the next day.
On our drive back to Portland, we went over a fairly large pass, next to the Timberline Lodge and Mt. Hood. There was about 8 feet of snow on the ground at the top of the pass. During our stormy drive back, heavy rain was falling, even at the top of the pass...we saw a ski area nearby with night skiing, and night skiers. A bit different than CO I suppose, but that sure sounds cold and soggy!
As one of the most pedestrian and biker-friendly cities a person can find, this is as opposite from UB as I have seen, besides Thailand, maybe. One thing I like about Portland was that many shops and downtown areas were equally spread out through town, and not in a stripmall like fashion. There were many cute shopping districts loaded with art galleries, coffee shops, breweries, and food-carts. As we sat down at one particular brewery, the server asked us if we had ever been there before, we replied no, and were granted a free round of drinks, impressive!
Rob and I were both excited to get out of town, and do some exploring near Bend. He had to work the first half of Friday, so I decided to go and do some exploring nearer to town before we headed off on our weekend journey.
Rob pointed me to the Arboretum...which turned out to be a beautiful place for a morning walk. Many, many varieties of trees were planted here 100 or so years ago...Redwoods, Sequoia's, Red Cedar, Himalayan Birch, all sorts of deciduous varieties, and the list goes on. It was a really nice place.
Interesting gravel pit.
A nice mossy sidewalk.
The top of the rappel.
Random fact: if you've ever had Deschute's Black Butte Porter, you can see Black Butte in this photo, just to the left of the large Monkey Face tower. Kinda cool.
Towards the end of the day, we found a nice 100+ foot cliff to rappel off of. We tied our two ropes together and stepped off the ledge. We learned a little lesson on this rappel, a mistake that I've made before and it always comes back to bite a bit. You can see how these two bolts we are rappelling from are placed a foot or so back from the flat ledge. Well, once we both rappelled down, we quickly came to realize that the friction on the rope from the sharp flat ledge to cliff bend was too much to overcome. Our ropes were stuck, and wouldn't budge, and it was just about dark. So we ended up hiking back up, over, around, and down to our ropes to retrieve them from above. By the time we made it back to the truck, it was pushing 7:30, we still had a 3+ hour drive back to Portland, I flew out the following morning, and Rob had class from 8 to 8:30 the next day.
On our drive back to Portland, we went over a fairly large pass, next to the Timberline Lodge and Mt. Hood. There was about 8 feet of snow on the ground at the top of the pass. During our stormy drive back, heavy rain was falling, even at the top of the pass...we saw a ski area nearby with night skiing, and night skiers. A bit different than CO I suppose, but that sure sounds cold and soggy!
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