Day 30

Art and Zach had real world things to attend to (Art with his cubicle at the PA Lottery and Zach painting a barn in Massachusetts) so we woke up bright and early to get them off to the airport. Alex and I then went to diner and a coffee shop in Portland where we spent the better part of the afternoon blogging, surfing the web, recuperating, and waking up. My hearing had been nearly gone for 2 days now so I found an urgency care center that I could get checked out. The prescribed antibiotics have since fixed my hearing and helped my severe cold. We returned to our campsite to reorganize all our belongings after all our stuff we recklessly strewn about when four dudes were residing in our tent and car. We found one of our neighboring campers, Jared, alone, wet, hungry, and hung-over. All his friends left him (it had been raining nonstop for 3 days) and he had no car. We drove him to town to buy food and supplies and to dry all our soggy clothing. Jared was as good as new. We went to bed ready to board again after a day hiatus.

(sorry no pictures for today but check out Alex's Blog for many more (and better) photos than I have posted)

Day 29

boarding above the clouds

The rain subsided as we reawakened. This dude named Isaac at the neighbor camp was eager to greet us. He was still drinking form the night before and was in a real good spot. He threw shoes at us, got in a fight with his rommate, tried to chop wood barefoot, and helped us start a fire. He did it again. Isaac was our dude and nothing could change that (we thought he was just an obnoxious drunk but later discovered it was just his personality) This kid could talk about nothing forever. Anyways, it cleared up just enough for us to get another awesome day of riding in on the last days Art and Zach would be here. The park was reshaped and was nice and soft to throw ourselves at. We rode through the private Windell's park a couple times to check out all the awesome features the rich kids at camp get to ride. It was awesome but we belonged in the public park (a matter of entitlement). We met up with some friends from PA, Daley and Will who live out here and are both super sick riders. We filmed a bit and hope to make an short edit from our riding out here sometime. We hiked a super low consequence down rail for a while trying weird spins on before returning to camp to pack and head for Portland. We stopped in Govy for Cobra Dogs and Volcano Cones (snack shacks that support the diggers at Mt. Hood), they were both some of the best snacks I had all trip. Dan was waiting for us in Portland. We went out on the town and had a bunch of fun.

At Cha Cha Cha's for a quick burrito snack

Alex almost made a mistake. We went to this bar named XV that had a bunch of vampires. We got in on the scene. Then we headed to some tavern across town. The scene lacked but we still had a bunch of fun as always when all our dudes our together.

An overexposed shot of XV, you get the Transylvania feel

Day 26

Portland... the most scene hippie city in all the land. Fixed gear bikes, tight pants, and quaint coffee shops. The perfect place for us and a destination that I could see one day calling my temporary home. Alex lived in Portland last summer for an internship so he had tons of local knowledge to ensure an authentic experience of the town. We toured the city for a bit before finally meeting up with our dudes Art and Zach. It was a warm reunion. Art threw a cantaloupe in the air for me to catch before I even knew he was their (I went grocery shopping while Alex picked them up from the airport). Just the kind of zany stunt that Art and I get into when together. The four us us, reunited, visited Art's aunt and uncle for a backyard cookout with their neighbors. It was a gallant affair. Art's uncle (affectionately named Zucchi from his golden days playing baseball in Texas) was a colorful character and gracious host with vivid stories about his past and family. Art's aunt Julie, a school teacher, is as nice as they come and helped us with whatever we needed during our stay in Portland. Dan, Art's cousin and engineering student at Villanova helped drive us and all our stuff to Mt. Hood where we set up camp for the night. We set camp at The airstrip near Trillium at the base of Hood.

Dan and Zach

Art helping around the kitchen

The backyard patio, the site for dinner and conversation

Alex, stoked to be back in Portland after a year hiatus

Zach just stoked to be alive and a stone's throw away from some great summer boarding

Day 17

Dawn in Zion is something everyone should witness. The colors and textures the rising sun highlights on the rock is striking. I watched the hues morph as I iced my swollen ankle on a picnic table.
Alex soon awoke too with our hundreds of neighbors at the packed campground already getting rowdy. Another day on the run as we packed and left Zion for a more wholesome place… Las Vegas. We sadly passed by the world-renowned sport climbing of the Virgin River Gorge and Red Rocks, NV but we are slightly pressed for time and I don’t mind having reason to fly into Vegas for another visit. We approached the city form the east and headed straight for the strip. We got some zany pictures of all the commotion. The delicate suggestions of nude dudes and chicks popped out everywhere.



Wild times. We tried our luck at the slots ($4 dollars worth), ate cheap sandwiches at a food court, snuck into a ritzy hotel pool to scope some babes (which we hadn’t seen in weeks), and even tied to swing a cheap room at the plush Encore hotel and casino. A couple dollars less but 10 prostitute trading cards more we left with little else to speak of (“what happens in Vegas….”).

Just one more dollar! Please!

The next 100 miles or so were spent regretting and trying to justify our decision to leave Sin City so quickly, a true representation of our unwavering morality. We crossed through some plains of Nevada then dove into the eastern Sierras of California. We passed through a bristlecone pine forest, home to the oldest living organisms in the world (some of the trees up to 4,500 years old.) The dusty roads of this desert dissolved behind us and we finally made it to Bishop, CA. Probably seems an unlikely destination to most, but climbers know it to be the highball bouldering capital of America. We set up a lovely campsite in the shadow of the Sierras, still covered in snow, and next to the mammoth boulders of the Buttermilk Area. We watched Chris Sharma and friends kill it in Bishop and elsewhere in his featured film King Lines.

Sierras in the background

A BIG boulder field