february wind.

Been another minute since i updated this thing. Things have been pretty busy, especially at school. Lots of little projects in each class have been converging and forcing me to stay on my toes. It's been pretty fun though. Since the new semester started and classes switched around i find myself having a foundation laid out and actually teaching rather than stressing what i'm going to do the next day.

So two weekends ago i headed up to the mountain on super bowl sunday. None of my friends in Portland were really down for heading up to the mountain... football... ehh. I'm usually not down with just cruising by myself, but i ended up having a blast. The weather was amazing, a little on the chilly side in the morning, but then the sun came out. There were absolutely no lift lines due to the game. I'm used to riding with my friends out here cruising around the mountain finding little natural jumps, hips, cliffs, trees, etc. to ride. No one's really down for hitting the park, but it's cool because i have a blast riding the other stuff. Back in ohio all we do is ride park/street. So because i was riding by myself i decided to lap the park all day. There were two jumps back to back, a low line, and high line (smaller jump/bigger jump) the low line was maybe 25 feet, and the high line was 35-40ish? After feeling out the speed situation, started spinning the high line jumps. It felt real good to get some jumps in, i miss riding with the dudes back in ohio, where all we do are these kinds of freestyle maneuvers. The jumps led into the halfpipe, so it was a ton of fun, and quite the workout. After a solid three hours, my legs were jelly, and i laughed as i had difficulty moving around when i got home. I took the hood river route back to the peninsula, and stopped in hood river to grab a bite to eat.

This past weekend started by heading up to the varsity basketball game on friday. Nick was going to be up this weekend with his family. This weekend was another clam tide, this time i was a lot more prepared than last. I actually had boots that fit, rather than trying to squeeze my size 12 foot into a size 9.5 boot... ouch. The weather was amazing and the tide was in the afternoon.
I met up with Nick's family and friends, and we were rolling pretty deep, like 20 of us or something crazy like that. It was so easy to spot the clams this time, Nick and i got our 15 limit in like 20 minutes. Afterwards, we helped everyone else get their 15 limit.
We got back to Nick's place and decided to collect some "steamers". Apparently you can grab these little mini clams out on the bay, and i didn't know till a few days ago that i can do this in my backyard. Usually Nick's family would take a boat to Long Island to collect the steamers. However, with Kim's bayfront property we drove to my house, put on the boots and headed out.
We walked out with little mini garden rakes. The clams like to hang out in gravel bars. So basically you take the rake, rake through the gravel, and they're hanging out right there... easy enough.

Nick and i walking out as the sun sets behind us.


Nick raking.


This is a photo i took from the other day, before i knew what these guys were all about.


Sunday i went back out during low tide to try and collect some more clams. I got two, then a rogue wave came and went over the tops of my boots. My feet were soaked and i was sad, so i said screw this and went home...

I have been doing out on the bay recently and taking a lot of pictures when the tide is out, now that i have some boots. Here are some of the photos from these adventures...

Real nice day on the bay.


Sun setting.


An old decaying log.



These next few i took last night at around 9pm. I took my tripod, a flatten cardboard box, and my camera of course and got some neat photos leaving the shutter open at various time intervals.
(be sure to click on the photos to see the detail, and stars in the background)












Lastly, Sans left me a comment saying they need pictures of kiki. Well if you read this thing sans here you go.

Kiki being an idiot and trying to squeeze into the smallest cardboard box...


Good job...

mlk day.

So last weekend i had intentions of heading up to hood for the weekend. However, the rain that was drenching the peninsula was also soaking mt hood. I decided to stay up on the peninsula for the weekend. Nick was up visiting with his family. Saturday we tried to go out to waikiki in hopes of catching some waves. No dice. Driftwood was out floating everywhere and it looked like crap. I ended up meeting back up with Nick and his family later on to learn how to collect razor clams.

So even before i moved out here i heard about this razor clam business when i was talking to my principal about the school program. So there are a bunch of rules/laws about collecting these special clams. A season only lasts three days per month. I'm not exactly sure what months warrant a season, but i do know that they are winter months... You're only allowed to collect 15 clams per day.

When the season does open up for the weekend, the peninsula swells in population something like 20,000+ people depending on the weather. It was raining real hard, and super windy so i didn't take too many photos. Here's a shot of a bunch of people. I guess it's like this allll the way up and down the peninsula.


Alright so first off you get super suited up, especially if it's raining. Full on rain gear, rubber boots, and most importantly your weapon of choice, a shovel or a "gun". The gun is made of PVC with a thumbsized hole near the handle.


You walk around and hit your gun or shovel on the ground. Basically if there's movement below the surface of the sand from a razor clam you'll see a little volcano/crater form. Next you take the gun and plunge it into the sand down as far as you can get it. Then you take your thumb and cover the hole so that no air will escape. This creates a suction effect so that when you pull the gun back out of the sand the water/sand stays in the gun. Once out of the sand, you let your thumb off the small hole, and the contents of the gun falls out. If you're lucky, you got one of these guys.


I think i only ended up getting six of the possible fifteen of the day. Because it was raining, the craters were super hard to spot. The fact that it was miserable with the wind and the rain aided us in retiring early. Back at Nick's families cabin i was treated to an epic dinner of various seafood. Afterwards i was shown how to clean the razorclams, and various suggestions on how to cook them.



So a student from school asked me to be his mentor for his senior project. He was determined to get the project cranked out during the week. So he, and a student in my construction class headed down to the shop afterschool to work on creating a trashcan hut for the city of Ilwaco to add an aesthetic look, as well as keep various wildlife out of the cans. We worked pretty late both monday and tuesday and finished the project up on thursday.





Wednesday i took the day off from the project because the weather up on the peninsula had been amazing. Mid 50s and sunshine combined with an amazing surf forecast... Darren and i headed out in the cold water to catch some waves. I soon realized i need to pick up some gloves because my hands were absolutely freezing. I realized how out of shape my upper body had gotten since the last time i went out... I manged to catch a real good ride, and fun times were had as the sun set.
Looking south toward North Head and Cape Disappointment.


Sunset just north of North Head.




Thursday night i stayed up late, bundled up and went outside to experiment with some settings on my camera and took photos of the moon over the bay. (be sure to click to see the detail of the stars and what not)







Friday i made my way down to portland to meet up with Nate. We got up early saturday morning and made our way up to the mountain with a fairly large crew. Nate and Sara Phillips from Holden went up in Sara's car with her dog Loki. Myself, Katie, Tim, Evan, and Sarah went up in the brovan.
So there was the crazy inversion up at the mountain. The clouds were lower than usual for this time of the year. This resulted in clear skies and unseasonable warm temperatures. It was in the mid 50s and spring riding was at its best. We had a blast taking runs all over the mountain finding little hips, bumps, chutes, tree jibs, polejams, etc.

The view of the mountain from Portland.


View of the mountain between gvt camp, and meadows.


View rolling up vista.


Above the treeline up at Meadows.


Loki.


Tim trying to eat old jerky.


Sunday most everyone was busy, so Katie and i headed back up to the mountain later in the day to catch the sun heated snow. More good times were had including frequent runs through the pipe.

Today, i enjoyed myself back home on the peninsula. I slept in and decided to do some spring cleaning. It was crazy how nice it was outside... Mid 60s and sunny. It was warm enough to be in a tshirt, so i opened the windows to get some fresh air in the cabin. Later on in the day i went down to the ocean to take some pictures self portrait style.

winter break.

yeah, yeah, i know. it's been forever since i updated. i'm not sure if i can promise this update to live up to all the hype... but i'll start typing away i suppose.

so rewind to last friday, well even before last friday, let's say that week. i returned from my brothers wedding to a snowy seattle, and the first of seeing how people drive in the NW in poorly plowed snowy roads. the entire week at school everyone was sure we'd have some sort of delay or day off during the week. i learned that it doesn't take much to cause a closing or delay on the peninsula, but each day it didn't snow or ice hard enough to close the schools. thursday looked to be our best bet, but i woke up to schools being open. i figured friday would go by fast enough, i even packed a lunch for friday when i heard while playing WoW from Lois (the school's secretary) that we had a 2 hour delay. i got a call soon after from the teacher above me on the call pyramid. i thought it was cool that we get to sleep in at least! morning came and i got a call at like 5:30am from the same staff member that schools were closed. i thought it was odd because the forecast called for like an inch of snow tops. when i woke up and looked outside it was beautiful and sunny, and there was about 3 inches of snow on the ground.

i got a call from darren asking if i wanted to go snowboarding somewhere. i wasn't expecting much, maybe just find something to dork around with, a hill to cruise down, or something. i stopped by darrens and was content with just riding down the hill by his house, but he suggested trying to find something to ride. i hadn't really explored the peninsula too much for street stuff because i heard it never really snows up here. sure there's a couple rails up by the schools, but that requires a lot of work to make happen, and darren had never had any experience with that kind of stuff. we ended up driving toward what looked like a decent hill (probably as big as boston mills) in hopes of taking some turns. we drove on this backwoods road which i had no idea went as far back as it did. the hill was way too grown in with trees, even around the powerline structures. we came to a dead end, a sign about some goose hunting grounds part of the state parks. we got out and walked up hill to what looked like a maintenance facility. after exploring i saw some potential for some fun to be had. i think darren was skeptical. anyways after we set the thing up, it turned into a blast of a session. reminded me of riding with the dudes back in ohio.

darren shot this tailpress of me. fun times.


later friday i embarked on the voyage to portland. i soon realized that roads get pretty treacherous as the elevation rises. what should have been a little over a two hour drive easily doubled as trees fell on roads, and people swerved into ditches, shutting down 26 for an hour.
we woke up the next morning intending to get a late start and avoid the traffic to the mountain, as well as the pass picture line. nate had arranged for us to stay with leia at the burton demo center in government camp. basically in the summer, when government camp turns into a mad house of ski and snowboard summer camps burton has this place where the kids can go to hang out, play wii, watch snowboard videos, and demo next seasons gear. the first floor is the shop/lounge, the second floor is an apartment. leia has always been super nice and let us crash on a couch or the floor which makes getting up to the resorts a breeze the next morning.

(alright so i haven't been able to take any decent photos with my DSLR, these were taken from my crappy point and shoot.)

the drive up


sunrises on the drive up


government camp blanketed.


the burton demo center.


icesicles


so the season for hood was looking pretty bleak for awhile... it was thanksgiving and there was no snow at all. people kept saying how odd it was that there was no snow. then last week it started snowing. a lot. i think as i'm writing this 110" has fallen since last week. it's not showing any signs of stopping either. they're calling for 1-3ft by sunday morning of new snow.
we headed up to meadows to get some late riding in. i had never ridden hood in the winter, so it was a new experience for sure. i'd like to think that i adapted pretty well though. we rode together as a crew, we would find something to hit then stop and watch everyone hit it before moving onto the next part of the mountain. it was a blast riding with everyone. leia and her roommate christy came up with us as well, and they were shredding! we rode for a few hours before the light faded away into the night. we went back to the burton house, and nate made some amazing dinner. i crashed pretty early as we were planning on getting to meadows as lifts were opening. we had another amazing day of riding, and i started to figure out my way around the mountain, as well as pushing my riding in this new environment.

we came back to portland sunday afternoon and it was chaos. the city was getting paralyzed by snow, and there was nothing they could do to stop it. i decided to brave the roads and try to make it back up to the peninsula, which was a challenge in itself.

i spent a few days up on the peninsula letting my muscles recover, and just all around relaxing. went into school one of the days and got some work done. received a new project, so spent some time figuring out how it works. i made plans with kyle (one of nate and evans friends who rode with us on sat/sun) to ride meadows on christmas day. it seemed like we were the only ones still around for christmas. we made the voyage to hood early thursday morning and were blown away to find the resort blanketed in waist deep snow in most spots. we were like the eigth chair up the mountain and had endless amounts of untouched snow in front of us. it was surreal riding such deep snow. as the day went on, things started getting tracked out more, but we found some way fun things to ride.

we headed back to portland, grabbed some chinese food for dinner, and retired to kyles house. the plan was to ride this morning, but they mountain received roughly 4 inches of new snow... not spectacular, and it didn't help that i did not stretch yesterday, so when our alarms went off at 6am, we both seemed to hit off rather than snooze.

i'll be meeting tony and cody who are flying in from ohio to ride out here for a week. we plan on taking a trip either up to baker or down to bachelor. ride hood a bunch, maybe surf up here on the coast for a day, and overall just relax the rest of my break.


(here are a few random SLR shots from a few weeks ago that i enjoy)

the walk to short sands beach in oregon.


short sands. light breaking through the trees.


chris about to stand up at waikiki.

updates.

So it's been a minute since i last updated. I've been keeping pretty busy with school, but i suppose the greatest reason for the lag was the fact that Jesse Mason was up hanging out here for a week. Jesse's taking this crazy road trip all across the country. I was his first stop, and he made the drive up from LA in one shot, 18 hours or something close to it. Pretty nuts. He got in two Thursdays ago real late at night. He caught up on sleep and met me at school two Fridays (Halloween) ago. I gave him the tour, introduced him to the principal, then we headed down to the old shop to play around. Afterwards we ran up to Long Beach to deposit my check before driving on the beach down to check out Waikiki.
We were planning on Saturday to go for a surf at Waikiki, but after watching Darren and Travis try to fight the strong incoming tide, we decided against it, as did they. We went down to Astoria to explore the city and a few sights. A couple weeks ago i was shopping down in Astoria and heard an overwhelming noise off in the distance that sounded like a hundred sea lions barking. We decided to check out the piers and sure enough the lazy sea lions were hanging out on the docks.

Lazy Sea Lions.


Haaaaa


For those of you who know Sans well, you know that he would fit right in here... Cheeseburger Walrus...


Afterwards we headed down to Fort Stevens. As we were checking out the ship wreck the tide was going in and out. As the water drained out we went to check out the wreck. Jesse joked around and said if the water came back he was going to climb the thing. I didn't think it would fill back up as we had been safe for a couple minutes. Sure enough a wave was closing in. Jesse overestimated, or so i thought, and climbed like halfway up the thing. I laughed at him and thought i would be fine like 3 feet up. Then the water splashed up against the wreck and went up over my feet... Jesse looked down at me laughing his ass off...

Shipwreck as sun sets.


Neat.


Stupid wave that rolled in...

We stuck around town for the "nightlife" after checking out a few places we met up with a crew of people with similar interests and tagged along. Supposedly everyone was beat from Halloween the night before, so the city was a ghost town. Nonetheless it was still cool hanging with the people we met.

Sunday Waikiki was too big again to surf. We decided to head down to Portland to hang with Nate. We met up at Nate's house, picked up a few things at ikea, hung out on Hawthorne st. (equivalent of Coventry area in Cleveland), got some dinner at ChaChaCha's (super affordable, amazing authentic burritos) and headed back up north.

Monday after school Waikiki was going off! Chris, Darren, Travis, and a couple rangers were all out sessioning. Jesse was determined to give it a shot even though it was pouring rain and he had a 2mil wet suit (as opposed to our 4/5mil suits (twice as thick)). After staying out for about ten minutes he paddled in and attempted to shoot some film of us. The waves were big and heavy, and had good form. I was catching some of the better rides I've had, but Jesse was only able to stay out for a few minutes amidst the pouring rain.
Tuesday, Darren and I went back to Waikiki. This time Jesse decided to film. The waves were super small, and you really had to fight to catch a half ways decent ride. We both got a couple good rides on film. I'll have to throw them up on YouTube or something...

The rest of the week we pretty much hung out after school. During the day Jesse was going back and forth between Astoria and here interviewing a few people for his trip/documentary.


Rainbow in my backyard, cute, i know...


Oh yeah. I got a kitten a couple weekends ago. I figured Kiki has been super lonely not being able to hang out with Artemis (my old roommate/current sister's roommate's cat). I went to the humane society and picked up a little Hemingway kitten dude (they've got 6 fingers/claws which makes their paws look gigantic). At first the dude wanted nothing to do with us or my place. He hid behind the couch for almost two solid days. He slowly warmed up to us. Now, he annoys Kiki constantly, and it's hilarious. They hunt each other, Lazarus (that's his name) does all these sneak attack missions all the time, etc. They're good buds, and he's always down to hang with me.

On the prowl with Lazarus.


For those of you who know Kiki well, you'll find this next shot amusing, and know that Kiki is not very happy...


Poor Kiki, and poor Special Friend.


We've got the day off tomorrow for veterans day, which is nice because we never got it off back in Ohio, plus it doesn't hurt that it's my birthday. I think a bunch of us are planning on heading down to Oregon to surf, if Waikiki's no good. Probably hang out in Astoria for a little bit, and enjoy a nice relaxing day. Wednesday after school i head up to Seattle for a conference. I'll be able to hang with my brother and a few friends I've got in the city amidst the conferences in the morning. Should be a good time!