The John Day river is an amazing place to paddle board. It has a 70 mile section of wild, red rock canyon that is only accessible by rafts, drift boats, and yes – stand up paddle boards. This trip was even featured on OPB years ago. This was my third SUP camping trip on the […]

It’s been a long while since I climbed the South Sister (way back in 2012). Originally, I grabbed a permit to climb with my father. Unfortunately, he was not able to make it. This was probably for the best, as the conditions were less than optimal, but I didn’t know that when I started. This […]

This time of year, when I drive down a local street, there is a perfect view of snow covered Helens. When I spotted this climb report on mastodon, I decided to take the day off work for a quick climb. Started driving around 3:30am and took the longer (but straighter) route up I5. Arrived at […]

It’s been a few years since I last went up hood, but the conditions looked promising. When the weather held up, I found myself at Timberline lodge at 2:30am, Friday night. I wanted to start earlier (to catch a sumit sunrise). However, with temps well below freezing, I had reservations. With firm snow, I made […]

I’ve built decks before and had to look up the span on overhang tables. Today I ran across the following document that lays it all out nicely. Thought I would keep a copy around for reference.

There is a 40 mile section of the John Day river that is perfect for paddleboarding (if the weather cooperates) This section travels through high desert hills and deep basalt canyon wilderness. It stays in the wilderness and is filled with views and wildlife. For 3 days we paddled without seeing a road, house, or […]

Who doesn’t love a good quest? Oregon senator Jeff Merkley is challenging people to explore a special location in each county of Oregon: The Oregon treasures quest To submit your selfies, send the picture along with your name, the date of the picture, and the name of the location to: OregonTreasuresQuest@Merkley.senate.gov This is a wonderful idea […]

Despite the rain in Portland, most of Oregon is dry desert. This beautiful landscape is worth visiting, but the temps can be extreme with very cold winters and scalding hot summers. However, for a few weeks each spring, the opportunity for camping is perfect. We headed out to Cottonwood Canyon for a few nights. There […]

I have a running document for the optimal settings on my 20W Atomstack diode laser. It includes: wood, acrylic, fabric, glass, and even rock. However, there is a material that I’ve been meaning to try… metal. Raw aluminum would be near impossible to etch. Luckily, most of the aluminium we encounter (like your Apple laytop) […]

This is more of a reminder for myself than anything else… I am not an expert woodworker and not claiming that this is the only way. Rather, it had been a while since I needed to finish a piece and I didn’t completely remember my prefered method. Next time, I can just look back at […]