In early march, my buddy and I decided to take a quick trip up hood. The conditions sounded optimal, but there was bad weather on the horizon. After waiting a few days for the thunderstorms to clear, we found ourselves signing in at the climbing register late one night. Cold temps kept the snow firm […]

As you may have noticed, I am a bit … obsessed … about hops. So, I was stoked when Michael contacted me in the comments about some seedling that his garden club students were growing: My students (high school garden club) collected seeds from the hills west of Pueblo, Colorado, and have been successful in germinating a few seeds. […]

The 2017 solar eclipse has come, and gone – but it left a strong impression. So much so, that I am already considering how to travel to the next one in the US: 2024. We viewed it from my brothers property just south of Philomath, OR. The hour leading up to totality was interesting enough, […]

Last week, I climbed Mt. Hood. Today, we went up Mt. Saint Helens. Going up Sam snagged some last minute permits and we drove out to the Worm Flows parking lot. This is the winter route. It adds an extra few miles and 1000 extra feet of elevation, but is was well worth it. After […]

I set off alone on Friday night toward Mt. Hood. Sam and I were hoping to climb on Thursday, but the weather did not cooperate. This was my first attempt to climb the mountain since June 2008. The ascent Timberline parking lot was filled with people – a strange sight in the middle of the […]

You may want to start by reading: Growing hops from seed, Hop Breeding, Hop Results 2014… We started by germinating over 500 crosses. In 2016, this was culled down to 42 vigorous, female varieties that were grown side-by-side for comparison. After data collection and taste tests, we have limited the number further for 2017. Full […]

You may want to start by reading: Growing hops from seed, Hop Breeding, Hop Results 2014 We are starting to catalog the experimental hops growing at the Barber Hop Yard. This page will be updated as data rolls in. There are a total of 42 different crosses – culled down from the germination of over […]

You may want to start by reading: Growing hops from seed, Hop Breeding (2014), Breeding results 2014, Hop Breeding (2015) Overview The three hop yards are full with 2nd, and 3rd year selections. With this in mind, I planned to focus germination on a limited set of seeds to fill in any open spots. This […]

I found myself back on Mt Adams this past week. This time, rather than climbing, we were making our way around the mountain. On the west side of the mountain you have the well-maintained PCT to travel on. However, much of the east side has no trail. There are more details in this post, but […]

This weekend we climbed Mt Adams. The weather was perfect and the views were spectacular. It was a bit busy, but on a mountain this big, things never get too crowded. Sam, Joe, and James hauled their butts up to the peak with me and did spectacular. At the top we drank a few well-earned […]