the oregon trail and the bavarians

guten tag mein freunde! (i'll explain later) - after leaving beautiful sea side north cal we headed into hot, sunny eastern oregon (is it or-a-gon, or organ?) to check out the climbing at smith rocks. I do, after all, own the place. After a day of ice cream eating and pint swilling in the awesome, outdoorsy town of bend we set out for smith, got lost on creepy country roads in the dark, and decided to try again after a night's sleep at a nearby rest area (where we woke up to satan's personal swarm of demon mosquitos. I must be less pure than Gen, as they didn't suck so much as a gram from me). Eventually we found it and had a fun evening and early (really early, baker early) morning of climbing on smith's welded tuff - totally unlike any rock either of us had climbed on, a sort of sandy medium with many fist-size and smaller angular blocks protruding from it - very interesting and cool. but hot. so hot. hot enough to flash fry both of us like little leaves of spinach. Have you ever seen flash fried spinach? exactly.



so we fled Oregon (remember that game Oregon Trail? I propose a grim and realistic plug-in whereas if your party runs out of food you may cannibalize the weakest member, we'll call the new version "Oregon Trail: The Donner Option") - after more ice cream and a fantastic waterfall hike outside bend - to Central Washington and the town of Leavenworth, where yodelers abound and strangers hand you free ricola. Despite the overwhelming faux bavarian theme here, there is an abundance of good bakeries and german beer and very, very good fruit. The climbing and hiking here are also first rate. The climbing (for me) is memorable for three reasons: a). the rock here is like nothing we've climbed on (maybe we say that a lot), a metamorphosed granite that felt a lot like fantastic sandstone. 2.)- i lived one of my greatest climbing fears and fell from an overhang with my bomber heel toe cam being the last thing to leave. The rock here is merciful as well as a pleasure to climb on though, and I am still thankfully the proud owner of two functioning ankles. and lastly.) I had the most fun on a single boulder problem as I've had the entire trip (thus far) on the enormous, twenty foot long roof crack "royal flush." The emotional cocktail I felt when I finally sent was a spicy brew indeed, initial excitement and calm quickly became a strength sapping lack of confidence, finally leading to fear and abject horror! I now realize that crack climbing- to me- is analogous to good science fiction; its bizarre, mind bending, and a general lack of understanding and confusion are highly probable (again, for me), but when the end does arrive, you feel a sense of relief and understanding that make the world a little bit brighter. I guess the point is that crack climbing is strange and exciting to me, something clearly evident in my face if you look closely at some of Gen's pictures.



After our day of bouldering Gen and I decided we'd felt best when we were hiking in California, and we'd be fools to pass up that opportunity here. We quickly scored a permit and headed out into the enchantment lakes. If I try to describe how amazing this place is I'm confident I will fail. Along with the sierra nevada of California this is the most beautiful alpine setting I've seen. Genevieve's amazing pictures do a far better job of conveying the feel of this place than I ever could. In short, we had a blast. Mountain paradise. Harrison, get out here now! There are more frigid alpine lakes than even you can shake your fist at.





Now we are back in town, chilling in das starbucks and hiding from the 100 degree oppressiveness and humidity that calls to mind a poor potato in a sous vide bag. We're on our way back east soon, and when I know more, dear reader, so will you... off the record, on the qt, and very hush hush.

Love,
Jud