Ultimate Northwest Magazine Outdoors 2009

S T Y L E | P E O P L E | H O M E | T R AV E L

OutsideYour guide to climbing, hiking,

camping, biking & paddling The best rides, rivers and trails

The hottest gear Expert tips for all skill levels

PLUS: FRINGE SPORTS

FIND A FOLLOWING

Active footwear: Find your perfect pair p16 Walking wine tours in Sonoma p38Adventures in the man cave p48

Come

Get off the gridA Salem architectdesigns self-sufficient(and beautiful) homes p42

16 ultimate NORTHWEST JUNE/JULY 09

BY JO OSTG ARDEN | In recent years, the footwear industry has become highly specialized and competitive. Manufacturers have developed several techniques to measure the shape of feet, including laser scanning, image distribution and template measurement. While this helps create a broader range of shoes, it also can make choosing footwear a bit daunting.

To ease the task, we tested a collection of the latest performance boots and shoes in both the Pacific Northwest and the Grand Canyon. Now all you need to do is get to the store and try them on. (To find a local dealer, log on to the accompanying Web sites.)

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fa s h i o n

1. Patagonia Drifter GTX

Inside scoop: These boots feature all-leather uppers with knobby Vibram soles; Capilene and Gore-Tex; and bellowed tongues to lock out water and mud.

What to expect: Amazingly light yet supportive boots, averaging 1.3 pounds per pair; out-of-the-box fit and comfort. i Stable, easy brak-ing on steep descents; excellent push-off traction on ascents. i The Gore-Tex lin-ers keep feet warm, making these a great choice for Northwest trails. i Available in men’s and women’s sizes; color choices. $130.

in your comfort zone

BACKCOUNTRY TRAILS MULTISPORT

2. Merrell Moab Ventilator Mid

Inside scoop: Full-grain leather boots are still the best choice for desert and high-altitude hiking and backpacking. But for most other trails, your body will appreciate the load reduction offered by the combination of Dura-leather uppers and nylon mesh ventilation and lining.

What to expect: Ready-to-wear fit; excel-lent odor- and sweat-dissipating ventilation. i But be careful: the rubber outsoles can lose traction in wet environments. i Good for traveling fast and light, especially over dry, rocky terrain, even under medium loads. i Color choices; $80.

4. PatagoniaSugar andSpice

Inside scoop: Think two shoes in one: a fashionable ultralight suede slipper with an all-natural latex wraparound slipper outsole. Wear either alone or together.

What to expect: Wear combo shoe (average 20 ounces per pair) to bike to work or while traveling, beach walking or boul-dering. i Remove the outer shoe and wear the inner at work or as après backpacking footwear. i Shoes fit especially well on medium- wide feet with medium arch/instep. i Women’s size; color choices. $60.

5. Merrell Cypress

Inside scoop: These full-grain leather lace-ups offer simple, casual, all-day performance. Piped accents make them stylish enough for walking or biking to work. Sticky rub-ber outsoles offer all-season traction. Shock-absorbing and stabilizing midsoles combine with sturdy premium nylon shanks to stabilize, protect and support the heel, arch and front foot. Anti-odor and anti-microbial treatments keep feet smelling sweet.

What to expect: A little break-in time is required to get these feeling right, but it isn’t long — and the fit is darn near perfect once it’s done Women’s sizes; color choices. $60.

6. Keen Cimarron

Inside scoop: Breathable mesh uppers, antimicrobial-treated linings and water drain-able outsoles make these shoes are perfect for multitasking adventures.

What to expect: For canyoneering, rain forest hiking or all-day pad-dling, these shoes are our top pick. i Sticky rubber outsoles give you traction on wet, smooth surfaces, rocks and sand, while drain holes keep your feet from turning into prunes. i Mesh uppers dry fast and let your feet breathe while keeping out tiny rocks. i Keen’s trade-mark bumpers protect your toes from getting stubbed. i Men’s and women’s; color choices. $100.

3. Keen Voyageur Mid

Inside scoop: Built for rocky mountain trails and high-desert treks, these light and fast boots are reliable and sturdy. Modern styling and smart technical details are their hallmarks: leather uppers com-bined with polyester mesh ventilation and wicking poly linings for durability. The car-bon rubber outsoles’ aggressive 4 mm lugs tackle even the gnarli-est terrain.

What to expect: Wear-ready comfort; easy secure lacing. i

Great fit for wide feet and medium to high arches. i Men’s and women’s models; color choices. $110.

RESOURCES: merrell.com i keenfootwear.com i patagonia.com PHOTOS PROVIDED BY MANUFACTURERS

ultimate NORTHWESTJUNE/JULY 09

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camping hiking paddling biking climbing sunscreen tents kayak mosquitoes trail shoes maps rain jacket GPS 29-inch tires single-speed mountain bikes pickets meals in a pouch compass life jackets helmets foam-core paddles

comeoutdoors

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The prev ious year ’s sun-dr ied grasses on Windy Po in t h igh above the John Day Foss i l Beds Nat iona l Monument awa i t spr ing warmth to green up. The remote peak in cent ra l Oregon, on the eas tern boundary o f the monument ’s Sheep Rock Un i t , i s a per fec t p lace fo r a cond i t ion ing h ike . Any h ik ing par ty w i l l l i ke ly be a lone on the peak , w i th scarce ly any s ign o f humani ty fo r mi les a round.

PEAK progression

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Ah, the freedom of the hills: the mantra of the mountaineer.

But remember, it’s only free if you don’t screw up and trigger a risky helicopter evacuation at public expense. Oregon and the Northwest have had more than enough of these situations. We don’t need to see another rescue

on TV (over and over and over), or read about it in the newspaper. So, if you intend to climb a big mountain, first learn the ropes (take a mountaineering course from the

Mazamas), get well-equipped (drop a couple thou at REI) and, most important, bring along your brain (and use it). With the possible exception of Mount St. Helens, your mountain doesn’t need to be climbed today. It will be

waiting on another day when the weather improves. Oregon has only a dozen or so snowy volcanoes, so Beaver State mountaineers soon run out of worthy local

peaks to climb. But there are enough to last a lifetime across the border in Washington or California.

BY TERRY RICHARD PHOTOGRAPHY BY TORSTEN KJELLSTRAND


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Start by trail hiking (Dog Mountain in the Columbia Gorge, seven-mile loop, 2,800-foot gain) or off-trail scrambling (Windy Point in the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, 10-mile loop, 3,800-foot gain) to airy summits. This gets you ready to climb 8,365-foot Mount St. Helens (10 miles round trip, 4,800-foot gain) in Washington or 10,358-foot South Sister (11 miles round trip, 4,900-foot gain) in Oregon, both big mountains with well-trod summit routes.

MUST-HAVE SKILLS Map and compass. Have them, know how to use them. The life they save may be that of your search and rescuer.

2.INTERMEDIATE Mount Hood is a spring climb, so its best season ends in early June. For a summer outing, backpack into the Three Sisters Wilderness Area and plot a course up 10,047-foot Middle Sister, nine miles one-way from the road on the Obsidian Trail and 5,300 feet to gain.

MUST-HAVE SKILLS Snow climbing. This includes rope travel, crampons (those sharp, pointy things that go over boots) and an ice ax. Practice self-arrest (a technique used to stop a slide on ice) until you can do it in your sleep. Then wake up and practice some more.

3.ADVANCED Oregon’s toughest peaks (Mount Jefferson, Three Finger Jack, North Sister) are notoriously crumbly and dangerous. Instead, drive a similar distance from Portland to the southeast cor-ner of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula for better rock on 6,612-foot Mount Stone, 6,434-foot Mount Skykomish and 6,866-foot South Brothers. The first two can be done in a day up the same trail, though doing both on the same day would be difficult. Plan for 12 miles round trip, about 5,000 feet of gain, for either. South Brothers is an 18-hour, 19-mile monster, best done after setting up a backpack camp because of the 6,300-foot elevation gain.

MUST-HAVE SKILLS Rock climbing. Even if you don’t need to place protection to climb or an anchor to rappel, being comfortable moving over rock is crucial for climbing the best peaks and returning home without help. »Blooming w i ld f lowers a re an en t icement to v is i t the deser t in spr ing. T iming is

every th ing, bu t there ’s no guarantee fo r pred ic t ing the b loom, wh ich depends on las t year ’s growth , w in te r ’s mo is tu re , spr ing ’s warmth and var iab les o f e leva t ion and or ien ta t ion . Whi le ranuncu lus was in b loom dur ing th is v is i t , i t wou ld take another v is i t a few weeks la te r to see the beaut i fu l magenta b lossom o f the cactus in the John Day Foss i l Beds Nat iona l Monument .


aBRING ALCOHOL: Not to drink, silly, but to burn in your $29.95 Vargo Decagon Stove, available at

REI. This 1.2-ounce titanium stove is light enough to carry to any summit. Pour some denatured alcohol into its holding tank, strike a match and you’ll have 2 cups of hot water in five minutes.

aSHELL OUT: OK, $475 is a bit much to pay for what amounts to an outer shell. But the Beryllium

jacket from the Mountain Hardwear store just might save your life when the

weather gunks out on your way up Mount Hood. The top-of-the-line Gore-Tex product has huge pit zips to vent steam and water-tight zippers to the keep rain at bay.

ON THE WEB All things mountaineering: mazamas.org Peak routes, chatter: cascadeclimbers.com

PHOTOS PROVIDED BY MANUFACTURERS

aMEAL IN A POUCH: A hot meal along the way can help put you on top. Mary Jane’s Farm of Moscow, Idaho, keeps the indigestion down from usual freeze-dried meals by offering organic (and vegan) meals in a burnable/compostable pouch (as opposed to other companies’ aluminum). They sell for $7 to $11 at REI. Anyone for red pesto pasta?

TERRY’S PICKS

climbinggear

6WATCH IT: The Suunto Core ABC wristop has everything except a cuckoo announcing the arrival of each hour. The altimeter, barometer and compass wristwatch, $250 from U.S.

Outdoor Store, measures altitude in one-meter intervals and has a compass with three-digit display. Unlike some of these watches, it’s sleek enough that your gloves fit over it.

6PICK OF THE PICKETS: Poor pickets — crampons get all the glory. It used to be that everyone hated to carry a picket (an aluminum shaft buried in snow as an anchor) because of clunky designs. Yates Gear’s pickets nest together, making it easy to carry several, and have a strike plate to keep them from bending. They sell (quickly)

for $24 each at Climb Max.

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camping, kayaking, climbing & more.

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plentiful PADDLING

BY LAURIE ROBINSON

Pop quiz: Which state has more waterways — by far — on the federal Wild and Scenic list than any other?

All you Oregonians with your rain bar-rels and your golf umbrellas, you know the answer.

Lakes can be great, especially big, pristine mountain lakes like Waldo southeast of Eugene. But sliding down a basalt-studded river past ranks of old-growth trees is the name of the game for the state’s canoeists and kayakers. (And for the purposes of this article, let’s just annex nearby southwest Washington, home to many of the choice whitewater runs.)

Plentiful year-round paddling is what drew Paul Kuthe to Oregon from St. Louis. In charge of classes and trips at Alder Creek Kayak & Canoe in Portland, he notes that we have everything from desert canyons like the Deschutes and Owyhee to Cascades runs like the Sandy and Clackamas to humid coastal whitewater runs like the Wilson. Plus we have slow-moving streams that empty into big, blue-gray bays and estuaries.

For paddlers who love those protected bays and lazy, glossy rivers, recreational kayaks have become popular because they’re easy and stable and you don’t need a spray skirt.

But Kuthe urges those paddlers to take a step up and try transitional kayaks — not a full-fledged sea kayak, but sleeker and easier to paddle any distance than the recreational boats. They’re still light enough to easily load on your roof rack, and the spray skirt isn’t mandatory.

For tandem paddling, it’s hard to beat a canoe — and there’s potential to bring a cooler, lawn chairs and your dog.

An inflatable kayak is a forgiving craft to learn whitewater in, but most hard-core kayakers turn to hard-shells for high performance and rolling.

Among the whitewater crowd, Kuthe sees the pendulum starting to swing away from playboating — surfing, spinning,

cartwheeling and doing other tricks endlessly in river holes and waves in short blunt boats — and back toward river-running and creek boating.

Want even more of a rush? Running waterfalls is gaining in popularity, and the Northwest is nothing if not rich in water-falls.

Be ultra careful in matching your skills to an appropriate section of water. Even Class 1 rivers can be fatal (“sweepers,” or downed trees stuck in the water, are particularly dangerous). Get professional instruction, learn how to be safe and then keep practicing what you learned.

And don’t even think about riding a pool toy down a river with a six-pack in tow. »

Canoe ing down the Sandy R iver th rough

Oxbow Reg iona l Park .

PHOTO BY TORSTEN KJELLSTRAND


1.BEGINNERBeginning paddlers will find suitably slow-moving water and experts can get a satisfying workout on various stretches up and down the Willamette. A choice in-town launch spot is Sellwood Riverfront Park; paddle north to Ross Island or south toward Milwaukie for some pleasant heron-inflected scenery.

For those who have the skills to handle river bends in swift current and rocky riffles with an occasional small rapid, the Sandy River from Oxbow Regional Park to Dabney State Recreation Area is hard to beat, and it’s just 45 minutes from Portland. Look up to see the ospreys alighting in tall backlit firs. Look toward the shore to see families of mergansers, fish-eating ducks with reddish crests, paddling along in a disciplined row. You’ll pass a buried forest preserved in now-eroding volcanic debris generated around 200 years ago from the Crater Rock area of Mount Hood 45 miles away. Rated Class 1+.

TIPS:Choose trips that keep the fun-to-risk quotient firmly tilted to the “fun” side. Don’t follow your friends down rivers you’re not necessarily ready for.

2.INTERMEDIATE The Packsaddle to Mill City stretch of the North Santiam river is a reliable summer run of Class 2+ whitewater with a few exciting Class 3 rapids and play spots to fizz things up. A quieter alterna-tive, minus the Class 3, is the next stretch downstream, Mill City to Mehama, with pleasant flat-water stretches pocked with rocky Class 2 rapids. The Upper Clackamas is also a popular summer run closer to Portland. (Log on to tinyurl.com/d8c4bd for details and a scouting report).

But to experience really clas-sic northwestern beauties — and you should experience them — take a road trip to the Class 3 upper McKenzie and the North Umpqua.

TIPS:Play and surf and catch lots of eddies. Practice your roll in current and chaotic water until it’s solid — but once it is, don’t become overly reliant on it. If you’ve rolled five times on a surf wave, work on your edging and bracing, and ask friends to analyze why you can’t stay upright.

ADVANCED The Middle White Salmon River in southwest Washington (Class 3+) is narrow, with emerald pools, ferny grottoes and icy water — an old standby for Portland kayakers in the summer with an optional 10-foot waterfall finale that draws spectators. But you’ll have to contend with waves of commercial paddle rafts; autumn paddling can be a little more peaceful if the water levels hold up. Opal Creek, Class 4, is lesser known as a seasonal boating destination but well-known among hikers and naturalists for being one of the few remaining pockets of lower elevation old growth.


29

More and more wh i tewater types are fa l l ing

fo r water fa l l s . Sunset Fa l l s on the Eas t Fork

o f the Lewis R iver, near Amboy, Wash. ,

i s cons idered a fo rg iv ing drop.

PHOTO BY MIKE DAVIS

Fun technical rapids flow among the water-sculpted nooks and crannies, with one waterfall you can walk around. The East Fork of the Lewis, in Washington, is also seasonal but offers a relatively forgiving place to learn to run waterfalls, especially the Class 4+ run that includes Sunset Falls and Horseshoe Falls.

TIPS:Don’t try to overpower the river. Finesse it by studying the subtleties of the current and using the water to help you make your moves more effortlessly. Anticipate rather than reacting at the last minute and recovering.

Source: Thanks to Paul Kuthe for help with tips,

gear recommendations and some advanced/

expert river trip descriptions.

4.EXPERT Southwest Washington’s continuous Class 5 Little White Salmon is the measure by which Portland and Hood River whitewater kayakers are judged. Try the Green Truss section of the White Salmon first, though. »

PAUL’S PICKS

paddlinggear


aGUIDEBOOKS: Don’t try a new run without reading up on it first. For whitewater, “Soggy Sneakers” and “Guide to the Whitewater Rivers of Washington.” For quieter rivers: “Canoe and Kayak Routes of Northwest Oregon.”

MSAFE HELMETS: With no governing body setting safety standards for whitewater helmets, all helmets are not created equal. A dad who lost his son to a kayaking injury started a company called Whitewater Research Safety Institute to make safer, affordable helmets. The company applied some ideas from bike helmets, incorporating a plastic liner, foam and a hard plastic shell in a system that stays on the head better and offers better coverage for temples. $88 to $100.

PHOTOS PROVIDED BY MANUFACTURERS

aiWa

CLASSES aldercreek.com enrgkayaking.com

6ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY LIFE JACKETS: Astral makes stylish, comfortable life vests that feature non-PVC foams. The V8, (in red, $109) is a good choice for beginning paddlers. Articulated foam panels raise the com-fort level, as does a flow-through ventila-tion system: Mesh vents in the foam keep you cooler on those hot summer days when you might be tempted not to wear a life jacket. For serious whitewater boaters, the Greenjacket rescue model, (in black/green, $210) is a good fit for both men and women.

6FOAM-CORE PADDLES: These lightweight kayak paddles, like the Werner Stikine ($440 for the bent-shaft

model), feature a composite blade built around a piece of foam that makes them extra buoyant. They resurface quickly so you’re ready for the next stroke before you know it.

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33

And now for something completely different: Three outdoor pursuits that help keep Oregon offbeat. Photography by Torsten Kjellstrand

SP

OR

TS

on the

mountain unicycling


Skijoring is a variant of dog sledding where a dog or team of dogs pulls a skier rather than a sled. Most competitive skijorers skate-ski and, when everything is working right, the dogs provide about 70 percent of the propulsion. But both parties wear a harness, and if the skier falls, he or she is along for the ride.

“They call me crazy, but I don’t ski with crazy dogs,” Tinker says.

She’s clocked her dogs at 27 mph with her GPS unit but says they won’t keep pulling if she falls.

“Louie!” Not that Tinker falls often.

She won the skijoring part of the Pacific Northwest Championship three times: in 1999-2000; after recovering from breast cancer and chemotherapy in 2005-06; and again in 2006-07.

Tinker, 52, now teaches skijoring skills and pull-training

classes when she’s not working as a nurse practitioner, and she sells skijoring equipment on the side.

“Anybody that you run into skijoring around here, I probably taught them,” she says.

“LOUIE!” When Tinker first started

letting Ba-Ree, her Malamute/German shepherd mix, pull her around on skis, she thought she had invented a sport.

Turns out, the Scandinavians have been doing this for hundreds of years as a means of transportation. Ba-Ree’s genes needed no instruction.

“He’s just dialed,” she said. “He taught me at first.”

Ba-Ree won the PNC title by himself in 2000, racing against teams of two dogs as Tinker’s weekend fun turned competitive. At the moment, he is the only one of Tinker’s dogs permitted to

wander the sno-park with Louie, a snowmobiler’s golden Lab ignoring his owner’s calls.

Well-practiced in dog psychology, Tinker gives a rundown of each dog. The two white dogs, Palouse and Glacier, don’t have much confidence and need lots of encouragement, hugs and treats, she says. Caribou and Raven are more independent. All jockey for position on her bed at night. “It’s like having kids,” she says.

And Louie? “Louie could use a harness and

a job,” she says.

For more on where to sk i jo r in Oregon, v is i t cascades leddogc lub.com S

KI

BY PE T ER FRICKWRIGHT

“Louie! Come here! Louie!”

Conventional wisdom has it that skijoring with more than three dogs is a little reckless, a little crazy. Kim Tinker of Sandy skis with five.

“You wouldn’t believe the power,” she says, still flush from a training run in the Frog Lake Sno-Park. “Louie!”


37

The games I’d been watching were graceful and rhythmic — teams of three attempting to drive a small, hard ball past opponents into a goal. Slow, fast. Slow-slow-fast.

I had hopes that my athletic background might serve me well. Apparently, the hand-eye coordination required to play collegiate softball does not translate when you have to balance a bicycle, hold onto a mallet, track a very small ball and execute very tight turns.

I didn’t join a real game that day but enjoyed my few minutes of experimentation. As I fumbled, a guy called “Wheelie” rode circles around me while balancing only on his rear tire, and another fellow called “Ringer” managed to smack 10 practice goals while simultaneously smoking an entire cigarette. I, on the other hand, couldn’t even put the head of the mallet to the ball a single time.

Bike polo is harder than it looks. I returned my borrowed bicycle and

mallet as a shout went up and the sky was darkened by a mass of unwieldy mallets flying toward the center of the court.

The mallet-throwing is called a “toss-in,” and the ritual determines who will play in the next impromptu game. Mallets (made of salvaged ski poles and PVC pipe) are hurled at the end of a game and the first six to land make up the next two teams to play. The sixth mallet’s owner is responsible for “shuffling” them and splitting them into two piles of three.

Owners then reconnect with their instrument, meet their new teammates, line up on either side of the court, and it’s game on.

And in Portland, the game is not only on — it’s taking off.

Based roughly on horse polo, the bicycle version was first played on grass in India and Europe as early as 1891. Today, it’s still thriving, with several formal international governing bodies regulating it.

Hardcourt bike polo, on the other hand, is a little less … well … regulated (which is, admittedly, part of its charm). Unofficial history holds that the first games were played by bike messengers in Seattle in 1999 in a stockroom at Kozmo.com.

Regional rules and customs evolved over time; everything from where the game is played (tennis courts, parking garages, large open dirt pits) to how the rules are interpreted vary city by city. And Oregon puts out a pretty passionate game of polo.

Portland-area polo players organize regular weekly pickup games and typically play on tennis courts.

You can catch Kinney and the rest of the crew honing their craft Sunday afternoons at Alberta Park, rain or shine. Unless you’re already an expert bike-handler or super-amazing polo prodigy, be prepared to check your athletic ego at the door.

Kinney, 23, played his first game at a wedding in 2005 and has been at it ever since. “It causes problems in my life sometimes,” he says, “because it’s all I think about.”

For more on b ike po lo ru les , r igs and cur ren t in fo on cour t loca t ions and t imes, v is i t ht tp : / /po lohaus.blogspot .com .

BY HEIDI SWIF T

Drew Kinney, bike polo fanatic and unofficial leader of the Portland team Axles of Evil, welcomed me to a chilly Wednesday night bike polo pickup session with a smile and a mallet.

“Try it,” he said, putting his bike in my hands.

BIKE

Ultimate Northwest Magazine Outdoors 2009

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Transcript of Ultimate Northwest Magazine Outdoors 2009