The Faces of Occupy Portland - 10.9.11

The Faces of Occupy Portland - 10.8.11

The Faces of Occupy Portland - 10.6.11

In the Menagerie Wilderness

Pete Guagliardo on South Rabbit Ear

me·nag·er·ie 

[muh-naj-uh-ree, -nazh-] 

noun

1. a collection of wild or unusual animals, especially for exhibition

2. a place where they are kept or exhibited

3. an unusual and varied group of people

The Return to Smith Rock!

The Smith Rock Group

When we first learned to climb, Kristin and I would make the trip to Smith Rock just about every weekend, looking for little slices of adventure in different corners of the park.  We'd pack up the car on Friday night, drive up and over Mount Hood and then down into the High Desert, pulling into secret (or not so secret) camp spots in the dark.  Straight through the hottest months of the summer we'd spend every weekend in the desert heat, rotating around the towering cliffs opposite the sun in search of shade and friction.

More on the Suffering

The Cleanest Line just posted an evocative piece by Kelly Cordes on the noble attraction of suffering, which has preoccupied my mind since returning from Gunsight.  Check it out.
  

Nate Tack mid-suffer  Photo by Jaime Bohle

Reflections on the Gunsight Range

Climbing trips often take on new meaning a few days or weeks after the return to civilization.  Sometimes the most successful trips paradoxically elicit a bout of depression, a casting about in the drudgery of every day life.  On the other hand, the failures, and even the semi-successes, if coupled with the right amount of sheer suffering, can somehow seem in retrospect like a good time – maybe even a good idea!  A few days and a few hundred miles can change the perceptions of an intense experience. 

So it is with my recent trip into the Gunsight Range of the North Cascades, a remote ridge of granite in a wild and committing setting.  36 hours after getting back to Portland, I pulled off my socks in a hotel room in Detroit on the 45th floor of the Marriot Renaissance.  I looked down and saw swollen ankles bulging over the tops of my shoes.  As I peeled away my black dress socks, I revealed track marks in my skin, where my legs had swelled around the confining mesh of the material.