The longest day

Somehow (possibly due to my own inability to process dates) I have ended up with 36hours off between 25 days of work and 34 days of work. This unfortunately co-insided with Ryans plan to raft the 97miles of the lower deschutes faster than he and Kai did last year (19hrs and 1minute). My first half day off was well spent on facebook, hotmail and falling asleep to bad movies then we were off on the DIAD (deschutes in a day). The crew was the majority of the logistics department and myself. We drove to the river slept for a couple of hours, got on the river at 247am and set off. There was cold, swimming, rapids, near flips, water fights, beer, pizza, a change of shuttle driver (thank you kelly and martha) and a slight slowing in the middle of the day finished by a strong finish. We made it to Heritage landing (on the border with Washington 16hrs 30mins later) It was great to put into perspective a section of river that i know well but usually do in 5 - 7 days. I am now prepping a 30 day rock, river, mountain course as my last big course of the season. Looking forward to it.

These are totaly out of order but I am extremely tired so cant face changing it.

Ryan looking a little worked around hour 14.
The ladies, (from left to right) Molly, Kelly B and Karen putting int some time on the oars (and paddles) around hour 12
Possibly around hour 8 or 9. in front, mike and molly, kelly at the oars, karen sitting and ryan asleep.
A well fueled trip. The cooler with pizza and oreos.

The portage around Sherars falls (class 6)

Mike and martha swimming buckskin rapid early in the morning
Molly with her hand stuck in the cooler
A beer with first light, hour 3 on the river
Ryan on the oars around 4 am
The team setting off. (me on top of the trailer) then Mike, Ryan, Karan, Kelly, Molly and Martha.

Thats all for right now, the new camera is making it hard to upload photos but I will see what I can do

Poverty with a view.

Time to throw up some more photos. Life has been kind of hectic for the last couple of weeks supporting three groups on the river and in the mountains but it does mean that I get to spend some time doing my own thing (or taking students to the doctors and then hiking them back into their group). Bend was recently described as "poverty with a view", currently with one of the worst unemployment rates in the US. It would be a mistake for me to claim poverty having just spent more money on a new camera than I have ever spent on a vehicle but the title seems fairly fitting.

I am 28 and live in a tent, albeit a nice big white wall tent on a platform, and it does have a good view. I also feel luckier and luckier as I see more stores close in the town and still eat great food, have beer on tap in my living room and get paid to take people into beautiful places.

The new camera is a bit of a step up - so much so that I am slightly afraid of it right now.... below are the last few photos from the old camera and some of the test shots from the new one.
The nice big white wall tent (my home for at least half the year)
An incredibly badly stitched photo of the sisters at dawn (with the moon far left). About to fix lines and belays on the NW ridge of Broken top at about 6am (having been up since 3am.. AH the joys of work)
End of a long day - Martha surrounded by gear after a ressupply for 30 hungry people in the mountains.
Paul leading a rope team down the Hayden Glacier late in the afternoon
My usual bed. A sleeping bag and some grass, in this case surrounded by RV's at Deschutes State Park at the end of the Deschutes river.
Courtney rowing white horse rapid, behind her you can see two of the named rocks, "Can Opener" and "Oh shit"!
One of the first phots with the new camera, two of our pigs (Hope and Bachelor) who eat all our compost and then......... supply the meat for the end of season party.
Whitney strumming it out in front of a local beer (Bend has possibly the most micro breweries per capita of anywhere ever)

Paul and I reflected in Ciscos glasses on the summit of Broken Top.