Today Emily and I joined Chris and his brother Eric for a ride at Sandy Ridge. We hadn’t been there in a couple years and had heard about all the trail work so were looking forward to checking it out. It certainly felt a little strange heading up towards Mt. Hood in January with our bikes instead of our skis but this has been the worst ski season in decades with Ski Bowl not evening opening yet. The weather was beautiful and we biked a really big loop along the ridge and down to start. We even tried to help a lost dog whose owner had totally ditched him at the top of the descent. He followed us for a bit but then refused to go any further, worriedly looking for his owner… sad, but the dog kept to the trails and followed people so we knew he’d find his way at some point. At the bottom Em was a little tired so headed back down to the truck while I continued on with the brothers for another couple rounds. It definitely felt great to be back on my bike again. 
After the ride Eric took off for home and his wife and twins while Chris joined us at Calamity Janes for large burgers and even larger beers to catch up with us. He had a great trip to Colorado with Paris and their relationship was going well. Emily and I told him a bunch about our trip and told him to keep an eye on Facebook for photos. It sucks living 1.5 hours from Holm but we are glad we get to see him about once a month when he drives north to join us for adventures.
Tonight Emily and I joined Ben, Tiah, Darren, Jonathan, Jennifer, Donald and a couple others for a Blazers Game. I left work at 5pm and walked over the steel bridge to meet them all at Red Robin for some food before heading to the game and had them order for me while I was on the walk over. Emily of course had to fight traffic and find parking so she joined us a few hours later at the start of the game. We were in the nose bleed section but the game turned out to be really close with us taking a 5 point lead with only about 5 seconds left to play. It was great to catch up with Ben and Tiah and to find out they are expecting another child - the last according to Ben. We heard they are going to be moving into a new house soon so we look forward to their housewarming party. 
Today we had a relaxing day around exploring the area around the old fishing town of Punta Arenas in Chile, including an amazing visit to a nearby penguin colony. Although the town was completely boarded up for the holiday we managed to have a great seafood meal before relaxing on our last night at the bottom of the world. Click the title to read on....
Today we had amazing views of the towers in the morning after climbing through fresh snow. We then continued our trek with beautiful weather all day. It was certainly a very long day and by the time we reached our second campsite we were exhausted. Click the title to read on and see some of the most amazing photos from our trip. 
Merry Christmas. After 3 hard days of trekking it was nice to have a relaxing day off. The weather was terrible so we just headed back to Calafate where it was better and had a relaxing afternoon. We called family and had a wonderful dinner in town. Click the title to read on....
Today we totally lucked out on the weather. We had great views of Cerro Torre with clearing clouds and by the time we trekked back over to Mt. Fitzroy it was under blue skies. After we got back to town we found our amazing bed and breakfast and celebrated Christmas Eve in town eating some delicious pizza and local beer. Click the title to read on......
Today we woke up to pouring rain at our campsite below Mt. Fitzroy. We didn't get lucky with the views of Mt. Fitzroy today, even after waiting until 1pm to leave our campsite when the rain stopped. But, we ended up with some great views into the Cerro Torre Valley later in the evening as we made our way to our 2nd campsite. Click the title to read on.....
Friday night was also our Holiday Party for work. WSI has been merged into Quantum Spatial and the two offices decided to have separate parties this year. I haven’t even heard that CVO has a party planned yet, and that it might be in January if they have one. Our party was at Bar XV downtown and of course there was food (yummy meatballs) and an open bar. Eric and I hadn’t planned on getting too drunk but of course we did. Emily got a ride with Caitlin and her friends to the party and left Leo and the Prius at Eric’s. I tried to stay out of sight most of the night just hanging out with Arley, Ryan, Eric, Katie, and Emily but I did get to have some fun conversations with the new tech Conrad as well as Ingrid. I had a bit of fun late in the night slipping edamame into the pockets of my unsuspecting friends but the night was ultimately cut short when I looked over at Eric who was clearly ready to go home. It took us a little time to get a hold of a cab but ended getting to Eric’s just before midnight. I later got a good laugh from all the disposable camera photos that were taken throughout the night. Great party and a great release of stress for most of the office.
Once again Emily and I joined Scott, Danielle, Jason and Jen in Sunriver for the long Thanksgiving weekend. This year Jen and Jason found the house and it was perfect, complete with a hot tub and fireplace that was so big we could climb it! We ate a huge dinner of deep fried turkey and sides and went on a great hike and visited the High Desert Museum. I also conjured up a little adventure for everyone when I sneaked out late night... Click the title to read on...
Took Leo today for a short hike around Battle Ground Lake in Washington. It was only a 10 minute drive away from us and we had read it was a miniature version of Crater Lake, volcanically created in the same manner, just much smaller. The whole walk around the circumference of the lake was about 1 mile and didn’t take long. We didn’t pay the ridiculous $10 day fee and were lucky to not get a ticket during our short hike. 
With steep slopes on all sides leading down to the water we could see the similarity to Crater Lake but it was all overgrown and didn’t really blow my mind. Leo had a great time though and we ended up getting some amazing Chinese from the local Rising Sun Teriyaki Grill on the way home :)
Today Emily and I headed out to Hood River for some Mountain biking with both vehicles so we could shuttle the trails. As usual lately though, we slept in too long and got a late start at 11am. By the time we reached our first trailhead on the East Fork Hood River far up Hwy 35 it was 1pm. The trailhead wasn’t that clear and the campground that was on the map wasn’t apparent. There was also 3-4 inches of snow on the ground. We should have taken all these as signs because when we found our way through the woods and onto the trail we realized that the trail had been abandoned due destruction from a flood in the area. We tried to make our way over and under the downed trees for about 15 minutes before calling it a day and returning to the car. 
Emily had forgotten to check her gas level when we left Hood River and was pretty much on Empty. We risked heading back to my truck which we had parked at the bottom trailhead of the unrideable East Fork Hood River Trail. We moved the Prius to the bottom of the Dog River Trail, quickly through the bikes and tires in the back of the truck and headed back up the mountain to FR 44 and the upper trailhead for the trail. When I started unloading our bikes at the trailhead I almost lost my mind when I realized I had forgotten my front thru-axle in the back of Emily’s car…. so, back down the snowy mountain road again to the Prius 8 miles down the road. Between leaving the East Fork Hood River Trail and making two trips between cars for gear we didn’t hit the Dog River Trail until nearly an hour and a half later… and we only had 2 hours of light left in the day.
Thankfully, the Dog River Trail turned out to be amazing. I was worried about the steepness of it dropping 2,500 feet in about 6 miles and the snow on the ground at the top making it dangerously slippery on our bikes, but our tires gripped well and we were fine. It was actually really cool to whip down the trail over a fresh coating of snow on everything around us. I saw fresh deer tracks ahead on the trail and shortly caught up with a huge buck that ran down the trail ahead of me for a short ways before ducking into the woods out of site. 
The trail was super well maintained by a local mountain bike association and was pretty much downhill the entire way. There was one short steep rocky section that required walking but otherwise the trail was smooth single track with lightly built banked turns and a few tight switch backs in the steeper sections. There was a couple nice viewpoints that I’m sure would have had a great view of Hood on the way down had it not been snowing and raining. I also stopped to check out the biggest mushroom I’ve seen in the Northwest. It was about 1.5 feet in diameter! At the bottom of the trail I also saw what was either a large fox or a small coyote on the trail sniffing around. When we got down we cleaned ourselves up and put warm clothes on as heat painfully returned to our toes. No cotton socks next time in weather like that! We then had to make a quick run into Parkdale for some gas before heading back up the mountain to get the truck at the upper trailhead just as it was getting dark. Although Dog River Trail was amazing I’m not sure it was quite worth the $60 in gas I blew for the day driving all around. Next time we shuttle cars for biking we are getting a 7-8am start in the morning, especially with the shorter days of winter upon us now.
With Emily traveling for work I joined Arley and Katie for dinner at Ryan Anderson’s place. He made home made Italian slipper bread, brussel sprouts with aioli sauce and a pasta sauce that was amazing. I brought some sweet Italian sausage that went well with the pasta and a bottle of our Big Red wine left over from the wedding. Ryan played some great tunes from his record collection and we had a great evening of good food, good drink and great conversation. 
