Summer's Best

  October has arrived and so has the classic Oregon rain. But before transitioning into sipping hot cocoa and getting lost in corn mazes, I've sifted through the summer's photos and chosen my favorite exposure from each trip or event. Here's to another great Northwest summer...

At the very end of the school year, I hopped in Darren's car on one of his weekly Smith trips. Here he is climbing Burl-master (5.13d)

The first big endeavor of summer was climbing Mt. Hood (ele. 11,249'). This is Rory. He'd graduated several before and would be leaving his home Oregon, where he'd been for 6 years, for good in two days.

My good friend and Volifonix frontman Trevor and I have an interesting history on Cape Kiwanda that translated into a song titled "Three Good Friends." They decided to make it their first music video and it was shot on site on the Cape.

I joined my roommate Porter and some of our friends at the local pizza buffet before they headed off to climb Mt. Thielsen (elev. 9,184'). Sure enough I was rushing home to pack the bare essentials and off I went with them. I didn't regret it.

The way I got roped into climbing Thielsen was an agreement Henry and I made. If I climbed Thielsen, Henry would join me on the canoe trip--Eugene to Corvallis via the Willamette--that I'd been planning for weeks.

I wrote a travel article about breweries and adventure for Beer Northwest. I was trying to think of a way to combine the two and my photography mentor, Dan Morrison, recommended this idea. Major props to Ninkasi for allowing this to happen and to Matt Frick for steppin' up to the plate.

South Sister is by far the most crowded summit I've ever seen. For twelve hours, however, my buddy Tommy and I enjoyed the summit all to ourselves with a few Anderson Valley Crema Cervezas and an astro bivy at 10,363' to boot.

After graduating from the University of Oregon in September, I ran for the coast to collect myself. There I met some interesting characters who helped make my coastal sojourn a memorable one.