Outside Features

How lucky am I? The Deschutes River flows through my backyard.
Everyday, I watch the geese and the ducks, sometimes the swans, float
by as I work in my home office. It's magical when the sinking sun
bounces off the rippling river under the willow tree and sets my living
room asparkle. My dog is endlessly entertained by the beavers, otters
and minks and I never have to worry about filling her outdoor water
bowl. Occasionally, neighborhood boys set crawdad traps from my dock. I
frequently paddle from my backyard up to McKay Park, down to the
Newport Bridge and back again. I can say with 100% confidence that I
have logged more river miles on the Mirror Pond run in the past eight
years than anyone in the world. I am intimately familiar with the
channel of best flow, the submerged rocks above the Columbia Park
footbridge, the underwater pylons below the Drake Park footbridge, the
swan nests, the water level and the silt buildup in Mirror Pond.

Over
the years, I have also collected the following out of our river: a love
note in a beer bottle, a leather statue of an ibex, a plastic frog, an
Aerobie Flying Ring, a license plate, a horseshoe, a lawn chair, a
couple flip flops per summer, several pumpkins, a few unmanned
floaties, 20 softballs, 39 tennis balls and approximately $5.75 in
recycling. A couple of weeks ago we reported to the Bend Police a
picnic table going down the river. It is still hung up on the buoy line
in front of the Newport spillway. Why someone felt compelled to launch
the table, presumably from McKay Park, and why no one has removed it, I
don't know. I love the Deschutes River and I think we should all
appreciate this treasure that flows through the heart of Bend.

And we all glide on. Soaring, etc.

OK, so we are all glad that the tourists have gone home. But maybe, secretly, we have an inner tourist that actually enjoyed riding the Space Mountain Roller Coaster at Disney World, bungy jumping in Queenstown and partaking in the wine and cheese safari in Napa Valley. Rather than wait 'til the relatives come to visit, now is the perfect time to come out of the closet and be a tourist in your own backyard.

GET ABOVE IT ALL

Last week, the friendly folks at Sunriver Soaring invited me to go on one of their glider flights. I'd never been in a glider before and, to be honest, I don't do particularly well on roller coasters and such, so I did sneak a Dramamine before my flight. I met the crew, including pilot Dale Masters, at the Sunriver Airport. It instilled confidence to meet Dale. He just looks like the seasoned pilot that he is and, with 30 years of successful soaring under his belt, he is the author of Soaring: Beyond the Basics. Brian Lansburgh, who has owned Sunriver Soaring for about a year and a half, supported his family for years as a comic pilot. That sounded like an oxymoron to me, but Dale explained, "He would fly like he didn't know what he was doing (which actually requires tremendous skill) and cap off the performance by landing and hopping out of the cockpit in a clown costume."

Future olympians?THE TORCH MOVES ON

If you are like most people, you were unusually glued to your TV the past two weeks watching the Olympic coverage from Beijing. You were blown away by the incredible, record-setting gold medal perfection of Michael Phelps in the pool. You were mesmerized by the gymnastic performances of Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson. You were shocked and dismayed when we dropped the baton…twice. And you have probably learned more about beach volleyball than you ever wanted to know. Maybe you even rooted for Bend's own Adam Craig in the mountain bike race. Now that the torch moves on to Vancouver for 2010, I'd like to submit my candidates for new Olympic sports:

Extreme Ironing: Founded in 1997 by two Brits named Phil and Paul, but better known as "Steam" and "Spray," EI is a sport that "combines the thrills of an extreme outdoor activity with the satisfaction of a well pressed shirt," according to the Extreme Ironing Bureau. "It involves taking an iron and board (if possible) to remote locations and ironing a few items of laundry. This can involve ironing on a mountainside, preferably on a difficult climb, or taking an iron skiing, snowboarding or canoeing." In 2002, the German Extreme Ironing Section organized the highly successful World Championships in the village of Valley near Munich with German ironist Hot Pants winning the individual event and a British team taking the top spot in the team event. The international popularity of this sport makes it an obvious selection for the Olympics.

Suzanne King surrounded by children sponsored by Grandmother’s Education Fund Africa in Kenya.THE SECRET TO WINNING

I think most athletes, no matter their talent level, fantasize about going to the Olympics. I was no different. In my early twenties, I got into bike racing and started winning on the collegiate circuit and some Northern California criteriums and track events. I lived to ride. But, put me in a road race with the likes of Katrin Tobin or Sally Zack and I was off the back like a sack of potatoes. It was pretty clear I didn't have the talent to hang with Olympians, so I had to find another way to make it to the Games. Through my career, I've ended up being fortunate to partake in the Olympic dream by working with some of the greatest athletes in history.

I became the sports scientist for the 1992 U.S. Olympic Cycling Team and dedicated myself for two years to working with the athletes and coaches to use science and engineering to optimize athletic performance. I measured oxygen uptake, analyzed blood lactate, monitored heart rates, plotted pedal forces and studied drag in a wind tunnel. I created Coach Chris Carmichael's first training log (the earliest step in the evolution of Carmichael Training Systems). We had a very talented crop of junior men, led by future pro stars George Hincapie and Freddie Rodriguez. But, the standout of the squad was a 19-year former triathlete named Lance Armstrong.

Aisles and aisles of stuff at Outdoor RetailerOn Stuff

As outdoor lovers, most of us try to tread lightly on our planet. We Leave No Trace, we join Blue Sky, we ride to work, we recycle. But we also love our gear: our full-suspension mountain bikes with disc brakes, our biomechanically designed running shoes, our lightweight carbon fiber paddles. Cool stuff.

George Carlin, the satirical comedian who passed away in June, had a famous routine on stuff (Google him to find the YouTube video of his five-minute sketch). He made fun of how attached we are to, and possibly bogged down we are by, our possessions.

The Story of Stuff with Annie Leonard at storyofstuff.com takes a harder line on manufacturing and the evils of Stuff in our consumption-based socioeconomy.

So, how do we align our environmental ethos with our desire for techy new gear?

Manufacturers in the outdoor industry are faced with an especially ironic challenge. They are in business to build products that enable people to get out and enjoy the great outdoors, but the manufacturing of those products ultimately consumes finite resources.

Wallowing in the wallowas. BACKPACKING

Due to our huge snowpack, backpacking season has been a long time coming this summer, but it is FINALLY here! My friend Patty and I have a favorite annual tradition: A weeklong backpacking trip with our dogs somewhere within a day's drive of Bend. We load our packs with tents, sleeping bags and food from Trader Joe's, while the dogs don their Ruff Wear packs filled with buffalo kibble and milk bones. Our chosen routes always include lots of water in the form of rivers and lakes. Since I was spending this week in the wilderness without an Internet connection (horrors!), I thought I'd share some insight into a few of our great trips.

My favorite trip of all seven so far was the Wallowas in the far northeastern corner of Oregon. It is a long drive to get there, but so worth it because of the spectacular scenery. We hiked a 36-mile loop starting outside of Joseph, through the Eagle Cap Wilderness that featured breathtaking alpine scenery. I'll always remember the view from Glacier Pass down into the Glacier Lake basin.

For a fun trip only a three-hour drive east of here near John Day, try the Strawberry Mountains. It was our first trip, when the dogs were puppies. We did a 35-mile traverse and the highlights were climbing Strawberry Mountain and swimming in Strawberry Lake. The Strawberries are nice for a close trip, but not as rugged and beautiful as some other options.

Taking a ride on the wet side. THE GRASS IS GREENER ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE PASS

Alan and Bev Abbs are ultra runners from Red Bluff, Calif. who came to Bend a couple of years ago to compete in the Raid adventure race held here. That same weekend, they read an article in the local paper about the secretly great trails in nearby Oakridge. They decided to check it out for themselves on their way home and ended up buying a house there. Why? They were impressed with the endless miles of trails available and liked the idea of a respite from the hundred-degree-plus heat of California. I caught up with the Abbs on a recent weekend in Oakridge. The previous weekend, they were supposed to compete in the Western States 100, the granddaddy of ultramarathons, but it was cancelled for the first time in its history because of the raging wildfires in California. Bev was nursing a sore knee from overtraining anyway, so they planned a weekend of mountain biking cross-training in Oakridge and invited me to try to keep up with them.
The trails of Oakridge, a 90-minute drive from here, represent a nice change of venue for Bend riders and trail runners as well. We seem to have a narrow window when our trails are snow-free, yet not dusty. Just on the other side of the Cascades, you find lush vegetation which keeps the trails cool and shady and in excellent condition all summer long (though mud is an issue in the shoulder seasons). The first day, the Abbs' took me on a 35-mile ride that started with a grueling 2,500-foot climb, but the twisty, wildflower-lined singletrack descent down the Alpine Trail made it all worthwhile. The next day we wound the spring again with a steep 1,500-foot climb in order to descend the Larison Rock Trail. There are rides with less climbing in Oakridge (apparently the Abbs' don't do them), notably the epic 30-mile long Middle Fork Willamette Trail.

What would happen if you broke your leg out there?A SWEET SPOT

Laurie Fox decided to go for a run on Kent's Trail with her dog Lyle one December afternoon three and a half years ago. Unexpectedly, a few miles out, she slipped on some black ice and fell hard, cracking her ankle. Laurie is an experienced outdoorswoman; she attempted to fashion a splint from some sticks and she started crawling toward the trailhead, but she had no cell phone, night was falling and she was losing body heat quickly. Luckily, Laurie had a husband back home who knew where she had gone and that she was late returning. Also luckily for Laurie, a homeless man on his bike came across her and was able to build a fire and call 911. Laurie was rescued, but she has looked at her outings differently ever since. "I always have a pack with a whistle, some matches and a cell phone, at the very least."
Ironically, a similar accident happened to Karen Johnson, another experienced outdoorswoman, two Februarys ago. She headed out for her usual run with her dogs on Phil's Trail on a cold, foggy morning before work. She was aware of the ice on the trail and was running cautiously, but suddenly slammed to the ground. She remembers the loud cracking sound of the compound fracture of her tibia and fibula and the intense pain. "Jake is no Lassie," she said of her dog, but she did have her cell phone with her. She pulled it out, but could not get a signal. She could barely crawl, so she tried waving it over her head and luckily managed to get a call through to her partner Ken. "I'm above the chicken and below the rock and I broke my leg," is all she needed to say. Ken and Search and Rescue were able to save Karen, but she believes she would have died from hypothermia otherwise.

Paddling at Hosmer LakeSEA KAYAKING THE HIGH DESERT
 
Who woulda thunk that Central Oregon could be a Mecca for sea kayakers? On a recent morning bike ride up to Mt. Bachelor, I was passed by approximately 30 rooftop kayaks enroute to various Cascade Lakes. Just a couple of weeks ago, some avid kayakers I know had to park along the highway and drag their boats across the snow to put in at Sparks Lake. Now, there is good access to all of our lakes and it is prime paddling season.
Sparks Lake, the closest lake to town for a decent paddle, is especially good in the early season. It is a shallow lake that dries up as summer progresses, but right now it is full and fun. It offers nooks and crannies to explore, paddle-up campsites and is a wonderful lake from which to watch a full moon rise behind Bachelor. I remember one magical full moon paddle when we were accompanied by a deer swimming across the lake. Hosmer Lake is another favorite of kayakers and fly fishermen alike. It is a beautiful sinuous lake filled with gorgeous yellow water lilies and reflections of South Sister, Broken Top and Bachelor. The water is clear and the fish are plentiful. There is a special treat if you manage to navigate the maze of reeds to the inlet- a sparkling waterfall. I also enjoy taking a lap or two around Elk Lake followed, of course, by an ice cream cone at the lodge. Other great lakes for getting your sea kayak wet include Cultus for a woodsy feel, Crescent if you like sandy beaches and Waldo if you're ready for the potential of bigger conditions.

Let’s get physical. GLUTEUS MAXIMUS, MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE, MAX FACTOR
 
About 6 years ago, I founded the Bend Adventure Racing Klub (www.BARKracing.com). We were assembling Team BARK to race our first 24-hour Cal Eco event. Dave Schneider and Tom Schill were committed, and I was our token female, but we needed a third guy. We "interviewed" two candidates, including Max King. None of us knew Max, but he had expressed interest. He was very young and very understated, but there was something about him we liked, so we chose him. A few days later, we all piled into Dave's truck, pulling a trailer brimming with gear behind us, and headed out on the long drive to Central California. I remember our first rest stop about three hours later. As the rest of us stiffly climbed out of the truck, Max took three long graceful strides and hurdled a nearby picnic table. We all looked at each other with astonished expressions and wondered just who we had signed up. As it turned out, Max was a recent Cornell graduate who had been a stellar collegiate steeplechaser. Burned out on the track and field regimen, he wanted to try something new. I can tell you, Max is a stellar adventure racer too. There were times he had our entire team in tow, and he weighed less than any of us. He has an unflappable nature (extremely useful in adventure racing!) and he is bright, quickly mastering the art of navigation. After a couple of years having fun with adventure racing, Max returned to competitive running and dedicated himself the past two years to training for the Olympic steeplechase. He took time away from his job at Bend Research and away from his wife Dorie, living and training in Eugene. Too often in our lives we don't chase our dreams. Max finished sixteenth in the Olympic Trials in Eugene last week, but in my mind he's a hero just for giving it a go.