Bend’s best athletes aren’t runners or cyclists or even Nordic skiers—they’re furry sled dogs. These little beasts, called Alaskan huskies, are shorthaired, agile and weigh between 45 and 55 pounds—much smaller than their fluffy Washington husky and Alaskan Malamute cousins, which can easily tip the scales at 100 pounds or more. As is true with […]
Outside
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Cross Crusade Turns Twenty
How Oregon’s insanely popular cyclocross series advanced women’s racing
Tina Brubaker, a cheery, petite powerhouse, fondly remembers racing cyclocross in Oregon in 1994, just one year after the Cross Crusade series was established. With a roaring fire, cold beers and even a brother-sister duo that sang and played the banjo, those early races, which attracted approximately 50 racers and were often held at a […]
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Playing with Your Food
Get lost in the Smith Rock Ranch corn maze
Matt and Kendra Lisignoli, owners of Smith Rock Ranch, are smack dab in the middle of their busiest season of the year. Set among a blanket of bright orange globes, with the jagged backdrop of Smith Rock State Park, the site is postcard perfect—and Matt and Kendra recently talked with the Source about their corn […]
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Beer Battered Brains
Downtown Bend transforms into a race for survival
In a 2009 interview, Max Brooks, author of the best selling “The Zombie Survival Guide,” and “WWZ” was asked about the continuing obsession with mindless, gruesome, flesh-hungry zombies. He claimed that zombies are a concrete way to deal with fear of the intangible. “You can’t shoot the financial meltdown in the head—you can do that […]
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Casting for birds, frogs and other wildlife
No matter how you look at it, finding wild and rare Oregon spotted frogs alongside native nesting Virginia rails in the Old Mill District is something extraordinary. Ask Tom Crabtree, Central Oregon's premier birder: "In all my 32 years of birding in Oregon, this is the only time I ever had the opportunity to watch […]
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The 'Tween Season: Skiing in Autumn
Early-season skiing, firewood cutting and some sad news
Peter Alport, an area photographer and videographer, is obsessive about checking the weather. And for good reason—quality photography often hinges on meteorological trends. The 37-year-old outdoor athlete and artist isn’t shy about his weather obsession and readily admits to spending an inordinate amount of time hitting refresh on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s website. […]
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Exercise like Steve Martin
A how-to, inspired by Martin’s many memorable characters
This past July, Steve Martin was riding his bike through northeast Pennsylvania. At some point, his wallet bounced out of his pocket where, hours later, it was found by a street cleaner. Instead of trading in the wallet to some tabloid or eBay collector, the Good Samaritan tracked down the venue where Martin was performing […]
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From "Gimp" to Glory
Amputee climber is the anchor for inspiring short, Gimp Monkeys
On a summer day more than a decade ago, climber Craig DeMartino was working his way across a tricky route (rated 5.11c) in Rocky Mountain National Park, when he had a momentary miscue with his climbing partner. In that moment, DeMartino's life unfurled, and he fell 100 feet to the hard ground below. His injuries […]
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Surfin’ USA
After years of effort, local surfboard shaper Conway Bixby has made it
Conway Bixby makes surfboards. It sounds like a dream job and it is, says Bixby, a 31-year-old Oregon native. Shaping, as the practice is called, recently became a full-time job for the Bend resident who spent this summer often cranking out one board a week to fill custom orders. Working at home on his own […]
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Sisters Science Club Symposiums
On Sept. 19, the Sisters Science Club will kick off the 2013 free science symposiums in Sisters, featuring current topics on science. The first of the series presented by OSU geology instructor, Daniele McKay, will be "Volcanoes in Central Oregon: When Will the Next Eruption Occur, and How Will It Affect You?" What a topic […]