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A New Calendar to Fill: A new year means a new itinerary for outdoor adventurers

Pam Stevenson

You would think by now that I would have a Blackberry to organize my life, but I love my Month-At-A-Glance paper calendar. I pencil in meetings and appointments, workouts and races, dinners and movies. I can see how it all fits together, with one swift look, and it becomes a record of my life that I enjoy reviewing now and then.
Every year at this time, I transition from the old one, chock full of a year's worth of work and play, and begin anew with a fresh, blank At-A-Glance. First, I fill in birthdays, holidays, full moons and any big commitments I know about. Next, I write in my favorite events or perhaps new ones I've heard about and want to try. Here are a few you might want to pencil into your 2010:

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Once in a Blue Moon: Timing is everything

Pam Stevenson

HAPPY BLUE MOON!
A Blue Moon is “an event of timing,” says Conrad Jung, a staff astronomer at the Chabot Space & Science Center in Oakland. A full moon occurs every 29.5 days. If there is a full moon early in the month, there is a possibility that a second full moon will appear at the end of the month. This occurrence, called a Blue Moon, takes place approximately every 33 months.
This New Year's Eve is especially special. Not only will the moon be full, it will also be blue. The last time that happened on a New Year's Eve was 1990. Our next Blue Moon will occur in August 2012, but our next New Year's Eve Blue Moon won't appear until 2028. So, live it up now! Ski into Meissner shelter, snowshoe up Tumalo Mountain, or, if you were smart enough to reserve a cabin a year ago, celebrate at Elk Lake.

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Birds: 8 – Hunters: 0: Christmas bird counters clash with illegal hunters

Jim Anderson

Saturday, December 19, was the official day for the annual National Audubon Christmas Bird Count (CBC), an event that's been going on for more than 100 years. Participants throughout the U.S., Canada and 19 other countries in the Western Hemisphere count birds in a 15-mile circle. Armed with binoculars, bird guides and checklists, the volunteers join scientists in this long-term conservation project, identifying and recording different species.
The Bend count circle is centered at Pioneer Park and covers an area south from the Arnold District near Knott Landfill, north to Hatfield Lakes, the sewage effluent ponds beyond the airport. Most CBC participants have been counting a specific area for several years, as is the case of a mom and her son from Bend. (Names withheld to protect the innocent.) She and her son have been doing the Hatfield Lakes area since the kid was in diapers, and most always come in with the highest counts for waterfowl. But things were different this year – illegal duck-hunters got there first.

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Adventures of a Backcountry Babe: Checking out the new 3SBC Yurts

Pam Stevenson

I'm a backcountry babe. Not in the huck-it-off-the-cliff-poster-shot kind of way, though I do have a highly photogenic snowplow tuck perfected. I mean babe, as in newborn. This past weekend, I not only survived my very first backcountry skiing experience, but totally loved it, thanks especially to some awesome ski partners and the guys at Three Sisters Backcountry. What's not to like about a cozy yurt and a wood-fired sauna nestled at the south end of Three Creeks Lake just below the bowls of Tam McArthur Rim?
Three Sisters Backcountry is the dream made real of Gabe Chladek, Shane Fox and Jonas Tarlen. After many long Central Oregon approach slogs, they started talking about how cool it would be if there were a hut system here, like in so many other mountain ranges. “It took ten years of planning,” said Shane when we met him at the Three Creeks Sno-Park on Friday morning, “but we finally got our permits in September and built our yurts.”

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The Adverse Weather Conditions Bowl

Mike Bookey

It's pre-bowl season now in the college sports world, the period when your Saturdays are spent clicking aimlessly between non-conference college basketball matchups and TNT's weekly screening of Independence Day. The only other thing of note occupying your time is the ongoing assail of the BCS system. But the truth is you're wasting your time. There will never be a playoff system, let's accept that and instead use the other list of bowls strictly for comedic value.
Here are some bowls I propose the NCAA or whatever group of pharmaceutical companies, financial institutions and tortilla chip makers implement next season:

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Freewheelin' In the Old Mill: A pictorial retrospective of last week's Cyclocross Nationals

The Source Staff

We're abandoning our usual format this week for a visual recap of the massively successful Cyclocross National finals. The event was held over four days in Bend and reportedly drew around 6,000 people and set new attendance records for the event, which will return again next year to Central Oregon. Thanks to Outdoors correspondent Pam Stevenson for toughing it out and providing these pics. Good on ya, Pam.

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Porcupines on a pedestal: They don't throw their quills, so settle down, people

Jim Anderson

In our part of the country, where trees are thought of as a cash crop, porcupines are not thought of as heroes, or worthy of being placed on a pedestal. I can recall back in the '50s when there were signs nailed to trees and poles all over the forest around Bend stating: “PLEASE KILL PORCUPINES” and porcupine poison stations were common in the forest. Government agencies and private timber companies still pay people to trap, shoot and otherwise make life miserable for Poor Old Porcy (I've replaced the usual “k” with the “c” so we don't start blaming the porcupine for the swine flu, and besides pigs don't have quills.)
In spite of the way most humans look at and treat porcupines, a baby porcy born at the High Desert Museum last summer made her first public appearance last week at an elementary school in Virginia, and was even featured in The Washington Post.

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Please Pity Peter Rabbit: Understanding the cottontail rabbit

Understanding the cottontail rabbit.
Jim Anderson

If there is one poor little guy that's on the short end of just about everyone's shopping list who eats meat, it's the cottontail rabbit, or as children's book author and illustrator Beatrix Potter called it, “Peter Rabbit.”
Perhaps the animal that depends on poor little Peter for food in our parts is the great horned owl. Both rabbit and owl are out feeding at night, but the owl has the upper hand. Yes, poor little Peter is dull brown and gray because of its fur, and it moves very slowly as it snips off tender buds, leaves and grass, but that big owl has some of the best equipment Nature ever invented for seeing and hearing small, slow-moving, rabbits. Once spotted, few escape the needle-sharp talons of this tiger of the air.

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Reunion at Yuppie Junction: Searching for the latte stand on the skinny tracks and an epic rider recoups

Searching for the latte stand on the skinny tracks and an epic rider recoups.
Pam Stevenson

This past weekend was the 30th reunion of the Amity High School Class of 1980. When I received my invitation a while back, I Googled my old boyfriend who was a dark-haired Italian star of the soccer team. Now, he is a rotund, bald banker.
Not ready to face the reality of my years or reminisce about “Stairway to Heaven” and the senior prom, I decided to forego a trip back east to Bethany, Connecticut and hang in Bend. Every year, it feels like a class reunion at the Nordic center on Thanksgiving weekend. I skated around the nicely groomed trails all weekend, catching up with dozens of Bend's outdoor athletes. Ski, chat, ski, chat, ski, chat.

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