Outside Archives - Page 201 of 203 - The Source

Ladybug, Ladybug, Fly Away Home!: Taking advantage of natural pesticides

Jim AndersonMarch 5, 2008June 5, 2024

Transverse Lady Beetle doing its thing: pigging out on aphids.In late summer, my wife and I take a small group to Lava Beds National
Monument and neighboring Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge to tag
Monarch butterflies. While we're about it, we observe thousands of lady
beetles gobbling up aphids on the Monarch's food plant, narrow-leaf
milkweed.
That's OK; that's what lady beetles do - eat pestiferous
insects that cause great harm to Monarch caterpillar food and the
agricultural and landscaping business.
The problem is, as is
often the case with the way Man does things, if a little is good, we
think that a whole lot more is better – like pesticides. Not so with
lady beetles. Unfortunately, the free enterprise system that we all
operate within, depend on to make a living and find things in the
grocery store got carried away with ladybugs.

Outside

Local Birkebeiners Go Big: Plus 51,000 vertical feet and trail running champs pick Bend

Mike BookeyMarch 5, 2008December 7, 2023

James Balog
Wins Rowell Award
The powder returns and luckily there are brave souls to ski it.The Rowell award is given out each
year to celebrate the lives of Galen and Barbara Rowell, who died in a
plane crash in 2002. The Rowells, with their athletic abilities and
adventurous spirits, traveled and climbed all over the world. They
captured awe-inspiring photographs wherever they went. When traveling
through Bishop, Calif., stop in at the Rowell Gallery to take in
hundreds of their breathtaking images. Lupine fields in front of Fitz
Roy in Patagonia, gnarled Bristlecone Pines in California's Sierra
Nevada 'Range of Light,' skiing in the Alaska Range, and cultural
photos of Tibetans, Pakistanis, and Nepalese are just a few of the
images chronicling the Rowells' lives.

Outside

Goodbye, Old Friend: A farewell to a lopped juniper

Jim AndersonFebruary 27, 2008July 28, 2024

An ancient juniper falls to an unknown hand,It once stood as an Old Friend to myriad wanderers that needed a place
to rest, a place to search for food, a place for shelter, and a place
to just hang out.
When Freemont, the "Pathfinder," and Kit Carson
wandered though here in the 1840s, my Old Friend was green and robust.
Over the ensuing years it survived countless wildfires. Native
Americans and early pioneers somehow passed it by while looking for
firewood to cook their game or warm their feet.
It is now nothing
but a pile of dead wood, cast aside for some reason known to only the
person who cut it down – the delightful old juniper snag on the east
side of Highway 20, near the irrigation pivots across from the eight
mile post.

Outside

Boys Town

Mike FicherFebruary 27, 2008May 2, 2025

HOW FAR WE
HAVE TO GO
On Feb. 2, Michelle Campbell arrived at St.
Mary's Academy in Kansas to referee a boys' basketball game. The
two-year officiating veteran was scheduled to call her first boys game.
However, the former college player was sent home because the school
didn't want a woman refereeing boys.
Darin Putthoff, who was
scheduled to officiate the game with Campbell-both walked out after
being told of the situation-reported that a St. Mary's official told
him that having a woman in a position of authority over boys was
against the school's beliefs.
In a statement-the school had
declined interviews-St. Mary's offered: "Our school aims to instill in
our boys the proper respect for women and girls. Teaching our boys to
treat ladies with deference, we cannot place them in an aggressive
athletic competition where they are forced to play inhibited by their
concern about running into a female referee." Campbell is a career
police officer.
"It was a sad day for the kids," Campbell told ESPN. "If they're like any other teenagers, all they want to do is play ball."

Outside

The Path Least Travelled: Finding a deeper stash at Thayer Glacier Headwall

Mike BookeyFebruary 27, 2008July 24, 2025

Sublime Corn Turns on the Thayer HeadwallEvery year I write down a list of goals to accomplish in the outdoors.
The past two years, climbing and skiing from the top of the Thayer
Glacier Headwall on North Sister has ranked among the top five on the
list. Last season, I was unable to check off the Thayer Headwall, but
not for a lack of trying. I skied into the east face of North Sister
three separate times, only to be denied access to the mountain's upper
reaches due to avalanche conditions. One memorable occasion, after
deciding the avalanche conditions were too dangerous, I witnessed two
big slides tumbling down the east face while eating lunch a safe
distance away.

The Thayer Glacier Headwall is a very natural and
aesthetic climbing route. Looking out my window at North Sister, I have
scanned the face with binoculars hundreds of times eyeing the potential
for ski mountaineering. The route begins just above a tarn sitting at
the base of the east face. It climbs the lower portion of an hourglass
through a constriction, pinching down to only a couple ski lengths
wide, before reopening. Instead of continuing up the upper hourglass,
the route bends to the right aiming directly toward the summit.

Outside

Fly Like An Eagle: Lake Billy Chinook boasts world class gathering

Thirteen years ago, Paul Patton, a remarkable Oregon Parks and Recreation Department manager who looks after parks in the Madras area introduced the first Eagle Watch in cooperation with PGE, Warm Springs Federation and a bunch of other good people.

Jim AndersonFebruary 20, 2008July 24, 2024

American Bald Eagle adult. Come see them at Eagle Watch 2008.If you're a cross-country skier, snowboarder and looking for something
else to do on your weekend, here it is: Eagle Watch 2008. It's an
opportunity to see lots of eagles and hawks close up, learn about birds
in general and raptors in particular. All you have to do is set aside
the weekend of Feb. 23-24 and head for PGE's Round Butte Observatory on
Lake Billy Chinook where eagles gather for an annual nesting and
feeding frenzy. How's that for easy?

Thirteen years ago, Paul Patton,
a remarkable Oregon Parks and Recreation Department manager who looks
after parks in the Madras area introduced the first Eagle Watch in
cooperation with PGE, Warm Springs Federation and a bunch of other good
people.

Outside

Digging into the Corn: Local notables, trail work and the science of snow

We have been fortunate this year to have the snowflakes fall… and fall… and fall some more. So much snow has fallen, in fact, that seldom skied areas have seen tracks in the past month. Ralph Tadday and others made turns on Pilot Butte.

Mike BookeyFebruary 20, 2008July 10, 2024

Skiing on Broken Top — South Sister and her covered moraine in the background.Spring Corn
We have been fortunate this year to have the
snowflakes fall… and fall… and fall some more. So much snow has fallen,
in fact, that seldom skied areas have seen tracks in the past month.
Ralph Tadday and others made turns on Pilot Butte. Mike McLandress and
Guy Giffin skied Lava Butte on Super Bowl Sunday, and many of you have
tracked up your favorite slopes all across Central Oregon.

Outside

Welcome Back to the Pac

Mike FicherFebruary 13, 2008January 4, 2023

THOMAS WOLFE REVISTED
Gazing into the Source's crystal ball (you'll generally find the orb amidst the flying fish at the Colorado roundabout) and Left Field sees, after the 2008 NFL season, the following chain of events:
Mike Holmgren finishes the last year of his contract and retires from Seattle; Tyrone Willingham is relieved of his duties as head football coach at the University of Washington for failing to deliver on the mandate to win; Jim Mora declines to be considered for head coach of the Seahawks and accepts his dream job to run the University of Washington program; the 49ers are finally done with Mike Nolan's act and fire him; San Francisco offers Holmgren a chance to finish his career in his hometown as head coach of the five-time Super Bowl champions.

Outside

Great Backyard Bird Count: No experience needed for massive bird count

Spotted Towhee willing to be tallied while pigging out on free food. If you’re stuck indoors and wish you could get out to do some

Jim AndersonFebruary 13, 2008January 28, 2023

Spotted Towhee willing to be tallied while pigging out on free food. If you're stuck indoors and wish you could get out to do some birding, don't feel bad. The Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) is about to happen! For four days, Feb. 15 to 18, you can count every bird on your feeder. You will not only have a lot of fun doing it, but the results are vital to the welfare of birds in your area.
The GBBC is a partnership between Cornell University's Laboratory of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society, and sponsored in part by Wild Birds Unlimited. The annual four-day event engages bird watchers of all ages in counting birds to create a real-time snapshot of where birds are across the continent. Anyone can participate, from beginning bird watchers to experts. It's free, fun, and easy-and it helps the birds.

Outside

Wild and Wacky WinterFest: Rail jams, sprints and a torturous tri

Eric FlowersFebruary 13, 2008May 10, 2024

A crazy weekend of outdoor festivities kicked off Friday evening with lycra-clad nordies sprinting on a one-block long course.
Competitors went head to head as the sun was setting on a crisp, clear, evening as spectators began collecting downtown to check out the Bend WinterFest. The racers skied down the manicured track between Bond and Wall just getting up to speed before dumping some speed to go around an extremely tight 180-degree turn to sprint back to the finish. Many competitors bit the dust making the hairpin turn.
By the time the final rounds began, the entire length of the course was packed. In the men's final round, Colin Mahood went down at the turn allowing Marshal Greene to glide easily to victory. In the women's bracket, Molly Grove poled out of the gates ahead of Taylor Leach and extended her lead into the finish line. The short track of snow was well used as more than 100 high school nordic skiers competed on Saturday in head-to-head sprint races.

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