Off Piste

Every so often a book comes along that lives up to being “a page turner.” Such is the case with Hellhound On His Trail: The stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr and the international hunt for his assassin by Hampton Sides.

Tuesday was one of those days that makes you feel alive and involved. The weather was nice for a change and along with that was the chance to be involved in the planting of 8,000 Steelhead fry in Wychus Creek.

Days after I was born, my parents took me from a San Francisco hospital home to Marin County where I spent my first eight years. When I mention that I'm a Marin native to a Bend friend named Sam, he invariably goes into a rant about that county north of San Francisco being the home to nothing but arrogant yuppies and people with way too much money.

 
 
I usually don’t read books that profile people like Bill Gates, Warren Buffet or some Arab potenate who is rich beyond believe. Nor do I dive into books about finance or Wall Street.

When I was young, my family lived on the flanks of Cheyenne Mountain outside Colorado Springs, Colorado. My father would scan the horizon to the east and say, “on a clear day you can see Kansas from here.

The routine since this past November has been a simple. A good friend and I finish every weekend mountain bike ride with the search for the best post-ride place to drink beer and have something to eat.

I've always looked on the political lawn sign as an innocuous, and not that effective, political statement. A “Vote for Ralph-the good guy” lawn sign probably won't sway a lot of people to vote for Ralph but none-the-less shows that he has a few supporters in the community.

For years, I bored Source readers with my endless cheerleading for Gray Butte as being the best place to mountain bike in Central Oregon. My reasons then, and now, as to why Gray Butte offers the best riding are simple: great vistas out over the Cascades, superb singletrack, lots of lung busting ups and some incredibly fast downs.

In a letter to the editor in the November 2009 issue of Backcountry Magazine a reader wrote in regard to ski town living saying: “Do the people who have been living here for less than a season need to be saying buzz words like 'gnarly' and 'epic' every other sentence?”
Like dude, talking in bro/bra-speak comes with the territory if you want to appear to be a local. Make that a local who skis, rides (boards and bikes), makes the brewpub scene every day and apparently does this all without benefit of a job.

In a letter to the editor in the November 2009 issue of Backcountry Magazine (www.backcountry magazine.