Off Piste

This week I did something I'd never done before. Something so frightening that it me took hours to build up the nerve to do it.

Come spring in the mountains and the time when the snowpack sets up hard at night and stays covered with a thick layer of hard crust for most of the following day. With the first signs of thick crust comes the start of the “crust cruising” season.

This past Saturday, Deschutes Land Trust executive director Brad Chalfant asked me to join him on a mountain bike ride in the proposed Skyline Forest. He wanted to show me the potential for a trail network if and when the property becomes a Land Trust holding.

Not that many years ago I was riding my road bike with a friend east of Bend. We were headed single file down a long straightaway when a spiffy Mercedes C Class sedan came speeding by at what seemed like 75MPH and about four feet from us.

My first magazine editorial position was with one that received quite a few letters to the editor. And when it came to those letters, the head of editorial department was a stickler.

The Cross Country Ski Areas Association's (CCSAA) membership is comprised of ski area and ski resort owners and operators plus representatives from ski gear makers, grooming equipment manufacturers, insurance companies and others who offer services to ski areas. In short, it's a classic affinity group, and like so many such groups holds an annual convention.

I admit it. I watch a lot of the Food Network's programming and do so not so much for the food but for the characters like Paula Deen whose secret ingredients in every recipe are butter and sugar.

Two things happen this week that touched on a significant change in the creative world and how photographic images are made and who profits from their sale.
First came an e-mail message from a very talented designer of outdoor gear who asked if I'd take a look at his photo website and offer a critique of his work.

Easily the best thing about this year's Final Four is the absence of a New Yawk team, or some other big East Coast metro college team, and all the attendant hype that they invariably get from Dickie V and all the talking head experts on ESPN who refer to the game being played as “basketbawl”. Thankfully we won't hear a lot of: ” Hey, I love Jimmy B and da Cuse and he'll have the big ones taking it to the rack and the small ones hoisting up trifectas,” blither.

After close to 40 years of participating in, writing about and photographing individual self-propelled sports, I recently developed a passion for a team sport. Not any team sport.