Well friends, summers just about coming to and end for me. I can't say that the deserts of SoCal are 'calling me,' but my contract with Naturalists-At-Large sure is. The summer climbing and hiking adventures in the North Cascades are still fresh in my mind as I compute away here in Bend. Driving over from Portland, past Mount Hood, the Oregon mountains seemed more dry than usual - but I have yet to pin that on climate or my mind's immersion in the lush, glacial, and wild northerner regions of the range. The North Cascades are (obviously) nothing like those of my hometown Central Oregon volcanoes. It was great to see again, the stratavolcanoes, alone on the horizon, not fighting for space amongst the other mountains of the land

The last big adventure - besides the incredible four night Summer Meltdown Music Festival last weekend - was Michelle and I's one-day ascent of Mount Kangaroo Temple.

For my climbing geek friends: we climbed the Northwest face which is, according to Beckey who made the first ascent in 1946, Grade II, 5.7. What was novel about our climb is that we approached via the Twisp River trail rather than via Washington Pass. It made for a long day, but meant great trailhead camping and some fun and beautiful off-trail travel through Kangaroo Basin. After about 14 hours of climbing, hiking, and scrambling we return to our camp. The climbing was really fun, though the Beckey topo was pretty useless (though the written description was helpful). I lead the route in three steep 5.7 pitches and shortroped (unnessecarily) the last couple hundred feet.