Heigh Ho Heigh Ho It's Off To Work [I] Go!

I'M EMPLOYED!!!

I'm going to be working for Planet Granite Portland and I couldn't be more excited!  This is the job I interviewed for in May and got the offer on Wednesday!  When it opens, I believe the gym is going to be the eighth largest climbing gym in the US.

There was a preview event on Thursday for those who work/live in the Pearl District.  It was my first time going into the gym and I was overwhelmed.  This place is amazing!  I've been to a lot of climbing gyms around the country and I honestly think this is the coolest one I've seen. 

Being in the gym before the walls are climbable is kind of like putting a kid in a room full of candy and telling them not to eat anything.  It was torturous.

Although the walls are finished, there's still a fair amount of construction that has to get done before opening day.  For anyone interested, here's a virtual tour of the gym:
    

Planet Granite Portland Virtual Tour from Planet Granite on Vimeo.

That's all for now.  Bye.

Walk 500 Miles

I was hoping this post would be on something else but unfortunately I haven't heard anything about the original topic so here is the substitute.

On Monday, some people drove over to the Columbia River Gorge to do my favorite hike of all time, Oneonta Falls.  The hike itself is very short, probably less than .5 miles, but it is one of the most fun/gorgeous hikes I have ever done.

The hike starts off by walking down some stairs from a bridge that lead to the beginning of the "trail."  The trail is actually a river.  The whole hike is either walking alongside or in the water.  

The first major obstacle is climbing over a massive stack of logs.  Make a wrong step and there is some serious potential for injury.  On our way out, we saw a lot of little kids trying to make it across the logs.  If I was a parent, I would have been freaking out.

A bit further up, being tall has its advantages.  The options to make it past one part of the trail are to traverse the slippery rocks on the side or continue walking in the water.  The water gets pretty deep at one point.  It got just under my chest at this time of year so some of the shorter people had to keep their heads up in order to not completely submerge.  

Walk a little longer and there is the waterfall.  We went swimming for a bit in the pool but that water was quite chilly.

After making our way back to the car, we decided to adventure onto a trail head we had parked near.  The path took us to a bridge which had a rather concerning warning on it stating that if more than one person went on at a time, there was a chance it would collapse.  That's always a fun thing to read. 

We made our way over to the top of a smaller waterfall and kept walking along the water.  The scenery was amazing.  One of the best parts was when Mitch got yelled at by a soccer mom standing on the danger bridge.  He was taking a picture and the crazy lady thought he was going to jump off the waterfall so she started frantically screaming and waving her arms.  It was great. 

After a quick stop at Multnomah Falls to fully embrace the Portland tourist spirit, we headed back home.

That's all for now.  Bye.

Family Affair

If you were to ask me 10ish years ago if I would ever consider both of my sisters to be good friends, I would have laughed in your face.   We may not have gotten along for a period of time growing up but now they are two of the greatest sisters anyone could ask for and it's always a good time when the siblings are able to be together.  So for this weeks "featured friend," I'm making it plural and doing it about Megan and Amanda.

2004?

I have zero recollection of meeting Amanda and Megan.  I was told it was about 22 years ago and apparently they were nice to me for a while.  With the amount of home videos my parents shot, I have a hard time separating real memories from what I've watched on film so I don't remember my first actual memory of them.
 
After many years of long car rides with them singing Les Mis and me plugging my ears, airborne thermoses, choreographed dances to Disney songs, a failed horror movie, overly competitive soccer games, and so much more, fast forward to today and Megan is going to school in Austin, TX for her masters/doctorate and Amanda is living in Seattle, WA. working on starting up her own piano lesson business.

We might be really into The Sound of Music

Here are some of my favorite memories (22 years makes picking pretty hard): 
Amanda:

• When we went on our own bar crawl on a weekday afternoon in Seattle
• Continuously falling in Hawaii in full snorkel gear while trying to get back on the beach
• Cousin Sarah's wedding in Idaho

Megan:

• Karaoke duets with mic stands
• The day I finally figured out how she got the $100,000 salary card in Life every single time we played
• Traveling around Europe for a week

Shared:

• Watching home videos
• Stressful family outings (Ape Caves comes to mind)
• Dancing game
• During indoor soccer when we got yelled at by grown adults on the other team who were upset they were losing to people half their age

The Dancing Game.  Pro status has been achieved.

Can't wait till December when we get to reunite.

That's all for now.  Bye.

O Canada

How I've lived in the NW for 18ish years and never been to Canada is kind of amazing.  There was a family gathering happening in Canada so on Tuesday, the fam packed into the car and made the 9 hour drive up to Whistler in British Colombia, with a stop in Seattle to kidnap sister Amanda.

We arrived at a fairly swanky resort (had the same feel as Sunriver) which is not normally my thing but it was nice.  After such a long travel day, food and groceries were the only things on the agenda for the rest of the night.  Of the three stores we went to, all of them had Australian employees.  Whistler seems to be where the Aussies gather.

After a morning pool/hot tub session on Wednesday with Amanda, a bunch of people went on a bike ride to Rainbow Lake.  It was a beautiful ride through the trees with mountains in the background, passing by other lakes and resort golf courses on the way.  We had to stop at one point due to a black bear feasting away on berries.  Some people thought it would be a great idea to get as close to the bear as possible which resulted in the bear getting agitated and lunging at them.  Not going to lie, it was kind of funny and they deserved it.

Bear crossing

Green Lake

Rainbow Lake

Thursday was probably the highlight of the little trip.  After a walk around the village area in the morning, we headed back to Rainbow Lake for lunch and swimming.  The water wasn't too cold but it happened to be really windy which made getting out of the water not very fun.  

Later in the day, it was time for some zip lining.  The fam along with my first cousin once removed (is that how we're related?), Amy, opted for the "bear tour" although it would have been pretty hard to spot a bear zooming down the cables.  To get to the platforms, you got to walk on a series of bridges, stairs, and paths through the forest.  The views were spectacular and zipping over a river upside down was quite fun.  The weird part was waiting on the platforms and randomly seeing people shoot across the sky on higher lines.  It was quite amusing.

View from one of the platforms

Some of the lines

Early on Friday, the family, along with Amy and cousin Adriana, got up and went on a hike to Logger's Lake in the Cheakamus Valley.  We accidentally parked in the wrong lot but got to hike along a raging river to get to where we were trying to go.  I was really tempted to go on one of the rope swings hanging from trees to jump into the water but wasn't wearing the proper attire. 

Logger's Lake

From the lake, we hiked uphill for a bit and got to an incredible viewpoint.  It kind of reminded me of the scenery in Austria and almost didn't feel real how amazing the view was.

Dat view doh

After a little pool session, the entire group went out to dinner and good times were had by all.  The cousins who were able to be there also got a chance to spend some time together later that night which is a rare but always welcome occasion.

This morning we packed up and made the long drive back to Portland.  After waiting roughly 1.5 hours to cross the boarder, bad traffic in Seattle, and multiple stops along the way, the 13 hour trip back was finished (hence why this is posted so late).  Thus, this little trip has come to an end.

That's all for now.  Bye.

Some Kind Of Wonderful

First off, whoever invented air conditioning is my favorite person.  It is too hot.

I actually had another post ready to go for today but after climbing at a new gym that opened yesterday, I felt the urge to do a little review for what is likely going to be my new bouldering hangout.

The Circuit is a bouldering gym that had two locations, one in SW and the other in NE Portland (if you don't know what bouldering is, I did a post on some climbing stuff you may want to give a read).  Yesterday, they opened their third location in Tigard. 

This place is massive!  According to their website, the Tigard location is over 19,000 square feet.  As you walk through the front doors, your forearms are greeted with massive boulders filled with colorful plastic and walls of varying angles as far as the eye can see.  Okay, maybe not as far as the eye can see but it is pretty amazing how much terrain there is.  

The kids area was huge which is nice.  It's really annoying when little kids walk right under you when you know you're about to fall, so having a place for them to climb is always a plus.  Most kid areas in gyms are just flat, vertical walls but this area had a pretty steep overhang which, in my experience running climbing camps for years, is what kids like trying.

Part of the kids area with 2 slides.

There are two top out boulders, meaning you climb onto the top of the boulder and walk down a flight of stairs, which is always fun.  They even put a bar running around the top out boulders so you have something to grab when hoisting yourself up at the end of a problem.  Sometimes getting onto the top is pretty sketchy so the bar is nice to have.

If one of those overhead fans fell, it would be something out of the next Final Destination movie.

As with the other locations, the routes here are incredibly well set and always feel like each one was planned out, no matter the difficulty.  All of the holds are new.  If you've never climbed on new climbing holds before, they hurt.  New holds shred your skin because of how textured they are but as more people use them, they don't hurt nearly as bad.  The plus side is that I can climb a lot harder since my hands pretty much stick to everything.

All done.

The lack of seating for spectators and at the storage spaces was a little odd.  A few benches here and there would be a nice addition.  That and the water from all three taps in the bathroom was scorching hot are my only real complaints.  Well done Circuit.

That's all for now.  Bye.