Desert Conference

Morning sun along the John Day River near Clarno

I spent last weekend at the Washington Family Ranch/Young Life camp in Wasco County, near the town of Antelope; the former Rajneesh compound.  A very interesting and somewhat disturbing place.  The Young Life people are busy turning it into a rather large amusement park, a playground for the 30,000 Christian kids they bring through there every year.  It is really too bad they cannot celebrate the essence of the sage-steppe environment where the camp is set and build something more in harmony with that incredible place.  Instead, they are trying to recreate the equivalent of a "Wild Waves" park that would better fit into a place like Hillsboro.  Huge missed opportunity.  Also supremely ironic that Young Life can effect such impact here with nary a peep from the outside world while the Rajneeshies caused a huge stir in the 1980s with a less environmentally heavy presence (although in this case Young Life has not yet tried to take over the Wasco County Board of Commissioners).  The conference, however, was great.  Hard to handle sitting inside talking about the place while wanting to be IN the place - but it was very enjoyable and I learned much.

Labor Day at Waldo

 On top of Fuji Mountain

We have been going to Waldo Lake for Labor Day weekend quite regularly over the years.  A nice tradition and usually we work a day hike into the weekend.  This time it was Fuji Mountain, which I had not hiked before.  There is a short, easy way to the top from a logging road, but we opted for the 5 1/2 mile one-way route.  Beautiful view from the top with Waldo Lake spread out below.
We also spent a couple of nights in Bend over the weekend and enjoyed some perfect weather for mountain biking. 

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"Camping" at Murphy

An overnight backpack in Oregon

Camped on the flanks of Irish Mountain

Well, the Sierras it ain't, but it was easier to get to.  I went on an overnight backpack with my brother and his newly arrived high school exchange student from Germany.  Unfortunately, the weather was really quite terrible - cold and wet.  We did see two bears though, one of them twice.