Summer is (finally) here

I started this post a few days back, and the story at that time was how we had endured three weeks of unusually cool and rainy weather here in the Gorge.  In fact we did not have a day above 80 until yesterday (6/12) which is the latest on record in PDX for such an event.  We also didn't have two consecutive rainless days that entire stretch.  And the wind sucked.  Meaning it didn't blow.  We only sailed two days since leaving Maui - not good.

But weather here in the NW is a decidedly Dr Jekyl Mr Hyde affair. Most rain falls in the winter and summer is almost entirely clear and dry.  Sometime during the spring to summer transition the pacific hose shuts off, usually by May, and from that point on rain from Hood River east to the deserts is very rare indeed.  This year it just took extra long for that to happen.  But now it seems the switch has been thrown.  Suddenly the forecast for as far can be seen is nothing but sun, sun, sun.  Plus wind.  Yeah!

We have a very energy and space efficient studio that we built on top of our garage (AKA adult toy chest) in downtown Hood River.  The space is small and cute but the views are huge.  Though we'd been missing that with all these cloudy days.  Finally last evening a clear sky and the late sun (it sets after 9PM this time of year) combined to light up Mt Adams in alpenglow. This is what we get to see most evenings.

Mt Adams is 12,281 ft (3,743.2 m) high and about 20 miles due north of us. BTW - the native name is Mt Klickitat and I wish we would all go back to that. The Adams name was a total mistake and a bad idea. Read the wiki entry. The good news is Mt Klickitat hasn't erupted in 10k years or so and chances are good it won't anytime soon (unlike St Helens).  So our view shouldn't change much.

Of course Klickitat isn't the only big mountain in the neighborhood.  About 20 miles south of us we have 11,249 Mt Hood which should also be called the native and much more poetic Wy'east.  The story of the Hood name is an explorer trying to gain favor by naming big mountains after his boss.  Admiral Hood never saw the mountain and didn't give a rats ass about it apparently.  Besides that he fought against americans in the independence war.  So why do we honor him?   But Wy'east is a way beautiful mountain.  We can't see it directly from our house, but a quick drive across the river shows it in all it's glory rising behind our town.

BTW - click on any of the photos to see an enlarged view. Now I mentioned that we have a small studio built on top of a large toy chest.  After I took the above photo I looked to see if I could find our place.  It's a bit difficult as we're surrounded by some much bigger houses and trees. Sort of like trying to find Waldo.

In the middle of this photo, just to the left of a brown ponderosa pine (which is actually several blocks away) you should see a tiny diamond shaped window surrounded by a cedar shingled gabled end of a roof with a large rectangular window below and a slider below that.  Look carefully.  Anyway, I'm looking out that little diamond window right now.  Hi!  Here's another perspective from the Washington side of the Columbia.

Wy'east looks really close to us from this angle (our pad is in the middle of the shot again) and in fact it takes only about 45 minutes to get to some good skiing (Mt Hood Meadows).  Finally two more shots of sisters Wy'east and Klickitat in all their late spring glory.  This is what we normally see all summer here.

Now back to the more usual stuff- windsurfing! We managed a couple days out at Dougs beach - the typical spring sailing spot.  Water temp is high 50's and we all still have our winter suits on.  A huge change from Maui board shorts.  On this particular day I was on a 4.0 and Julia a 3.4.  Again very typical gorge sailing.

Many of these pictures feature our friend Royn Bartholdi on his (new) Maui Sail throwing it down.  For those "NFAH" Royn organized the Gorge Freestyle Frenzy event (which I "participated" in) which was run in 2007 and 2008 .  Unfortunately events such as this are very time and money consuming (you have to get event insurance and pay for traffic cops, etc)  so we may not be seeing this again anytime soon.  But thanks for the all the hard work Royn!

An event that definitely will be run this year is the hotly anticipated Pistol River Wave Bash.  Julia and I will be headed down to the south Oregon coast in a couple of days for this.  And things are looking decent for the weather forecast down there. Every day should be sunny with a high in the 60's.  Way better then the weather we had been getting for much of the past month.  A glance at the no-pac shows a massive NP high in what looks like a good location.

There's also a trough sliding down east of the cascades through mid week. Not sure if that's good or bad.  And there's currently a SCA warning for strong N winds from Florence south.  Actually right now looks  pretty good conditions down there.  But so far Thursday (start of the contest) and Friday look promising.

COASTAL WATERS FROM FLORENCE TO CAPE BLANCO OR OUT 10 NM - 837 PM PDT SUN JUN 13 2010
 ...
 THU...N WIND 15 TO 20 KT. WIND WAVES 3 FT... BUILDING TO 6 FT. SWELL NW 6 TO 7 FT. 
 FRI...N WIND 15 TO 20 KT. WIND WAVES 4 TO 5 FT. SWELL NW 5 TO  6 FT.

I'll try to report on the event from down there.  I'm not sure if there's any wi-fi available.  I'm not even sure about cell phones.  The beauty of the Southern OR coast and the Cape Sebastian area is the remoteness of it all.  So who knows?  At any rate the caliber of the competition should be amazing.  Check out the riders so far.  Plus there are rumors that Robby Naish might show, Francisco Goya, and the list goes on.

I want to mention one competitor, Dana Miller the grand master of Pistol River, in particular.  I first met Dana so many years ago that it amazes me I'm still alive. It was during my first windsurfing trip from Boston down to Cape Hatteras while in the company of some fellow Cape Cod windsurfers. Must have been around 1988.  I had been sailing maybe a year or so. I had a used Fanatic UltraBee shortboard and an UltraCat course board. I could not do a planing jibe yet.  Any conditions less then 5.2 seemed like crazy wind to me.  We ended up at Waves, where there was a small windsurfing shop - Hatteras Island Surf Shop - surrounded by nothing.  It's still there but unfortunately its no longer surrounded by nothing (yes Waves is officially over developed like almost everything else on the east coast).

Dana worked at this humble shop and we sailed from the little beach there on what was at that point the windiest windsurfing day I had ever seen.  Dana had an old van with only window screens (no glass) for the side windows.  He sailed pure white Wind Wing sails because he liked the beauty it.  He was a true soul surfer & sailor before I knew what the term truly meant. On this particular day there was a spring cold front bearing down on the Hatteras sound, with the usual strong SW wind building in front of it.  It became too windy for me to sail and I sat on the beach to take pictures of Dana who stayed out in the 4.2 conditions (who could sail wind like that?).  To me he was already a windsurfing legend.

I know Dana spends most of his time now down at Pistol River.  He also has a nice little web site and e-zine.  In one of those interesting twists Dana and I are in the same class during this competition - the "grand masters". And it's highly likely that we will be sailing together during a heat.  I hope so just so I get a chance to see him sailing again.

In reality I don't care what place I end up in during this.  I want to sail my best.  I want everyone to sail their best. I want the judges to judge their best.  We're all going to end up somewhere and I hope we end up with smiles on our faces and stoke on the water.  And with respect and gratitude. Cheers!

--b

Now where was I?

So we had just left Maui and arrived in Hood River, AKA "The Gorge" or "The Hood", as in "it's all good in the Hood".  Which does sum this place up pretty nicely in most respects.  But before I get further into that, I want to explain the recent absent of postings.  I do intend to post as often as possible regarding the awesome weather and incredible activities that infuse this area during the summer months.

However, almost as soon as we landed in PDX we took a quick trip back east to my old home town for a family gathering.  I had a great time and met relatives I hadn't seen in years, and if I can somehow find a way to weave that story into anything related to what I usually write about, that is surfing or windsurfing, I will.  But the bottom line is I didn't have much time to blog.  Then we got back to HR where all manner of tasks and chores (spring cleaning anyone?) ate most of my spare time.  Plus my real day job (which provides our great flexibility to live in HR and Maui) took on a higher priority as we are pushing out the next version of our suite of applications.  Yes I am a software developer in case you hadn't guessed it, so anyway, busy busy, and very busy.

But besides all that, another factor is at play here.  The weather in the great northwest has been truly awful so far this spring.  And by awful I mean cool, cloudy, and raining.  Often.  Which means we've had exactly one day of sailing and biking each since we've been back.  Ugh.  And as I write this there is a bona fide pineapple express aiming for our little corner of paradise that is promising a few more days of heavy rain followed by more cool and showery weather.

BTW - for those of you not from the NW, a pineapple express is a weather pattern where a large low in the gulf of Alaska sucks up a plume of moisture that originates from the tropics, often near a well known island chain famous (besides surfing and windsurfing) for growing pineapples. Yes that island chain!  It's like a big circle here, we are all connected and all that. So this plume of moisture is heading straight for us and about to drop 1-3 " of rain.

Now this does not make for great windsurfing, biking, hiking, or for that matter anything outside.  We usually get this in November or December.   Never in June, or Junuary as it is now known here.  Never!!  If you gaze at the graphic to the right (click on it to enlarge) you can see that there is a line of lows (storms) that in fact stretch from here to... eternity? Or maybe just the Philippines.  That's one huge pineapple.

[ Update 6/2/2010: I'm looking at the NWS discussion the day after I posted this, and it says...
THIS PLUME ORIGINATES NEAR THE PHILIPPINES WITH A MORE WINTER-LIKE JET STREAM CONTINUED TO BE POINTED TOWARD THE PAC NW.... now I actually made the Philippines plume of moisture part up because I had no idea where it was coming from and that was a wild ass guess (SWAG). A pretty good one though! ]

And these types of storms can alter landscapes. We had a famous one back in November 2006. It rained for days and daze - very hard.  The White River glacier on Mt Hood was saturated and unleashed a historical debris flow that  blocked the road from HR to Mt Hood (and access to all ski areas from HR) and flowed all the way to the Columbia River and created the extremely large sand bar now known as "the spit".  And also called Kiter beach.  So yes, all you kiters (al-Kitas) owe a big thanks to that particular express for giving you your launch site.

And as I read the current special weather warnings, well here, read it for yourself...

AN UNUSUALLY STRONG LATE SPRING PACIFIC JET STREAM WILL AIM A
UNUSUALLY MOIST BAND OF MOISTURE AT SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON AND
NORTHWEST OREGON TONIGHT AND WEDNESDAY.

RAINFALL AMOUNTS TONIGHT AND WEDNESDAY WILL LIKELY REACH INTO THE
2 TO 5 INCH RANGE AT THE COAST...IN THE COAST RANGE AND IN THE
CASCADES. AMOUNTS IN THE INTERIOR VALLEYS WILL LIKELY REACH THE
1 TO 1.5 INCH RANGE...WITH 1 TO 3 INCHES INCHES IN THE COLUMBIA
RIVER GORGE. SNOW LEVELS WILL BE NEAR OR ABOVE 8000 FEET FOR MOST
OF THIS EVENT. THE HEAVY RAIN ON SNOW WILL CAUSE DANGEROUSLY
UNSTABLE CONDITIONS FOR CLIMBERS ON THE AREA PEAKS. THE
POTENTIAL WILL ALSO BE INCREASED FOR DEBRIS FLOWS FROM THE LARGE
AMOUNTS OF RAIN.

So there it is, a chance of debris flows - don't expect that in June now do ya?  But maybe in Junuary.  Now I wonder, since the whole spit/sand bar is nothing but a debris flow, could another one take that away?  Or pile onto that and create what, another island or something?  Hmmm, we'll just have to wait and see.  So I haven't had much to write about concerning the windsurfing or great weather so far, but now I got this to write about - the incredibly sucky weather!

About that board

Has it really been just three weeks since my little Hookpia incident?  Seems so much longer than that.  As I mentioned earlier, things were trending toward a good resolution.  My friend from NFAH sent a nice email to Pascal in the Quattro/Goya shop saying he was very sorry and intended to pay for all repairs.  I dropped the board off and was assured that I would have it back before leaving (dropped it off on Monday, back by Friday).  On Friday I returned to the shop to pick up the board and see the results.

View Larger Map

If you've never been to the Quattro/Goya shop in Haiku and you windsurf, then you really should take a visit.  This is pretty close to ground zero for the windsurfing world. In this one shop you'll likely see Keith Teboul, Francisco and Lalo Goya, Pio Marasco (MFC), and Jason Diffon (Goya sail designer) working on the latest and greatest. Besides that there's an all-star roster of sailors constantly visiting.  We've met Levi Siver, Kauli Seadi, Jesse Brown, Camille Juban, Jake Miller, Pascal Bronnimann, Josh Stone, and Whit Poor, to name a few, at this shop.  Plus you can see and demo Quattro and  Goya boards and sails.

In the same building (old cannery) you also might bump into Mark Nelson, or Peter Thommen working on their latest designs in their own shops.


I expect that everyone knows that Keith Teboul is the main Quattro shaper (and influences Goya shapes to a degree).  A bit less known is that he is the most sought after custom board shaper on Maui (and perhaps the world).  Some of the windsurfers mentioned above might not exactly be Quattro or Goya team riders (though most are).  However they are likely to be on a custom Keith shape if they are sailing Hookipa (heck, even I am). And hint - the graphics on such a board don't mean anything.  Mine says 75 twinzer, which it isn't.

If you visit this shop you're likely to see not only all the above, but a wide selection of Keith's custom shapes.  And there's a good chance Keith will shaping one right there.

The pictures below show some Quattro production and custom shapes.

The Goya and MFC wing.


The very cool and advanced shaping room up close.


Keith working on the latest toys.

And now for the big reveal.  First go back and take a close look at this board before the repair.  Now check it out after the repair.

You might notice that there's one very tiny spot where the paint wasn't quite perfect.  They actually apologized to me as the paint job was a bit rushed to have it done on time.  Now I can tell you that the board has no more weight and feels exactly the same as before, which is how it should be.  I should also mention that a strong consideration for me when purchasing Quattro or Goya boards and Goya sails is knowing that I can have them expertly repaired right there if the need should arise.  Stuff happens as they say.  But all's well that end's well, as they also say!  Now the only question is, who exactly are they?