Take me to the____, Put me in the____...

Hi All!
Phase two of our technical training, a 5 day trip down the Deschutes River, was a welcome change after our youth skills training. Although it was nice to be inside for a few days, it was rough going almost straight from the mountains to a classroom again. The Deschutes provided much need respite from the indoors....

Naturally, when we were inside for class the temperature was blazing hot, 90+, but as soon as we got on the river it dropped to 60's-ish. Consequently, swimming of any kind an activity to be avoided.

Despite the cool temperature the river was most enjoyable. We all had plenty of time to demonstrate and hone our skills in both the paddle rafts and fully loaded oar rigs.

One note for all the fisherpeople out there, the salmon flies hatched while we were out which meant the fishing folk were out in force. We saw easily 150 people fly fishing on the banks as we cruised by and more than a few were hauling around some nice looking salmon...

Before the river trip began we took part in the final phase of our mountain skills course, the MYSTERY CHALLENGE! This turned out to be a tyrolean traverse (a horizontal rope stretched between a gap, with which people can clip to the rope and pull themselves along to move from one side of the gap to the other, very cool...) out to a formation called monkey face. You can tell in a few of the further off pictures why the formation is called monkey face.

Training has been keeping me pretty busy and with the precious few days off, I have snuck off with Kelly to Smith Rock. The climbing here, while not as amazing as Yosemite, is amazing in its own right. The main formation is made of welded tuft, ash from ancient volcanos that has been compressed and formed some pretty stunning foramtions.

All and all it has been very good.

Also, with the completion of training we all received our schedules and it appears it will be a busy summer. My first course begins June 22nd and the onslaught of work continues until the middle of august. I will be working a crazy amount and it will be easier to list the days I have off.
Here it goes...
July 3rd - 5th, 17th - 19th, 31st - 2nd of August, August 27th last day...
Crazy!

Have a wonderful summer y'all,
Ryan

PS- The last picture is a snake we found during training that climbed a tree at base! It squirmed its way up the bark, we can only assume to get away from us as well as bust into some birds nests.