Jefferson Park

My mom eating breakfast: Bays Lk, Jefferson Park. - Keith Pearen

Melanie, my mom, Cota and I had such a wonderful three day trip into Jefferson Park. I had totally forgotten how beautiful that area is! It was absolutely gorgeous with wonderful fall weather and colors. The lack of people was great. I only saw two other parties of two while in Jeff Park. My mom just got a new backpack, tent and sleeping bag with my help so she was keen to try those out. She loved all her new gear. We played "Spite and Malice" in the evenings. It was so nice to spend some good time with my mom before heading to Korea.

Rogue River

Senior rowing the Rogue, OR. - Keith Pearen





















Melanie lovin' the sun on the Rogue. - Keith Pearen

Had a great time on the Rogue this weekend with Melanie and my dad. Cota stayed with my mom which is good because he will be there while we are in Korea. We drove down Wednesday evening and put on first thing Thursday. Ran Rainie falls without incident and got to see some awesome salmon jumping up the falls. Had three great camp sites at Lower Horseshoe, Missouri Bar and Tate Cr. Saw a one-year-old bear at Tate Cr. but from the other side of the river. No crowds and great fall weather. This was definitely one of my best Rogue trips ever.

Finally

Well it seems that I am finally nearing completion of my Masters. Things are coming together for Korea and I finally managed to get out of Corvallis for a bit. Mel and I just got back from a trip to climb Thielsen and check out Crater Lake. Thielsen was quick and easy even for my out of shape self. We tied Cota up right below the easy 5th class to the summit. Later, we saw an awesome sunset and full-moon-rise from the rim of crater lake, which Melanie had never been to. She loved it! We checked out the renovated Crater lake lodge after dark for some drinks and aperitifs; pretty nice. We bivied in the back of the truck and had the Umpqua hot springs to ourselves this morning. So nice. Just a few more days of finishing up school stuff now.

Greta Wrolstad

Missoulian: Woman dies from injuries in Highway 200 crash; driver cited

The above link is the most detailed account of Greta's death in the media.

She apparently was involved in a car accident last Saturday and was barely alive in the hospital until her parents made it to Missoula. She died in the hospital Tuesday morning. I know next to nothing about the accident other than what is in the paper.

Greta and I were on Corvallis High Ski Team together for all four years of high school. I got to know her pretty well over the course of those four winters and we have stayed in contact on and off since high school. Last I heard she was done at UofO and really excited to be going to MSU for grad school. She was such an awesome person and so talented in so many ways.

My friends have got to stop dying! They are all awesome people and they are too young to die.

Alaska Pictures

Nikki Fry, Lane Olson, Louie Maurer and Jasmine Fry checking out the jelllies: Kachemak Bay, AK. - Keith Pearen

Heading to work. Halibut Cove, Alaska. - Keith Pearen

Bald Eagles, Homer, AK. - Keith Pearen

Katie Tinnesand

Katie T. jugging on the Monkey: Smith Rocks, OR. - Ian Roth

My good friend Katie died last weekend climbing the South Ridge of Three Fingered Jack. She had already summited and passed the difficult sections of the descent at the time she fell. This was a total shocker. I saw her Friday on her way out of Corvallis and we talked for quite a while about climbing plans and life in general. I always looked forward to seeing Katie. She was such an awesome person. She was so happy so much of the time. Definitely the happiest person I have ever met. She was the only one more excited than me about my successful climb of denali. She wanted to climb it so bad.

It sounds like she just slipped on some loose scree. I hate Three Fingered Jack. It is the most pathetic worthless pile of rotten ass rock in the whole Cascades. Definitely not worth dying to climb it, or any other mountian for that matter. Everybody cruises around in exposed places, everybody slips once in awhile, Katie was just unfortunate that she did both at once. So tragic.

Both the tree dedication ceremony and the service at her parent's house were extremely good for me to heal. I hate to say that I am good at dealing with death, but I am. I have had way more experience with it than most kids my age. The philosophy class I took on death and dying from Courtney Campbell really helped also. I am actually quite fascinated with the topic. I will write more on the issue at some future time when I am not writing a thesis.

Back to Katie, the thing that embodies her spirit most in my mind is the simple fact that she was my friend. Let me explain. Katie was Jane's best friend. When Jane and I broke up and during the ensuing melodrama nobody heard more anti-Keith sentiments than Katie. She was dating Melanie's former boyfriend Ryan at the time. Relations were at best awkward, the easy thing to do would have been to not interact with either Melanie or myself. Not Katie, she could not stand to lose a friend and definitely not two. She kept hanging out with both of us and with her exuberant personality things were far from awkward in no time. Four days before her death she told me that I was the happiest she had ever known me. She was right.

I sorely miss Katie and I will always have her in my memories.

Denali Pictures

Playing chess with Andreas at 14,200ft, Denali, Alaska. - Andreas Kurth

Cool clouds over Washburn's Thumb, West Rib, Denali. - Andreas Kurth

Andreas and I on the summit, Denali. - Andreas Kurth

Me resting on the descent, Denali. - Andreas Kurth

Cal Salmon Rafting (Again)

Melanie and I R2ing Cascade on the Cal-Salmon. - Ian Roth

No pics of Freight Train but we R2ed it clean as well.

Keith and Dana in Double Drop on the White Salmon.

Truss Tales

This is an old trip report that Dana Kopf posted.

From: riverrunner at gmail.com (d.a.n.a)
Date: Mon Mar 7 09:37:49 2005
Subject: [whitewateraddiction] Trip Report - Green Truss, White Salmon

The Green Truss section of the White Salmon is a class V+ waterfall run in Southern Washington near Hood River OR. Yesterday Keith Pearen and I from Corvallis I finally went up to run the truss with some great Portland boaters. It was kind of a circus, there were half a dozen hard shells, 5 IKs and two rafts. Keith and I ran R2 in his 13 foot raft and neither of us had ever done the run. We just ran Tumwater Canyon a couple weeks ago so we felt pretty good about the whole thing.

Val Shaull was the mastermind behind the rafting end of the trip and he set up a nice rope lowering system which the kayakers gladly took advantage of also. At least two kayakers told us we had balls or something like that for taking a raft down there. We said we didn't know any better since it was our first time which was good for a laugh.

There are many class III and IV rapids which I don't recall, but I will highlight the IV+ and V's which I remember pretty well. The first is Meatball, where the river squeezes around a boulder. Of course the rafts got wedged but a shove while out of the boat got us through.

Next we had a 10 ft waterfall called Bobs which we ran cleanly on the right. It has another nice 5 ft mini fall just downstream.

After that you come to Big Brother - a 25 footer with a cave at the bottom. I didn't really think too long about this one and we portaged, although some of the kayakers and IKs ran it without too much trouble.

Just below Big is Little Brother which is a 14 footer - steep and verticle on river left and more sloping on river right. Vals raft ran right but we decided on the hero left route. Something went wrong, I can't say what, but we both swam and I got my bell rung. I remember pushing off the bottom under the falls and once on the surface swimming hard to escape the boil.

The next rapid is called Double Drop, an 18 foot two teir waterfall which graces the cover of Washington Whitewater. From what I can tell no one has any problem with the first drop but anything can happen going into the second drop. We had a little sideways action in the second fall but managed to pull it out. You may be able to see a photo of this here http://www.pdxkayaker.org/photos/). Look for the red raft.

Next are two longer more traditional rapids called upper and lower ZigZag. Below lower ZigZag is where Val and crew got into trouble. They got turned sideways against a boulder and filled up with water. We had no time to stop and boated right over them as did three kayakers! They managed to get out onto the wrap rock and the rest of us spent the next hour setting up Z-drags and getting their boat unwrapped.

After that excitement Vals boat opted for the ghost boat run of BZ falls (a V+ 15 footer). Keith and I decided to go for it. Our plan was simple. Get to the lip of the falls and get down and hang on. It worked, except at the bottom we started getting sucked back in to the hole. This is where the draw stroke comes in handy and some cheering from the bank, so yeah we made it! The only thing left was to carry the boat out the middle white put-in.

Flow was 2 ft on the Husam guage (low but not bad). Some photos from this trip can be seen at pdxkayaker.org on the recent photos section. Some other, photos and description of the run can be seen here http://www.oregonkayaking.net