Oregon State Parks photo calendar now available

Oregon State Parks published its 2008 calendar, full of photos shot by park visitors reports KATU. The contest to get a photo in the calendar is open to anyone with a digital camera. You can find all of the 2008 winning photos here, including shots of Face Rock, Harris Beach, and more. It seems the 2009 contest deadline is over, but the 2010 Oregon State Park photo contest opens up spring break this year.

Redwoods photo trip

Lots of photos from our Redwoods National and State park trip.

Old man and the bear -- Alaska homecoming

Hunting from shore, originally uploaded by mattstansberry.

Back to the real world. Check out more photos from the Alaskan Brown Bear hunting adventure.

Greetings from Sitka

On Alaskan safari for grizzly bear this week with my old man and his buddy Nick, so I will be incommunicado. We landed in Sitka yesterday and here are today's pics. See you all May 21st... I hope.

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Oregon turkey hunt turns into wildflower safari

I never got to detail last weekend's Oregon Outdoor Journal Fest. It started out with a trip down to see Mike Kaiser, a turkey hunting guide in the Medford area. Mike and I headed out at 4am to stalk Southern Oregon's booming turkey population. We hunted a private plot of oak savanna just east of town. As we were getting out of the truck, we could hear 10 turkeys, at least, gobbling up in the trees around us. We walked about a half mile, picked a good spot and sat there, listening. Mike started making some hen noises with a mouth call and a box call, and we were listening to the toms gobbling back at us. It seemed pretty much inevitable that I was going to shoot a bird that morning. Unfortunately, we misjudged how far away the turkey we were focusing on was. It was practically on the next ridge over, but its call was carrying pretty far. Once we realized that the bird wasn't getting any closer, we pulled up stakes and moved. We hiked back and forth across miles of rolling hills, stopping to call periodically. We had a lot of birds responding to us, but none coming in. The closest we came was a pair of jakes (juvenile male turkeys) that seemed to be shadowing us, but eventually they ran off over the next ridge, still calling at us the whole time. During the course of the morning we saw tons of wildflowers and had great views of Mt. McGloughlin. Pictures below:

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Mt. Pisgah comes alive: Oregon wildflower pics

The last few weeks on Mt. Pisgah have been pretty sweet for hiking. Nice wild flowers, good weather. Here are some recent pics:

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PS: Nikon was Waaaay too backed up for orders on the D-80 I wanted to buy. I ordered it almost two months ago and it didn't look like it was going to come in before I leave for Alaska May 9. My local camera shop, Dot Dotson, worked out a better deal on a Canon Digital Rebel XTi.

William L. Finley National Wildlife Refuge photos

We checked out the William L. Finley National Wildlife Refuge today. Nice wildflowers, cool birds -- but I'm out of steam. Here are the photos:

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Western Pond Turtle sighting, fly fishing on the Willamette River

I've spent the last two days fly fishing on the Middle Fork of the Willamette River. Friday night we checked out the area near Oakridge, fishing a park on the south side of the river that produced a couple weeks ago. No luck here, we headed back to the bridge and crossed the other side. A couple goons were throwing rocks into a pool we wanted to fish. They didn't like the look of us and moved on. Still nothing though, and we went back to our original plan where we'd caught some fish before. Lots of different caddis coming off, not a bite.

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Today, Todd and Ben (AKA B-real the Norwegian) headed out to the nearby confluence of the North Fork and Middle Fork of the Willamette, near Westfir. The rain was rolling in cold and the water was high, but we managed to fish most of the day. I caught the nicest looking wild redband I've ever seen (no photos -- out of battery today) and got a few more bites. In fact, we left quite a few feeding fish in the pool, but the guys were getting wet and cold and were ready to go.

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While I was on the river yesterday I stumbled onto a Western Pond Turtle, a species listed as endangered in Washington and threatened in Oregon. According to the Oregon Zoo, the biggest threat to the species is the non-native bullfrog and largemouth bass. Both prey on juvenile turtles.

The Oregon Zoo, ODFW and the Lower Willamette Turtle Project are hosting a Western Pond Turtle workshop on April 20th at the Oregon Zoo.

Oregon outdoor links

I got a new laptop today (Thanks TT!) so I'll be sending my old cranky lappy to the big refurbisher in the sky. I had a bunch of links in my Favorites list that I wasn't really doing anything with, so I'm going to post them here before I lose them.



First, Al Campbell's Advanced Fly Tying online fly tying lessons have helped me waste several hours whipping up Bitch Creek-style weaved chenille stonefly patterns that look really cool. I've been using neon colors to cook up something I'm calling the "Crazy Bitch". My guess is that it'll never see a day on the river.

Also, a couple local Oregon photographers have caught my eye: M.G. Halle and Chuck Griffin. Halle has a blog about the photos he shoots. Griffin's site is more gallery and storefront. He has a bunch of photos up at the Wild Goat cafe in Eugene.

New Mexico photos: Bandelier and Tent Rocks

I spent the last week in New Mexico, so here are some of the photos from that trip. Check out the whole series on Picassa or Flickr, whichever you prefer. Highlights include trips to Bandelier National Monument and Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument.

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Oregon Caves National Monument photos

Oregon Caves National Monument has lots of rules, but it was a really cool 90 minute tour. The best part was when our guide turned off all the lights and we experienced REAL dark. KP and I went there a couple weekends ago and it was great. Bring your National Parks Pass to get in free, otherwise you're stuck paying $8.50 each.

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Kentucky Falls, Siuslaw National Forest hike

Last weekend, Alex, KP and I drove out to Kentucky Falls in Oregon's Coast Range. KP and I had tried to get out there a few weeks ago and the roads were so bad that we'd had to turn around. This time wasn't much better, but we did make it past rockslides, downed trees and ice.

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Despite the obstacles, the Kentucky Falls trailhead was absolutely packed. There are three major falls on the 2-mile trail; elevation loss is about 800 feet on the way down and it happens all at once.

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The hike/falls were pretty great, but the Pacific Northwest invertebrate safari made it an amazing trip. For starters, there was a millipede orgy going on -- mating, feeding, who knows? But the Yellow-spotted millipede were everywhere. For more info on this poisonous creeper, check out this Yellow-spotted millipede links from NaturePark, WikiPedia and Olympic National Park site, which calls them the Almond-scented millipede.

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We also found a banana slug, the second largest slug in the world. It's the first one I've seen this year.

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Lastly, we came across a giant Oregon Forestsnail.

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Here is a picture of lower Kentucky Falls:

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