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Ochoco National Forest Sued Over OHV Trail Plan

The Ochoco National Forest Service faces legal challenges to its Ochoco Summit Trail System Project.

Off-road vehicles riding in the Ochoco National Forest
Ochoco National Forest

A proposal to create an official motorized trail system east of Prineville is drawing fire from environmentalists and state wildlife managers.

In June, Ochoco National Forest leaders signed a decision to designate and build 137 miles of off-highway vehicle trails, prompting legal challenges from the Bend-based environmental watchdog group, Central Oregon LandWatch, along with other environment protection organizations Oregon Wild, the Sierra Club and WildEarth Guardians. At the end of August, the Oregon Hunters Association also filed a lawsuit against the Ochoco National Forest, claiming that the trail system would hurt the elk population in the forest.

Opponents, including LandWatch, allege Ochoco National Forest managers did sufficiently account for impacts on wildlife and habitat when they developed the proposed trail system.

LandWatch President Paul Dewey said that Ochoco Summit Trail System, as the project is officially known, was developed in order to cater to a small group of motorized users. Ochoco National Forest staff have been working on the project for about a decade with the Ochoco Trail Riders, a club of fifty-five members who have been advocating for more trails in the Ochoco National Forest.

“As far as we can tell, the Forest Service just felt politically compelled to create this system,” said Dewey.

Larry Ulrich, president of the Ochoco Trail Riders (OTR), has been riding dirt bikes and ATVs in the Ochoco National Forest since the 1960s. He said the forest hasn’t changed much since then, which is exactly why off-road vehicle users like riding in the Ochocos.

“It’s so much different than the Deschutes [National Forest],” said Ulrich. “It’s beautiful. It has a lot of grass, a lot of water,” compared to the volcanic dust that covers the trails in the summer in the Deschutes National Forest trail system, where there are currently 343 miles of off-highway vehicle trails. Those trails were designed for off-highway vehicle recreation and are considered “multi-use,” which allow for off-highway vehicles such as ATVs, quads, Jeeps, side by sides and certain types of motorcycles.

There is currently one official off-highway vehicle trail in use in the Ochocos, the Green Mountain Trail, which is 8.5 miles long. That trail represents just a fraction of the total ad-hoc OHV trail network, which LandWatch and other opponents of formal expansion say is already in-use and inadequately monitored.

Those critics say that adding more than one hundred miles of new off-road vehicle trails would disrupt vulnerable wildlife populations and diminish wildlife habitat. Ochoco Trail Riders’ Ulrich said that’s not the case, citing the environmental impact report that the Forest Service published in 2016, which looked at some of those potential impacts.

“The Forest Service did their homework,” said Ulrich. “They did everything right when they did their environmental impact statement,” which was originally conducted in 2014 and revised in 2016.

Not everyone agrees with Ulrich and the Ochoco National Forest findings. The report drew more than one thousand critical responses from the community, about one hundred of which the Forest Service responded to and published in its revised Environmental Impact Statement in 2016.

Environmentalists aren’t the only ones raising objections.

ODFW wildlife biologist Greg Jackle said that the trail system would disrupt the habitat of vulnerable populations such as Rocky Mountain elk and redband trout.

Jackle said that the trails would have a “pretty hefty disturbance” in elk summering habitat in the Ochocos along with stream disturbance that would impact the trout population.

ODFW has been in negotiations with the Ochoco National Forest about the potential conflict but is not part of any of the legal challenges. Jackle said his agency is concerned that users will not respect the legal trails.

“We’re not on the same page I guess,” said Jackle. “We don’t buy that if you design a designated trail system that [off-road vehicle users] won’t go off road and go to these other places, too. The monitoring is very critical.”

ODFW is working to find a compromise with the Ochoco National Forest, and Jackle said the concern now is getting preliminary data prior to trail construction in order to monitor any changes in wildlife populations.

Ochoco National Forest Service Superintendent Stacey Forson declined to comment on the legal complaint, but a representative for the Ochocos said that despite the legal challenge, the Forest Service would move ahead with its plans for the system.

However, Ochoco Trail Riders’ Ulrich said that his group continues to wait for the Forest Service to implement its plan and doesn’t expect much to happen until the legal challenges are resolved.

“We haven’t moved any dirt yet,” he said.

A Favorite Chef Returns to Bend With Sushi Pop-up Kusshi NW

A Bend sushi veteran makes a quiet but impactful return to the town’s culinary scene with Kusshi NW.

When Chef Ian Skomski left Bend’s Kanpai in 2011 to open Boxer in Portland, a collective tear was shed by sushi addicts all over town. If you were lucky enough to catch him during his tenure, you know why. Thoughtful and artful, he was a highlight in Bend’s culinary world at the time.

Boxer, a high-end omakase (chef’s choice) restaurant, went on to become a great success, amassing a dedicated following over its two-and-a-half-year run. Fortunately for us, Bend kept calling Skomski back, and he found his way home. Portland’s turn to mourn.

Sushi chef Ian Skomski for Kusshi NW Bend, Oregon

Enter Kusshi NW, Skomski’s latest project. Much to the relief of his extensive fan base, after a brief hiatus from the kitchen, he unpacked his knives in late 2015 to test the waters with a string of pop-up dinners. Both a classically trained master sushi chef and an undeniable natural talent, Skomski combines an impressive depth of knowledge with creativity and originality. He also cuts no corners, taking immense care in procuring fresh, premium seafood and the highest quality ingredients from the Northwest and beyond.

Kusshi, meaning “precious” (and the name of one of Skomski’s favorite oysters), couldn’t be a more appropriate name. His creations are inspired. Think Hamachi sashimi with ponzu, smoked strawberry, strawberry “sriracha,” and Thai basil or salmon with white soy, fennel, lemon and horseradish. Vegetables, often an afterthought elsewhere in the sushi world, are far more than a garnish and treated with the utmost respect, possibly house-pickled or marinated with bright flavors. Nigiri is beautifully cut and the rice is perfectly seasoned and cooked. Rolls have just the right combination of textures and tastes. It’s as pleasing to look at as it is to eat.

Kusshi NW sushi pop-up Bend, Oregon

The pop-up omakase dinners were so well-received—easily selling out every time—that Kusshi NW instituted a semi-regular Poke pop-up at White Water Taphouse on Bond Street in downtown Bend. Prepared in a Japanese style rather than Hawaiian, Poke bowls might feature fresh, line-caught Oregon albacore, king salmon or organic sprouted tofu. Dressed in traditional ingredients, including poke sauce, ginger, scallion and hijiki—combined with Skomski’s creative touches such as lime-marinated onion, salsa verde or candied Serrano—each bite is a celebration for your palate. Poke is generally accompanied by a small selection of other equally good offerings such as rolls or sashimi.

Sushi chef Ian Skomski Kusshi NW Bend, Oregon

The success of these pop-ups has cemented Skomski’s return to a place among Bend’s culinary best—to the point that it’s highly likely Kusshi NW will put down roots in a more permanent home. In the meantime, check Kusshi’s Facebook page for where Skomski is popping up next. And wherever it is, be sure to get there early. His pop-ups are often “while supplies last,” and they usually don’t last very long. [Originally published September 2017]

Seed to Table Cultivates Wellness Through Food Education in Schools

On Seed to Table’s (S2T) wellness education-focused farm plot, Sisters’ students and adults participate in farm based education covering nutrition, science, art, business management, the basics of growing ones’ own food, the importance of supporting local farmers and physical activity. Through growing its own food and sourcing food from Oregon farmers, the nonprofit provides fresh produce to families through affordable produce shares, plus distribution to Sisters Kiwanis Food Bank, Bread of Life Food Bank and the Sisters School District.

Seed to Table farm in Sisters, Oregon.
Seed to Table farm in Sisters. Photo by Joshua Langlais

20,000 pounds of S2T farm-grown food will go to the Sisters community this year.

1,300 students from Central Oregon schools receive S2T farm education each year, totaling 10,000+ hours of student involvement on the farm.

400 hours of adult participation in S2T community presentations.

12,500 pounds of nutritious, locally grown and processed foods have gone to the Sisters schools, brought in by S2T from Oregon farmers and distributors.

The Ale Apothecary’s Deliberate Deviation

Established in 2012 by Deschutes Brewery alum Paul Arney, The Ale Apothecary is Bend’s deliberately anachronistic ale maker, offering a variety of “new Old World,” spontaneously fermented, small-batch beers. The brewery is located at Arney’s home in a patch of national forest near Tumalo Creek, west of town. This past spring, Arney opened up a new tasting room to the public on Bend’s west side.

Photo by Alex Jordan

“Wood” is one of the dominant themes behind The Ale Apothecary. From the beer’s inception in a modified-barrel mash tun (or a hollowed-out spruce tree, in the case of Sahati, Arney’s interpretation of a Finnish-inspired spruce beer), through fermentation and aging in more barrels, wood touches nearly every stage of the beer’s life.

The wild yeasts that inoculate the brew develop a distinctive rustic, semi-sour character, something of a terroir that the barrels harbor from batch to batch and that Arney relies on when blending his creations.

Photo by Alex Jordan

Once bottled, there is one final stage in the beer’s wood-infused lifecycle: drinking it at the new tasting room.

Adorned in handsome, handmade, wooden furniture, barrel-themed fixtures, an exposed beam ceiling and even the original kuurna (hollowed-out log) used to brew Arney’s Sahati, the tasting room celebrates the brewery’s woodsy legacy. It’s located in The Ale Apothecary’s little-known barrel facility next door to the Century Center (home of GoodLife Brewing). Visitors will discover an experience more akin to a winery than the typical brewery tasting room.

The open floorplan offers ample glimpses of the barrels located throughout, and there is an artistic aesthetic that underscores the brewery’s artisanal roots.

Corked bottles are available to purchase for on-premise consumption, and select beers are available in single pours on a rotating basis—but never on draft, and no guest beers. Arney wouldn’t have it any other way. “If you want RPM IPA, Cabin 22 is right across the street,” he offered, coolly.

Sarahlee Lawrence of Rainshadow Organics is a Local Sustainability Pioneer

A conversation with local sustainability pioneer Sarahlee Lawrence.

Rainshadow Organics owner Sarahlee Lawrence. Photo by Joshua Langlais

You grew up on this property. What is the biggest change that’s occurred?

I returned home after a couple degrees in environmental science and ten years of international river guiding to take over my family farm. Committed to raising food for Central Oregon, I converted the farm to certified organic and began my journey toward raising a “full diet.”

You said once that you hadn’t planted a seed or really eaten vegetables before jumping into this endeavor. What ever possessed you to take this up?

I read an essay by Michael Pollen that stopped me in my tracks. Food as we know it was doomed. Farmers were growing old. Farmland was being developed. With my family land, I knew I could make a difference.

You rely on a fair amount of student labor to make things work. Can you talk about the role of education in the operation?

It would be easier to hire staff for the farm and probably about the same financially, but I believe we need more farmers. I believe that food security lies in the working hands of young people that need skills, field experience, learned perseverance and awareness. I open my farm to people committed to learning how to farm, with the intent of farming themselves, or who are at least raising their awareness about food and want to be more informed, conscious eaters. They are part of a seven-month intensive curriculum through the Rogue Farm Corps.

This is a quiet and remote place, at least by Central Oregon standards, yet it feels very connected to the community. Is that deliberate?

We are dedicated to our community, both in the immediate Central Oregon region and beyond it. We depend on people who are committed to eating seasonal food, organically grown, right here. This is a culinary adventure. It is not the way people are used to shopping for specific recipes with all ingredients available to them. This is preservation. This is honoring each ingredient as it comes. This is longing. This is patience. This is cooking as a daily act. The people who eat our food bring their families together to cook and to eat. It is community and conviviality. We eat the food we grow as a crew every day. We celebrate the first of everything. We get creative as plants keep on giving. We try to inspire those that shop at the farm with recipes posted regularly to our website, and we’ll soon be hosting cooking classes.

Photo by Joshua Langlais

Speaking of community, September 16 marks the grand opening of your market and beautiful commercial kitchen. How are these additions going to fit into your existing operation and what are a couple of fun surprises that people might find?

We are so excited about our new kitchen and store. We are cooking through this first season, learning to preserve everything. You will of course find our full fresh market array of veggies, pork, beef, chicken, buckwheat and wheat flour. We’re drying and pickling and fermenting like crazy. This is an everchanging place. We’ll be posting specials and new products regularly. The kitchen completes the circle, allowing us to get more of our food into the hands of our community, especially people who aren’t used to cooking with farm fresh food. We believe in food access, so we also accept Oregon Farm Direct Nutrition Program vouchers and we will soon take SNAP benefits.

The CSA has been the cornerstone of your business. What are some new and exciting things happening there?

Our CSA has grown into a full-diet, year-round offering. We have both small and large, meat and veggie shares for summer and winter. We have classic veggies that people love, but being a member exposes you to new and fun varieties, too. It is a culinary adventure through the season. We offer two pick up locations in Bend, downtown on Wednesdays and NorthWest Crossing on Saturdays, or you can pick up your CSA at the farm. CSA members often get things first in the season, and we share the abundance of the season as it comes. The farm kitchen is a new and unique aspect for the CSA. We’ll be sharing recipes of all the creative, culinary energy that is surrounding how we enjoy, store and preserve this food.

Blue Mountain Ranch is a New Generation of Ranching

By practicing “regenerative” ranching, Blue Mountain Ranch is improving the land that its cattle grazes on.

Blue Mountain Ranch Cattle in Paulina, Oregon
Blue Mountain Ranch in Paulina, Oregon. Photo by Joshua Langlais

“My grandfather owned a dairy for sixty years in Arizona and the whole time he dreamed of becoming a cattle rancher,” said Sarah Teskey, who bought Blue Mountain Ranch in Paulina with four generations of her family in 2006. “These 23,000 acres had a running water source, contiguous land next to BLM with forest permits and enough property for cattle to support several families. My grandfather lived his last years with everything he had hoped and dreamed for in a ranch.”

Everyone in the family had farm or ranch experience prior to the move from Arizona to Oregon but not on this scale of raising cattle and managing grass. The relatives threw themselves into learning both on the rangeland and on the pages of the latest ranching literature. When they began to learn about holistic management, things clicked.

“‘Regenerative qualities.’ It’s a buzz word in ranching now,” said Teskey. “It’s past sustainable. We don’t just want to maintain land with holistic practices, we want to improve it.”

Blue Mountain operates on the principle that grass-fed and grass-finished beef provides the best benefit to the consumer because there are no additives or feed other than local forage. Beyond the consumer, the overall health of their 1,000 head of cattle and the land they graze are equally important priorities for the ranch.

“We believe that a holistic outlook will eventually become what’s best for the pocketbook over the long arc,” said Teskey who, along with her husband, is raising two boys on the ranch.

Their grazing practices maximize growth of nutrient-dense forage, which in turn promotes the soil’s microbial functions and regenerative processes. Blue Mountain times the start of their calving season later in the spring than many ranches do, in order to “reduce the loss that can happen with winter calving and maximize high-energy protein intake by grazing cattle on grass instead of hay when they are about to give birth,” said Teskey.

“The key is to evaluate what you’re doing,” she said. “Is it because it’s the way it’s always been done or because the neighbors do it or because it’s what’s best for our operation, our land, our specific location? It’s a paradigm shift.”

Blue Mountain’s beef is available for purchase by quarter, half or whole animal.

Bikepacking is Central Oregon’s Next Recreational Revolution

Bikepacking takes mountain biking from excursion to adventure status.

Bikepacking in Central Oregon

Tom Karren was a respectable member of society. He had a day job. Slept under the same roof most nights and enjoyed the occasional afternoon and weekend road bike ride. That was before he strapped on his first frame bag and became another bikepacking convert. These days Karren works when it allows, usually sleeps under the stars and uses roads primarily to move from one bikepacking adventure to the next.

Since taking up bikepacking just three years ago, Karren has completed the Continental Divide Trail, a bruising two-wheeled bisection of the United States along its most arduous terrain. He has bikepacked across British Columbia, completed the 400-mile Smoke ‘n Fire backcountry race in Central Idaho and finished the grueling Tour de los Padres trail in California. Karren’s major regret: that he didn’t discover the sport sooner.

“If I’ve been off my bike in the last year, I doubt it’s more than a one- or two-day stretch,” said Karren.

Yes, he’s an extreme case, but Karren is on the forefront of a recreational revolution that is winning new adherents by the day. While there are no ready measurements of the amorphous sport—the very definition of bikepacking is as fluid and mutable as the DIY routes that riders create—the anecdotal evidence is mounting for bikepacking as the next sport to capture the imagination of outdoor minded adventurers. In a certain respect, it’s almost surprising that it hasn’t happened sooner. The sport combines hugely popular activities of biking, camping and backcountry hiking.

Bikepacking in Central Oregon

With the advent of new lightweight gear and ever more access to trails and roads, this has become a popular sport for adventurous intermediate and advanced riders. Oregon has some outstanding opportunities to explore the wild and remote areas of the state with some planning and strategic investment.

We asked veteran bikepacker and local shop owner David Marchi of Crow’s Feet Commons to show us the ropes locally. David and his gang of merry bikepackers helped us navigate an easily attainable local route that incorporated the Metolius-Windigo and Mrazek trails. From there we connected to the Peterson Ridge trail system with an overnight stay at Three Creeks Lake.

Stellar views and wildlife abounded. Our evening included an Osprey snagging a fish in the evening and a more graceful bald eagle doing the same the next morning. We rode out the next day for what bikepackers dub a “sub-24,” feeling we had wrapped a whole weekend of adventure in just a matter of hours. As it turns out, losing track of time is one of the happy casualties of a successful bikepacking adventure.

Oregon’s Expanding Trails

The newly minted Oregon Timber Trail connects remote Lakeview to Hood River, putting Central Oregon square in the middle of the bikepacking revolution. With nearly 700 miles of remote trails, half of which is singletrack, the Timber Trail is now a bucket list item for Northwest bikepackers and provides some of Oregon’s best riding. The Three Sisters Three Rivers trail is a great option that begins in Bend and encompasses several renowned local trails, including Peterson Ridge and the McKenzie River trails. Riders connect to the Oakridge system and the North Umpqua trail, ending in Roseburg. This 300-mile, mostly singletrack route has some incredible and challenging riding, with the added bonus of access to hot springs where you can soothe your aching muscles.

Gravel Grinding

Bikepacking in Central Oregon

In far Eastern Oregon, the Wallowa and Blue Mountains boast fantastic scenery and friendly people. Due the area’s remoteness, there is also incredibly light vehicle traffic. A growing list of rideable routes has this region on many bikepackers to-visit lists. Local gravel options abound in the Ochoco Mountains and guided tours are available with Good Bike Co. in the heart of Prineville.

Good Bike’s staff is knowledgeable and ready to help outfit just about any bike for a backroads or backcountry adventure. Owner James Good opened the shop in 2014 after relocating from Utah where he had worked at Petzl, an outdoor accessory company.

Good said he knew that Prineville had the potential to develop as an oasis for road bikers because of its proximity to several state scenic bikeways and its positioning on the TransAmerica Trail, the nation’s original coast-to-coast bike route, which begins in Virginia and ends at Astoria. What Good didn’t know is how fast interest would grow around bikepacking and gravel road riding.

The shop now sponsors an annual 100-mile gravel road race held in August and is expanding its offering of overnight tours that combine gravel riding and some little-known single and doubletrack routes east of the Ochocos.

“A lot of what we will do this fall is going to be two-night bikepacking trips where everybody is self supported but we provide the food,” said Good.

With fewer potential conflicts between motorists and riders on these lightly traveled routes, the rides can take on a convivial air and tend to be very social affairs.

Whether it’s a DIY route that riders map out with friends or a shop-supported ride, there’s a strong sense of ownership in a bikepacking experience.

“Once you’ve completed a route like that you feel a lot of gratification. You’re creating your own adventure, if you will,” Good said.

Bikepacking in Central Oregon

Finding the Right Gear

“I look at bikepacking as two things, one is bikepacking on mountain bikes and this other segment, which is more geared toward road aspects and to deserted doubletrack,” said Eric Power, owner of Bend Velo, a local shop that specializes in bikepacking and touring gear.

Power said he has seen huge growth interest over the past couple of years around bikepacking, from gear purchases to route building and guided tours. Bike shops and adventure outfitters can help riders choose the right bike and gear for any type of adventure, but they also can provide touroptions with catered meals, allowing riders to enjoy the best of both worlds—a backcountry tour with meals that include fresh ingredients and perks like cold beer and hot coffee.

If you’re going it alone, pack light. Bikepacking calls for small handlebar and seat bags to keep the ride balanced and nimble. Whatever frame you prefer, most gear can transfer from one type of bike to another, allowing riders to experiment as they evolve in the sport.

The other issue is technology. Phones and GPS devices have made it possible for riders to plan routes and make real time updates on trail conditions, sharing information and insight with other users. It also allows riders to move more confidently in remote areas without the fear of taking a wrong turn. But just how much technology is too much? Power, who takes half a dozen or so multiday trips per year and mixes in several more overnight rides, said it depends on the route and the rider.

“Part of the reason we are doing this is to get away from the computer and life as we know it. I want my [GPS] to beep at me if I’m off course, but I don’t want it beeping at me the whole ride,” he said.

Bikepacking in Central Oregon

Resources

Bikepacking.com is a popular bikepacking blog that has evolved into a comprehensive journal of all things bikepack related including gear reviews, bikepacking routes and stories from bikepackers around the globe.

Oregontimbertrail.org contains maps, photos and information on the newly minted Timber Trail, a 670-mile ride that bisects the state of Oregon, beginning in Lakeview and ending in Hood River. The route is more than fifty percent singletrack and includes some of the state’s most highly rated mountain bike trails.

One of the most popular and universally adopted web programs, Ride with GPS allows riders to research and plan routes that can be saved on GPS devices and smartphones. Routes can be saved, shared and updated in real time, allowing users to create a growing library of bike routes available to the public.

Yoga Instructor Tracy Treu Does No Harm, But Takes No S#!t

Tracy Treu is a Nebraska girl who believes in Midwestern values such as good manners, authenticity, being neighborly and having a strong commitment to family. She is also a yoga teacher with a colorful vocabulary and perfect comedic timing. If you’ve ever been fortunate enough to take one of her classes, you have probably heard her spin on yogic philosophy “do no harm, but take no s#@t.” I sat down with Tracy over gin and tonics to discuss football, yoga, teenagers and giants.

You have some experience with football and yoga. Which came first?

The football came well before the yoga. I started dating Adam (Treu) in college. When we first met, I thought he was a weird giant and I didn’t know much about football other than Nebraska always won. I went to every one of Adam’s college games and then watched him play for the Oakland Raiders. I surprise my sons with what I know about football. Adam played in around 200 NFL games. You pick up a few things.

So when did you first discover yoga?

Adam actually practiced yoga before I did. He had a strength coach who was pretty forward thinking and incorporated it into their off-season program. It wasn’t until we moved to Oregon in 2009 that I began to practice and then teach at Groove Yoga.

And now you teach yoga to high school football players. How did that come about?

Our neighbor and friend Kevin Boss is another former NFL player who owns Boss Sports Performance. He roped me into it.

Smart man. Why is yoga a good compliment to football training?

True strength is strength plus flexibility. Yoga is a chance to work muscles in a new and different way. It gives them a chance to improve their movement so they can move anywhere, at any time, during a game. It also calms their minds. How do the boys like the yoga? The boys are super responsive, which I’m grateful for. By far their favorite part of the class is savasana. Most of them snore during it.

Are you able to slip in a little mindfulness?

I wouldn’t teach yoga unless I could slip mindfulness into it. Having a teenager myself, I know they are in a constant state of distraction or semi-controlled chaos. Stillness and breath bring them back to their essential nature.

You also helped prep a young player for NFL draft. Share a bit.

Again, Kevin roped me in. He asked Adam and me if we’d help get Oregon State player Dustin Stanton ready for Pro Day. Kevin worked Dustin hard on his speed, strength and fitness, and Adam worked with him on overall offensive lineman work. I did twice weekly yoga with him.

What was the outcome?

He’s in training camp with the Cincinnati Bengals right now.

That’s a good outcome. What lessons from yoga could the NFL benefit from?

Yoga teaches self-awareness and non-reactivity to stress, and keeps your body healthy and young. It would be a dream for every college and NFL team to have a yoga and mindfulness curriculum.

I’m pretty sure if anyone could make that happen, it would be Tracy Treu.

Easy Days in Eastern Oregon

It might be a stretch to call a place as vast and rich in history as Eastern Oregon “undiscovered,” but you won’t find any crowds out there yet, either. Close to Bend, the John Day Territory allows you to pack multiple adventures into one weekend.

The Paradise Cove trail at the Painted Hills in Eastern Oregon.
The Paradise Cove trail at the Painted Hills in Eastern Oregon.

Looking for solitude? Wide open spaces? Natural wonders that draw more wildlife than tourists? Consider pointing your wagon east, where a landscape brims with history and Western charm. Just an hour or so east of Prineville, the opportunities begin to unfold. From fossil hunting to horseback riding, it’s easy to pack multiple adventures into just a weekend. Though with low crowds and stunning scenery, you’ll probably start looking for excuses to extend your trip.

History in the Hills

The Painted Hills at sunset in Eastern Oregon.

The Painted Hills will evoke a lot of questions upon first sight. Mainly, what? and how? The softly carved rolling hills are, in fact, seemingly painted with a dramatic patina of ochre and emerald hues, a stark contrast to the golden, rocky hills that surround them.

If you can peel your eyes away from the natural wonder, you’ll learn that the Painted Hills are 40 million years in the making, the result of the ever-changing floodplain of the region. The Painted Hills are one unit of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, three separate geological wonders that are time capsules of North American natural history. The entire monument is filled with well-preserved fossils, and is considered one of the most complete fossil records in the world.

Traveling east, the Sheep Rock Unit includes the Thomas Condon Paleontology Center. Perched on a bluff overlooking the towering green claystone rock formation along one side of Highway 19, the center is a museum featuring the dynamic history of the floodplain. Inside, watch scientists at work as they study the immense trove of fossils that continue to be found throughout this region.

Going west again just past the small town of Fossil, the Clarno Unit trails bring you up close to the rocky spires of volcanic mudflow that hold fossilized remains of plant and animal life. These ancient markers are remnants from a time, long ago, when the region was a tropical rainforest, a fact than can be hard to wrap one’s head around today in the present desert landscape where fewer than fourteen inches of rain falls annually, on average. As a matter of perspective, that’s less precipitation than Los Angeles receives in any given year.

Hiking in the Painted Hills in Eastern Oregon.

Each unit has a handful of short hikes, none longer than three miles, that bring you to diverse views of the landscape. Plan your trip to visit in the evening around sunset to catch the last rays of sun illuminating the red, orange and green rocks.

Small Town Living

The main street in Mitchell, a small western-themed town in Eastern Oregon.
Mitchell, Oregon

Mitchell is a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it kind of town. Just nine miles up Highway 26 from the Painted Hills, it would be a mistake to miss Mitchell. The town of a little more than one hundred people has had its fair share of misfortune, getting ravaged by three floods in the twentieth century.

The Sidewalk Cafe in Mitchell in Eastern Oregon.
The Sidewalk Cafe in Mitchell.

But it always comes back, refusing to be labeled as another Oregon ghost town. This time around, though, Mitchell is determined to do more than just survive. With a local craft brewery, a new biking hostel and several local businesses in various stages of renovation, Mitchell might be (dare we say it?) happening.

Chicken wings and beer from Tiger Town Brewing in Mitchell, Oregon.
Tiger Town Brewing

Stop for breakfast or lunch at the Sidewalk Café or Little Pine Café. They’re both places where you’ll end up chatting with the locals, learning about the best swimming holes and getting directions such as “turn right at the leaning rock.”

In 2015, a new local watering hole popped up in the form of Tiger Town Brewing, the name a reference to the rough and tumble history of Mitchell’s main street, where loggers and miners once descended to spend their hard earned wages with predictable results. It’s set in a gravel lot, with picnic tables and a food truck serving up some of the best wings in recent memory.

Hunters and fisherman know the town well as a gateway to local outdoor recreation, but a lot of people who visit the Painted Hills, especially from out of state, aren’t aware Mitchell is just up the road. Though it’s small, the town is ideally located for exploring this region.

The Painted Hills Vacation Rentals, a triad of colorful cottages in a garden-like oasis, are a charming home base for a weekend visit. Aruna Jacobi and her mother, Barbara, run the Painted Hills Vacation Cottages and are committed to boosting tourism to the region. Aruna and Barbara, along with others in town with a vision for Mitchell, are hoping that the latest successes are just the beginning of bigger things for the town.

The Painted Hills Vacation Rentals in Mitchell, Oregon
A cottage at the Painted Hills Vacation Rentals.

Still, most residents will continue to joke about the presence of rattlesnakes around town, just to keep it from getting too crowded.

Don’t Call it a Dude Ranch

Horseback riding at Wilson Ranches Retreat in Fossil, Oregon.
Horseback riding at Wilson Ranches Retreat in Fossil.

The John Day Territory is quickly becoming a draw for road cyclists and motorcycle riders who are drawn to the scenic roadways. That said, the best way to see the region might be from the saddle of a horse. It’s a slower pace, which is fitting for the lifestyle here.

Horseback riding at Wilson Ranches Retreat in Fossil, Oregon.
Horseback riding at Wilson Ranches Retreat in Fossil, Oregon.

At Wilson Ranches Retreat in Fossil, grab cowboy boots and a straw hat, hop on a horse and lend your hand. The working cattle ranch (as opposed to dude ranches, which are just resorts) sits on 20,000 acres in Fossil and traces its roots back six generations to the Oregon Trail. Kara Wilson and her husband Brian run the ranch now. They opened a bed and breakfast in 2000.

Wilson Ranch is set in a valley surrounded by golden hills. It feels like a secret, as does most of Eastern Oregon, but Kara is clear that locals don’t want to keep it to themselves. There’s enough room out here for everyone, she said.

When she talks about why more people should visit this region, it’s clear why travelers are choosing to make it a destination.

“You get to be the one hiker on a trail. The one rider on a horse going into the high desert hills, the one kayaker on the John Day River,” said Kara. “You get to be in a pristine, untouched place of Oregon. And you get to be the one.”

Dirt Divas Shred Singletrack Across Central Oregon

The Dirt Divas is all-female mountain biking program run by Pine Mountain Sports.

The term diva is more closely associated with the glitz of Hollywood than the grit of a Central Oregon trail, but don’t let the name fool you. Bend’s Dirt Divas aren’t scared to kick up a little dust. An all-female mountain biking program run by Pine Mountain Sports, Dirt Divas meets twice a month to grind gears and bomb singletrack across Central Oregon.

Created in 2010, the program also provides workshops for women who mountain bike or are interested in getting started, including sessions for bike maintenance and gear selection. Jane Quinn, the apparel buyer at Pine Mountain Sports, serves as the program coordinator for Dirt Divas. She took over in 2011 after moving to Bend from Big Sky, Montana and experiencing firsthand what being a woman in a male-dominated sport can feel like.

“You definitely feel like the underdog a little bit of the time,” said Quinn. “You definitely don’t get the respect men get in the sport.”

Part of Dirt Divas’ mission is promoting a positive mountain biking culture for women, who, said Quinn, can be deterred from the sport because of the macho stereotype it has.

“The program, I felt, had a lot of potential,” said Quinn. “It goes beyond getting together and going riding.”

Dirt Divas offers women of all riding abilities the opportunity to get on the trail, learn new skills and find a community among other female mountain bikers. It’s growing in popularity, too. Last year, more than 100 women showed up for one of the rides, though the program typically sees thirty to fifty women attend each session.

The program kicks off annually in April when mountain biking season typically begins in Central Oregon. The program is open to women of all riding abilities, from first-time riders to elite racers (a group that includes Quinn, who won the twenty-four-hour mountain bike race in Bend in 2014 and set the record for the women’s course time). The rides are free and women can join for one ride or all of them. Plus, you get to use a free rental bike from the Pine Mountain Sports shop. Women break out into groups based on abilities and ride trails around the area in groups.

Kimm Svoboda moved to Central Oregon two years ago and picked up mountain biking. She joined Dirt Divas that summer. She said the program has helped her build confidence on the trails.

“At first, I was kind of intimidated because it’s pretty male dominated and a younger person’s activity,” said Svoboda. “[Dirt Divas] is very friendly and encouraging.”

How Agricultural Connections Transformed Central Oregon’s Local Food Movement

Agricultural Connections is a local organization that centralizes local food shopping for individuals and restaurants.

Liz Weigand co-owner of Agricultural Connections in Bend, Oregon
Liz Weigand, left, co-owner of Agricultural Connections. Photo by Joshua Langlais

Farmers’ markets and CSAs (or “community supported agriculture,” a direct-to-consumer subscription model for individual farms) are the most common ways people buy local food. Agricultural Connections centralizes local food shopping with one online marketplace, working with dozens of regional food producers to offer consumers more variety in one convenient platform. After the godfather of local food sourcing, Jackson’s Corner, signed on as Ag Connect’s first commercial partner in 2010, it was clear that restaurants and individual consumers alike were seeking local food from one streamlined source. Today, Ag Connect supplies more than twenty-five commercial partners (mostly restaurants).

CSAa

Orders are available for pickup or delivery across most of Central Oregon. Shoppers either subscribe or make a one-time produce box purchase up to two days before the weekly fulfillment, or go online and fill their digital shopping cart, ordering any item in any quantity.

Year-round Supply

When Liz Weigand bought Ag Connect before the end of its first year in 2010, an existential question hovered over the business: How can this become a year-round resource in the High Desert? “There was no way for the local food system to grow, evolve and flourish without the integration of the rest of the state,” she said. “We are completely committed to our network of producers here but if people are going to create local food habits, they need consistency. Supplementing with producers from the Willamette Valley was necessary to create the momentum to keep the business alive. Partnerships are invaluable. It’s Oregon food. We are all in this together.”

Dynamism

While the variety of offerings in the online store doesn’t rival a supermarket, Ag Connect does work with at least thirty Oregon producers at any given time, which means that customers can order everything from produce and dairy to meat and pantry items. We’ve been told we’re like a lubricator for the food system,” said Weigand, “developing channels for our suppliers and helping our customers get multiple offerings.”

Produce from Agricultural Connections in Bend, Oregon

Farm to Screen

Manya Williams is Weigand’s new business partner and she is laser focused on the company’s e-commerce. “I’m seed to plate—building relationships with producers—and she is plate to seed, looking at things from the customer’s point of view,” said Weigand. Having a smooth, web-based platform will help with logistical ease as their team builds out more delivery routes. (Current deliveries in Bend three times a week; Prineville and Sisters once a week.)

Transparency

As long as we are communicating the practices of each farm, we’ve seen success,” said Weigand, when asked about whether Ag Connect has a policy on their suppliers’ farming practices. “Most is sustainably grown with organic practices, whether certified or not. The customer can make the decision if they have the information. For example, we had cherries that were conventionally grown this year and if the shopper added it to their shopping cart online, they were notified about the farm’s practices.”

Symbiosis

The symbiotic relationship between Maker’s District grocer, Central Oregon Locavore, and Ag Connect began the year they were each founded, in 2010. Combined, the two companies buy and sell more Central Oregon-grown foods than anywhere else in the region. Locavore looks to Ag Connect for much of their sourcing and Ag Connect buys eggs from Locavore to sell to their customers.

DrinkTanks Taps Into Craft Beer Container Market

DrinkTanks meets a growing demand for craft beer containers.

DrinkTanks team in their Bend workshop. Photo by Alex Jordan

DrinkTanks, founded in Bend in 2013, strives to meet a growing demand for premium craft beer containers. Two years of research and development had gone into the company’s growler that doubles as a personal keg, designed to preserve the freshness, temperature, carbonation and overall quality of your favorite premium craft beer. The company, which has thirty employees, imports stainless steel, vacuum-insulated bodies for the growlers and personal kegs, which are powder coated, laser-engraved and assembled by hand, one at time, in Bend.

Nicholas Hill worked on starting the company with his father, Tim Hill, a retired professor at Central Oregon Community College, who died in 2011. Drinktanks have two distinguishing characteristics: a truly leak-proof lid and the ability to hold sixty pounds of pressure to preserve carbonation. The keg cap accessory kit allows drinkers to also dispense from the growler while preserving carbonation up to a week.

A 2013 Kickstarter campaign for DrinkTanks raised about $240,000 from nearly 2,000 backers. Two years later, a second campaign for the Kegulator Cap and The Juggernaut, a 128-ounce growler, raised more than $300,000 from more than 2,000 backers.

In June 2016, DrinkTanks moved from Bend’s west side to triple its footprint at a 17,250-square-foot facility off Empire Road in Bend.

The company has recently been moving into the coffee-drinking arena, too, launching a line of vacuum insulated cups earlier this year. The line won the Best New Product award at Coffee Fest, a large specialty coffee trade show in Nashville.

“A few hundred breweries across the country are selling our products, as well as several dozen large retailers including REI and backcountry.com,” said marketing director Jackson Esselman.

Sales are growing, and being in Bend has played into the company’s success, he said. “Bend is a hub of craft breweries and one of the most sought-after outdoor towns in the country, so being based here gives us instant credibility. It’s what started our company and fuels us, so rather than outsourcing labor and production, maybe it’s not the most profitable, but it’s true to our roots.”

Tribe Pilot Will Change How You Plan Outdoor Adventures

Tribe Pilot is an app that will make planning multiday outdoor adventures easier.

Founder of Tribe Pilot outdoor adventure app Matt Smith
Tribe Pilot founder Matt Smith

Last summer, after a five-year bender in startup land, Bend’s Matt Smith took some time to regroup and play. The biggest adventure of the summer was a mountain biking trip into the backcountry of British Columbia with a group of friends. In planning it over months, the friends sent hundreds of emails—maps, gear lists, pack lists, mountain bike reviews—amid tons of useless banter. Locating the map? That was a twenty-minute affair.

By the end of the trip, photos were spread across four platforms and the email string had 250 messages. It was on that trip, cranking up and down the mountains of B.C., that Smith found his next adventure: finding a way to solve that problem of decentralization, one likely shared by many lovers of the outdoors.

Smith’s app acts as a trip dashboard, compiling critical trip details in one location for easy access to trip dates, locations, pack lists and assignments.

Tribe Pilot is largely a virtual company, relying on outside contractors for much of the work. It has been self-funded so far, and at the Outfound startup festival in Hood River in June, it won the popular vote in the concept-stage startup competition. (The prize was essentially bragging rights.)

The app was in beta during the summer, and the official launch is set for September 15. Smith said he has some great launch partners that will give them a rapid growth curve out of the gate.

“Several million users would be spectacular, at some point, but currently we are focusing on making our first 1,000 extremely happy,” he said. “If we can do that, then a million users are around the corner. If you pinned me down and tickled my feet, I would have to tell you that by the end of 2018 we are targeting 100,000 users who are constantly planning adventures and inviting their friends.”

His strategy is to collect user feedback metrics to rapidly iterate the product next year. By year three, they are looking to have a loyal user base that considers Tribe Pilot an integral part of all of their outdoor adventures that uses it as their tribe’s indispensable platform.

LeadMethod On Track To Be Next Great Bend Startup

LeadMethod is a software startup based in Bend that closes the gap between leads and sales.

Founder of software company LeadMethod, Justin Johnson, Bend, Oregon.
LeadMethod founder Justin Johnson

For businesses grappling with the steps between leads and sales, a Bend startup has the solution. LeadMethod’s eponymous software platform helps this along, generating feedback about lead status, expected close dates, pipeline projections and other data that can increase sales, especially for companies that sell through distributors and independent representatives. Founded by Justin Johnson in 2014, the company is poised for growth.

“The market continues to tell us that we are a great product-market fit and there is a big opportunity for us,” said Johnson, a veteran software product manager.

In the last two years, the startup doubled its revenue and number of staff. The team of ten is seeking to hire more sales, development and client services staff. In the last year, the company has been investing in its technology to better integrate it with other software products, something that large customers require.

The next six to twelve months are key to growth. The company has the technology, talent and a strong customer base, so taking it to the next level likely requires fundraising, a larger office space in Bend, and a second office in Portland.

“The good news is we have fantastic current investors and many other investors that want to be a part of the new raise,” said Johnson.

LeadMethod computer software startup based in Bend, Oregon.

He has the background for the endeavor, too. For fifteen years prior to LeadMethod, he was in a software product management position, with experience in startups and large companies.

“Dozens of times I have identified good market opportunities and built software products to fit,” he said. “I applied the same best practice to understand our target market, test the market with the idea, then finally build the market to sell. It worked. It worked through lots of interviews, research, and looking at what other companies have tried and failed or succeeded with in this market.”

LeadMethod’s silver bullet is that it addresses a specific customer need, a software problem that no one else has solved, said Johnson.

“In the first two years we solved the problem, and now it is time to apply the same model at a much larger scale. There are more than 30,000 companies in the U.S. that should be using our software, and five times that globally.”

Another distinguishing factor is that while many people have good ideas, not all have the ability to execute them.

“Our team at LeadMethod are masters of execution, and that is the reason for our success,” said Johnson, who, while crediting his team, also possesses the confidence that startup leaders need.

“We’re in a very good position … this will be one of Oregon’s next great companies.”

Cairn Packs Adventure Into A Box

Cairn will deliver the best new outdoor products to your door once a month so that you can always be ready for your next adventure.

Cairn box supplies your outdoor adventure gear in Bend, Oregon

Cairn is a monthly subscription box service of products aimed at inspiring and equipping people for outdoor adventure and discovery. As such, it offers consumers an introduction to brands and their products, and brands gain exposure and data from the market.

Last year, the Bend-based company raised $2 million in funding to expand its offerings, team and community. Since then, it has brought on an outdoor-products veteran to guide its curated selections of gear, and digital specialists to analyze how best to attract and serve customers online. The company now has a team of seventeen and has shipped more than 1.5 million products in its four-year history.

Rob Little and Jared Peterson, co-founders of Cairn in Bend, Oregon
Jared Peterson and Rob Little; Photo by Talia Galvin

Rob Little and Jared Peterson co-founded the company, having met while pursuing MBAs at the Wharton Executive Education Program at the University of Pennsylvania. They discovered they shared a passion for the outdoors as well as startups. Peterson’s background was in operations and tech. He was a part of the team that launched the Apple watch, while Little, an aerospace engineer, worked on deep-space vehicles and stealth fighter jets.

They said they like how flexible and nimble a startup can be, with the ability to be able to react and engage the brand without having to sit back to gain approvals from higher-ups. For example, Cairn, which began as a monthly subscription service ($29.95 per month), introduced Obsidian, a premium outdoor subscription box, in December 2015. Obsidian is a quarterly subscription box service priced at $199 per quarter (including domestic shipping), filled with gear valued at more than $300, and including anything from packs and cooking supplies to outdoor electronics.

“The decision to launch was quick,” said Peterson. “It was clear it was in the market’s interest, with the brands of the core product at a higher price point than the monthly service. It took a few months to execute it.”

Little offered the following advice to anyone aspiring to startup-dom or struggling with it: “Surround yourself with incredible people who motivate and inspire you to help your business, from your partner or co-founder to investors and advisors. It’s not something you do alone.”

Bikepacking Gear Guide

When it comes to bikepacking gear, less is more. But that doesn’t mean bikepackers don’t go all in on their equipment. To the contrary, traveling light often means putting more thought into your gear. The bulk of your gear should be essential, multipurpose and preferably both. We asked the experts at Mountain Supply to give us a short list of must-have gear for any weekend warrior looking to get the most out of a multiday backcountry tour.

MSR Trail Shot Water Filter
$49.95

Small, lightweight water filter that can fit in your stash pocket. Use it to drink right out of the source or fill up other reserves. With a quick, one-hand pump and easy to clean parts, this will keep you going and on track.

Sea to Summit eVent Compression Dry Sack
$29.95-$49.95

A dry sleeping bag is a warm sleeping bag, period. This compression dry sack makes sure of that with its durable fabric, roll-top closure and ability to purge air to compress your sleeping bag to the smallest size possible.

Thermarest UltraLite Cot
$219.95

Have some spare room in the pannier or pack? This two-pound cot keeps you warm, off the ground and provides a luxury sleeping experience whenever you have just a few spare minutes for setup.

Black Diamond Alpine Start Hoody
$149

A little rain and a little wind won’t phase this hoody. Lightweight, versatile and extremely breathable, you’ll find yourself reaching for this piece for almost any condition at any time of the year.

Heather’s Choice Packaroons
$5

Satisfy a sweet tooth and get a much needed energy boost. Real ingredients, healthy fat content and a little creativity highlight these little amazing creations that come in small, two-ounce pouches.

Big Agnes Fly Creek HV UL 1 Tent
$349.95

Ultralight, roomy option for one person on the move at only two pounds. When crawling into camp, a quick setup gets you into a great three-season shelter for anything mother nature throws at you.

 

A Year in the Life of Blue Mountain Ranch Cattle
Blue Mountain Ranch cattle in Paulina, Oregon. Photo by Joshua Langlais

Born in the Forest

Most of a cow’s energy requirements are in the third trimester of pregnancy and during lactation. Blue Mountain calves later than many traditional ranches, with mothers giving birth from May 1 until the end of June, so the ranchers are moving the cattle up to BLM and forest lands as calving begins.

There in the high meadows, grasses with high-energy proteins flourish naturally by late spring so Blue Mountain doesn’t have to feed hay during calving. This is more economical for the ranch and provides the cattle with the best high-energy nutrients at the most important time of the year.

Summer on Public Lands

Blue Mountain’s permit allows them to graze cattle on forest land through the end of September before the cattle are driven back down to Blue Mountain’s private range grounds for the remainder of the year.

Cattle in the grass finishing program spend sixty to ninety days on the lush irrigated meadows of the ranch to give them the best natural finish and flavor for customers.

Every Last Bite

“The cattle are not real high energy in the fall,” said Teskey. “It’s more of a maintaining time.” Calves are weened. The cattle are made to graze certain parts of the property’s range country, “strip grazing” all the available grasses from one area before being allowed to move on to another plot.

Newer and older grasses are drier by fall but “it’s still quality forage that we didn’t cut and bale. We boost with minerals and salt to supplement the grass.”

Why strip graze? “We want to keep as much nutrients on our ground as possible. Using cattle instead of equipment to harvest grass allows for a natural nutrient cycling through grazing, hoof impact and natural fertilizing.” said Teskey.

“Also, when the cattle eat everything, not just the young tender grasses it helps regenerate native species which flourish the next spring—as long as water is in sufficient supply.”

The Coldest Season

Cattle eat native grass and alfalfa that was grown primarily on the ranch and baled in the summer.

Fire Features Take the Chill Out of Fall

Extend the outdoor living season with a fire feature that is built in to your landscape or patio.

A fire feature built into a home's landscaping in Bend, Oregon
Photo by Ross Chandler/Chandler Photography

It’s 3 a.m. on a chilly winter night and neither husband nor wife can sleep. They bundle up, pour a cognac and head for the fire pit. About thirty minutes later, they both feel the dreamy pull of sleep, the magic of a warm fire beneath an orchestra of stars.

This impromptu pajama party is one of countless ways Central Oregonians are drawn to the flame made easy by a match or an on-off switch. The homeowners said they didn’t know when they built the home that they’d use the fire pit all the time, even in the dead of night. The fire pit, which sits apart from the house on the forest’s edge, complements a nightly light show, a parade of wildlife and a view of Broken Top.

The gas-fueled fire feature is cupped inside a rocky outcropping, with four weather-resistant chairs arrayed around it. The homeowners say their friends always want to be in front of the fire.

Jeannie Legum, interior designer and owner of Legum Design in Bend, said that more and more homeowners are seeing fire features as less of a novelty and more of a necessity for entertaining and just relaxing at home.

When designing a fire feature, she considers the size of a client’s home and strives to complement its style. She’ll ask whether they want it for entertaining large parties or gathering in small intimate groups. Do they want the fire in the middle of an existing outdoor living space or is there a better place, away from it all?

As temperatures drop in fall and winter months, Legum says people can add overhead heaters, outdoor drapes to close off a space and weather-proof fabrics for furniture. Contrary to popular belief, creating an outdoor gathering space can be done on a budget. Legum works with homeowners whose properties range from $300,000 to multi-million dollars. “If it’s important to the homeowner, there’s a fire pit for any style or size of home and budget,” she said.

A fire feature on a home's patio in Bend, Oregon

With a showroom full of fire pits and fire tables, Mara McCloskey-Becker of Fireside in Bend proves the point. Wood-burning, portable fire pits start at $199; high-end gas-fueled models can cost thousands.

She cautions that wood-burning models must be placed far from flammables and advises the use of spark-arresting screens. Smoke can be an issue to neighbors, and buyers should know whether their neighborhood allows outdoor wood-burning fire pits. While there is nothing like the crack of a wood fire on a chilly night, the campfire smell lingers in clothing long after the last log is extinguished. Plus, in wildfire-prone Central Oregon, natural gas and propane models are far more popular.

Trending now are gas or propane fire tables with a ledge for setting out snacks and cocktails, and glass guards are used to prevent overheating of people and food. If a gas line isn’t available, the fire feature can run on a propane tank hidden within the device. For more versatility, some manufacturers sell covers to convert a fire table into a coffee table—just the kind of double duty that Central Oregonians love.

A fire feature on a home's patio in Bend, Oregon

McCloskey-Becker said styles range from sleek, minimalist rectangular and powder-coated models to faux wood and natural stone versions for a traditional or Northwest look. Flames are adjustable—just a few inches for ambiance or higher for warmth, and those who like the look of wood can buy a fire pit with a log set.

Bryan and Angie Azur have three fire pits in their Westside Bend home. One is an ultra-contemporary “fire and ice” feature that starts on the inside of the home and continues through the wall to a flat-roof covered patio. The other is a round, concrete fire pit, also under the covered patio, with furniture arranged around it in an L-shape where the family cozies up to watch the sunset, “until the first stars come. Then it’s time for the two boys to go to bed and for us to hang out,” said Bryan.

Designed by Eric Meglasson of Pique Architecture, the home has tall glass sliding doors that create a seamless space between inside and out, making it easy for as many as 100 guests to mill about, even in the winter when the hosts can fire up all three features. “We’re very social,” Bryan said with a laugh. When they’re not hosting a crowd, the fire pit “serves as our family’s TV. Last night we watched shooting stars, and occasionally, we see a breeding pair of great horned owls fly by.”

Justyn Livingston Finds Art and Meaning in the Mystery of Glazing Tile

After more than a decade glazing tile, it’s still a mystery to Bend tile artisan Justyn Livingston. But to her, that’s part of the art.

Justyn Livingston lays out tile in her Bend studio.

There’s an aspect of unpredictability to glazing tile. Variations in the clay can reveal a gradient of colors that come out differently each time they’re fired. After more than a decade glazing tile, it’s still a mystery to Bend tile artisan Justyn Livingston. But to her, that’s part of the art. Predictability doesn’t really suit Livingston, anyway. Her career has taken her from international fashion houses in San Francisco to rural villages in Romania and, eventually, Central Oregon.

Bendites and visitors may recognize her work from the soaking pools at McMenamins Old St. Francis School, where she designed the tiles in the style of a Budapest bathhouse. Her craft, under the name Metolius Ridge Tile, is featured in commercial properties and private homes.

Justyn Livingston hand glazes tile in her Bend studio.

“My intention for this is to choose something [my clients] are going to love for a lifetime,” she said. “While I pay attention to trends and fashion and stuff in a way, I hope that this comes off as really classic.”

In the case of McMenamins’ Bend soaking pool, Livingston said the highest compliment she received about the project is that it feels old; she aims for her tile work to be long lasting and sustainable.

The irony is that Livingston was previously a textile designer for the international fashion brand Esprit, where trends and fast fashion were the modus operandi. She landed at Esprit in San Francisco in the early 1980s, after leaving home at 16 and then living in Paris for a year teaching ice skating at 19 and making her way back to the Bay Area in her twenties.

Livingston eventually became the head of the textile design department at Esprit, where she designed textiles for all the company’s products, including men’s and women’s clothes and bedding. A combination of burnout, freelance opportunities and lower living costs brought her to Camp Sherman in the 1990s. She was able to freelance for Esprit and Pottery Barn and made ends meet by working at the Kokanee Café.

Then, Livingston was recruited to work as a design consultant for Aid to Artisans. Her first job with them was in Tonga, working with basket weavers. The work took her around the world throughout the decade. She worked in Mexico, Romania, Guatemala and Chile to help indigenous artisans continue their traditional craft in a way that was sustainable and profitable in the modern economy.

Back in Central Oregon, she started working with clay and tile and collaborated with Susanne Redfield of Kibak Tile in Sisters. The collaboration was the jumping off point for Livingston to pursue her own business, Metolius Ridge Tile. In 2004, she landed the McMenamins gig that has served as a springboard.

From her studio in Bend, she cuts the tile, hand glazes each piece and fires them in her kiln. She uses only red quarry tile because “it enlivens glazes like no other color,” she said. “Because of the minerals in the quarry, it has this sort of chemistry, this alchemy, with the glazes, which is mostly fabulous, sometimes unpredictable.”

The unpredictability is a key element in her work that makes it stand out in a sea of assembly-line products. She aims to create an overall product where each tile pattern looks the same, but not manufactured.

“One of the biggest challenges is creating consistent inconsistency,” she said. “That’s part of the beauty, right?”


Read more about Central Oregon artists here.

Bend Couple Personalizes a Semi-Custom Tetherow Home

A Bend couple personalizes a semi-custom design to make their house a bright and modern home in the Tartan Druim neighborhood in Tetherow. (Photo by Eilish and Eric Canady inside the kitchen of their Tetherow Home.)

It’s a sad truth that the home we want to love is just not always worthy of our affection. Such was the case for Eilish and Eric Canady who had lived in their NorthWest Crossing home for ten years. Purchased before their second daughter was born, the house’s 1,700 square feet had become progressively too snug for the family. While looking for the best fit for their family, they found the Tartan Druim neighborhood in Tetherow.

Tartan Druim is made of semi-custom homes, all built by the same developer, Bend-based Arrowood, and designed by architect John Muir. “We streamline the process for the homeowners,” explained Femke van Velzen of Arrowood. “We have a team already in place that relieves a lot of the stress of building a custom home. It gives you a place to start.” Muir developed twelve plans with optional casitas. Homeowners’ can modify the plans to suit their specific needs, tastes and building site. Arrowood also provides help with interior design.

“With this development,” said architect Muir, “Arrowood is exploring more contemporary architecture rather than just offering the more traditional rustic design seen in Bend. Tetherow wants to stress individuality, and every home will be a little bit different.” Beyond Tetherow’s architectural requirements, Muir strongly feels that “people deserve to have what they want.”

Located between the Scottish links-style golf course and a canyon, the gated community affords unobstructed views of the greens and the Cascades. Tartan Druim perks include a common area with a clubhouse, landscaping and snow removal. There are also social and golf club memberships at the David McLay Kidd designed Tetherow, a Golf Digest Top 100 golf course. Other draws include the proximity to downtown Bend, schools, and Century Drive, the gateway to the Cascade Lakes and Mt. Bachelor.

The Canadys were shown a number of home plans that had already been approved for construction by Tetherow, but then saw a 3,500-plus square-foot, one-story, three-bedroom spec design that had not yet been given the go-ahead. Working with van Velzen and Muir, they were able to get the plan approved and make their wished-for modifications. The most visually significant alteration was changing the roofline from a traditional pitched roof to one with shed and flat planes.

Other changes requested by the Canadys included adding a casita and, due to their building site, changing the garage entry from the side to the front of the home. The couple also opted for wood-burning fireplaces, rather than gas. With that switch, they changed the fireplace walls to an exposed wood-form with poured concrete. Visible from both the interior and exterior, the concrete walls provide textural detail and nudge the home closer to the contemporary yet timeless styling the Canadys wanted to achieve.

Making it their own both in design and purpose, the original study will be used as an additional bedroom, and a wooden floor will go down in the garage to provide a practice space for their elder daughter’s Irish dancing troupe.

Besides these small modifications, Eilish Canady said the inside was perfect the way it was designed.

“I really like the indoor/outdoor feeling of the house. I love how the kitchen and living room form one big room, and that the living room wall is a LaCantina [folding] door that opens to the outside. The master is also at the back and has the same views as the living room,” she explained. “We tried to keep all the colors in light, neutral tones so the design and our choices would last a long time.”

“I know the house really well. I visited every day during construction,” said Canady. “Seeing the whole process and knowing the siding guy and the guy who builds the cabinets makes you know your house in a more intimate way.”

“It’s all been pretty easy,” she said of the decision to build their home, “and I’m really excited about us living there.”

EMW Fusion is a Farm to Table Food Truck in Bend

EMW Fusion is a seasonal food cart in Bend that serves inventive pandos with locally sourced ingredients.

East Meets West food truck in Bend.
East Meets West food truck in Bend. Photo by Joshua Langlais

It started with a wedding invitation and turned into EMW Fusion. Sun Valley native Brandon Walsh was marrying Seoul native Yoonmee Chang (now Chang Walsh). Both designers, they wanted a creative theme for their wedding and East Meets West seemed appropriate. The pair of creatives took that theme with them into their married life, hosting big fusion-style barbecues (that got bigger each time) and creating mashup designs.

“Mashup is compelling, it’s fun, nothing too serious,” said Walsh, describing their designs of cowboy shirts with Hawaiian fabric contrast and prints of Japanese anime superimposed over Western scenes. “Our philosophy: Never be too serious.”

Brandon Walsh and Yoonmee Chang in front of their food truck East Meets West
Brandon Walsh and Yoonmee Chang in front of their food truck East Meets West. Photo by Joshua Langlais

The couple also rewrote traditional Korean street food recipes with American twists and experimented. A lot. They planned to retire early from their corporate product and graphic design jobs in Portland, turning their passion for cooking into an exit strategy. A food truck in Bend fit the bill.

“Yoonmee grows a huge garden and we’ve made farmers’ market shopping our habit for years,” said Walsh. “We like to know where our food comes from. Especially with protein-based products, the animal must have been raised humanely, not just sustainably and organically. We knew if we got into any food business, that was the plan.”

Still, it took almost a year after they moved to Bend in 2015 to get the food truck ready and transition their foodie lifestyle into a business. They had to figure out how robust a menu their mobile space could handle and find producers in their newly adopted town who could supply EMW Fusion’s needs.

Brandon Walsh serves a pando at the East Meets West food truck.
Brandon Walsh serves a pando at the East Meets West food truck. Photo by Joshua Langlais.

The winning combination? A pando, the organic love child of a Korean wheat-based pancake and a sando (Japanese for sandwich), sold from their truck for $3-4 a pop. Talk about a low barrier to entry for locally sourced food.

“We want to source all our protein and vegetables from Central Oregon and we’re about eighty percent of the way there,” said Walsh.

Even with all their planning, the young business learned one lesson the hard way: winter and EMW don’t mesh. Business was “slowwwww” and it was tough to maintain their commitment to local ingredients.

Before the truck closes for the season at the end of October, catch EMW slinging pandos at one of many locations around Bend (check emwfusion.com for the most up-to-date info). One of their stops is the up-and-coming 9th Street Village. “As makers and east side Bend residents, we are excited to see a cool, non-chain maker destination on the east side,” said Walsh.

To really get to the source, make a trip to the EMW’s beef and pork supplier, DD Ranch in Terrebonne, where the truck will be posted up during weekends in October to feed hungry pumpkin patch pickers.

Bethlehem Inn Begins Expansion

For some Central Oregonians, the competition for housing and living wage jobs is more than an inconvenience, it’s an obstacle that can trap them in a cycle of poverty and homelessness.

Executive director Gwenn Wysling with Walter Eggleston, a resident checking out of Bethlehem Inn. Photo by Alex Jordan

Executive director Gwenn Wysling cites that struggle as one of the key factors in people needing Bethlehem Inn, a nonprofit emergency shelter in Bend. “It is just one bad break, sometimes one bad break after another,” she said.

Each year, Bethlehem Inn helps more than one thousand people who are experiencing situational, or temporary, homelessness. The nonprofit opened its doors in 1999 and has occupied its current space, a renovated motel on old Highway 97 in Bend, since 2007.

Bethlehem Inn can currently feed and house about ninety people a night, including up to five families. It also is the only shelter of its kind in Central Oregon, which has seen an increase in homelessness—up thirty-one percent in two years—according to the most recent Point-in-Time homeless count conducted by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

This past summer, the organization broke ground on the first phase of expanding their facility, which will increase the number of beds, be more accessible for an aging homeless population and add a commercial kitchen where volunteers can prepare meals onsite. With modern upgrades such as solar panels, it will help the organization operate at a lower cost per resident.

Soon, Bethlehem Inn will begin a second campaign to raise the rest of the funds to finish the expansion, which will double the amount of families they can support.

Above all, Wysling highlights the empathy and support that is found in the community at Bethlehem Inn. “We’re that place that can really offer that respite and that place of hope and renewal,” she said.

History of the Redmond Potato Show

The potato has a long history in Central Oregon, and some local festivals such as the Deschutes County Fair trace their roots to the humble spud.

Redmond Potato Show on Deschutes Avenue, circa 1965. Photo courtesy of Deschutes County Historical Society

The humble Russet, the Yukon gold, the fingerling, the baby red and—had history been a little kinder—the Deschutes Netted Gem. Once the major export crop of Central Oregon, the Netted Gem occupies a special place in local lore, if not on dinner plates. Think of it as the Oldsmobile of spuds—a brand that once led an industry, but fizzled in a changing economy heavy on mass production, subsidies and cheap imports.

Yes, before Central Oregon emerged as a hub for craft beer production and an outdoor recreation destination, it was known as the potato capital of the West. At the peak of production in the 1950s, Central Oregon had an estimated 5,000 acres, or roughly seven square miles, dedicated to its internationally award-winning variety, the Deschutes Netted Gem.

The Central Oregon potato crop gained fame in 1906 when the first Redmond Potato Show was held. Fred Stanley, a leader in the Central Oregon Irrigation Company, founded the show to promote the varieties of potatoes grown in the region. People traveled on horse and buggy for the event, which showcased twenty-six varieties of potatoes its first year. The show continued annually each fall, and Bend and Redmond grew to be friendly rivals in the potato industry.

For the better part of a century, the show was a highlight of community and civic life, the culmination of a year’s worth of toil in the fields and a celebration of the region’s bounty. Held each fall, the Potato Show helped spur the creation of the Deschutes County Fair in the early 20th century and was incorporated into the larger celebration.

In the late 1950s the festival became a standalone event again in downtown Redmond with an attendant celebration that included firefighters engaging in a downtown water fight, a community barbecue and revelry. The dollop of sour cream on top of the celebration was the coronation of an annual Potato King and Queen that reads like a who’s who of Redmond civic figures.

But success didn’t come easy to Redmond’s pioneering tuber farmers. In 1912, the potato crop began to spiral into “chaos,” according to a 1922 issue of the nationally distributed Potato Magazine. The problem was too much diversity in crops and a lack of consistent supply.

Just two years later, the market rebounded with the introduction of the Deschutes Netted Gem, which “produced an excellent quality of potato under the peculiar climatic conditions of Central Oregon.” Potato Magazine wrote that by 1922, the crop was in an “enviable position” due to the “value of standardization, advertising, and organization when applied to an industry carried on by progressive farmers.” The potatoes grew in popularity and won awards at international potato shows.

Over time, the region became the small fry in Oregon’s potato crop, with production peeling off to the east where processing plants in nearby Eastern Oregon, cheap land and ample water took Oregon’s production to a new scale. With the decline of the potato crop, there was little left to celebrate in Redmond but the memory of a once thriving economy. By 1970 the Potato Show was no more. The festival was revived briefly in 2006 in honor of Redmond’s Centennial celebration.

Today, the legacy of the Netted Gem and Potato Show live on in the Deschutes County Fair, celebrated each August in Redmond with plenty of pageantry—even if the former star of the show, the Netted Gem, hasn’t attended for some time.

A Modern Kitchen in Shevlin Commons

Shevlin Commons homeowners design a modern kitchen that takes advantage of the Cascade mountain views.

Photo by Ross Chandler

On Bend’s western edge, large windows, dramatic angles and open floor plans are featured in homes that showcase views and Central Oregon’s outdoor culture.

Such is the case with Bill and Cheryl Davidson’s new Shevlin Commons custom-built home. Priorities for the new kitchen included function and overall fit. It had to work with the overall floor plan and take advantage of the site’s stunning Cascade views.

“Glenn Dietrich [of Sun Forest Construction] really captured what was in our imagination,” said Cheryl Davidson.

Dietrich chose materials that complemented the house’s contemporary design and the couple’s mid-century modern furniture.

Photo by Ross Chandler

The kitchen’s integration starts at the top, where clear hemlock paneling in the coffered ceiling echoes the use of the same material in the adjoining living room. The use of wood continues in the clear vertical-grained fir cabinetry that, at one end, backs up to the dining room to allow shared serving space.

Cabinets and drawers open and close with rectangular, stainless steel bar pulls; the stainless is repeated in appliances and in the backsplash behind the cooktop.

Lower cabinetry around the room’s perimeter has counters and a backsplash of large-format porcelain tile accented with diagonally set stainless steel tiles. As a material contrast, the couple chose a cement and recycled glass composite to top the vertical-grained island.

Abundant storage is provided in the many cabinets and drawers and underneath the island. Cookbooks and foodstuffs are kept in the pantry, while wines are housed in the designated wine room.

“When we were newly married,” said Bill Davidson, “my uncle, who did a lot of entertaining, told us everyone gravitated to the kitchen, and he was absolutely right.”

Ultimate Finds a New Generation at Central Oregon High Schools

A new generation of Ultimate players is moving the sport slowly into the mainstream.

Name the fastest-growing sport in the world. Since you’ve already cheated and looked at this article’s photo, the answer is Ultimate. As in Frisbee or disc. (True players say, simply, “Ultimate.”) Just don’t dare confuse this sport with disc golf.

Oregon has been a hotbed of this nascent sport since its bootstrap beginnings. The University of Oregon has qualified for five of the past six NCAA Ultimate Final Fours prior to the team being suspended in 2016. (More on that later.)

In the last few years, though, the sport has migrated from college dorms to high school hallways as a new generation adopts the sport and blazes a competitive trail in the process.

Nowhere is the sport’s emergence and fast track to sanctioned legitimacy more apparent than in Central Oregon, where the Bend Senior High School team makes its official debut this fall, joining Summit and Mountain View in the formal high school ranks with High Desert bragging rights on the line.

“Sideline drill, gentlemen!” shouted Bend High School Coach Joel Pitney. “Jog, don’t walk!”

Played in at least forty-two countries and in the running to be an Olympic sport as soon as 2024, Ultimate typifies why youth football and baseball are losing talent and interest so rapidly. Just show up; sneakers and an interest are the sole requirements. You’re soon on the ground floor of an exploding sport that blends true teamwork with finesse, quickly (and literally) grasped skills, self-policing for fouls and one helluva workout.

Only thirty minutes into practice and already winded, Bend High players are sweaty yet eager to learn and perfect each defense and hurl. Ultimate’s playing field size is eighty percent of soccer’s pitch. Kiwanis Park in southeast Bend is merely adequate for practice. BNSF trains rumble by loudly, black tankers in tow, but the players don’t notice—their focus is on this rather addictive sport.

“Nice work, gentlemen! Grab a drink of water!” declared the coach, clapping his hands in encouragement. “A quick drink! Jog, don’t walk!”

Pitney has played Ultimate for twenty years on all levels, having learned in college and coached professional teams. He frames Ultimate’s present position in the pantheon of competition in terms of other sports. “Ultimate is like baseball in the 1890s, or football during the 1980s, when the USFL was competing with the NFL,” said Pitney. “We are still figuring things out, school leagues versus clubs, coed teams, but the interest just keeps growing.”

According to USA Ultimate, the sport’s official sanctioning body in the United States, membership numbers at the adult level have been growing at almost nine percent annually over the past six years. Youth participation has grown slightly faster than that with an estimated 14,500 members in 2016. That’s likely just a fraction of the sport’s actual participation numbers, thanks to the DIY and ad-hoc nature of Ultimate, where teams tend to eschew things such as leagues, uniforms and, sometimes, clothing. (The University of Oregon team was suspended for playing in a scrimmage with no shorts—or underwear—during an, ahem, exhibition in Corvallis last year. The bawdy shirts and skins game was witnessed by a female university official at OSU who filed a complaint with campus officials there.)

Incidents like this have added to Ultimate’s lore, but have also prevented it from gaining the mainstream acceptance of many other sports. Its popularity is an enigma; players both bemoan the sport’s relegation and relish its outsider image.

In Oregon, Ultimate’s relevance depends on the region. The state has ten total teams, yet Portland has only one; meanwhile, Bend now has three. Summit has had a team for nearly ten years, Mountain View a few, and Bend High’s entry, which begins play this fall formally, features a motley crew of freshmen through seniors, emerging stars that their coach continually refers to as “Gentlemen.”

 

“I have to leave at four,” informed a rather new recruit.

“Okay,” acknowledged Coach Joel, scanning the field and his fourteen total players, knowing they wouldn’t have enough for a true seven-on-seven scrimmage after this young gentleman left. “Just practice your throws.”

“I will.”

“I practice my throws in my mind!” laughed another “gentleman” player. Bear in mind that these are teens. However new to the sport and gentlemanly, they must be kept busy—attention spans fleeting, energy incalculable.

Smiling, Coach Pitney shouted, “Okay gentlemen, line up for end-zone drills! Don’t walk—jog!”

And they did, sprinting into position. Veterans, after only a handful of practices, guiding the rookies. They showed the newest recruits how to force a backhand hurl, counting, “1-2-3-4-5…” because, once you catch the disc and set your pivot foot, you must pass it within ten seconds or it’s a turnover; the same with a dropped disc.

Push an opponent or slap his or her hand during a throw and it’s a foul. Infractions in Ultimate are called by the players, giving the game a self-directed feeling that is almost democratic, but hardly casual. It’s rather beautiful, too.

Ultimate is mashup of soccer, football and Frisbee that friends casually invented in 1968 and has now become a fully sanctioned sport. It was on the short list for inclusion in the 2020 Tokyo games and nixed only at the final hour this past summer by Olympic officials. Born on a New Jersey college campus, Ultimate has grown at the collegiate level rapidly, particularly in the 2000s when Ultimate registrations more than doubled. That participation has expanded to youth and adult leagues nationwide, as former college players foment interest in recreational leagues.

Coach Pitney has been part of Ultimate’s growth, and his Bend High team’s progress has been impressive. “Our first scrimmage with Summit, we got annihilated. Then, the next scrimmage, we won nine to eight.”

Natural talents are emerging, and their coach wasn’t exaggerating when he pointed out that a few of his players may be national, even Olympic, superstars in only a few years. These gentlemen are learning fast, and a newcomer who kept dropping the disc just made an impressive diving catch in the end zone—“SCORE!”

Bikepacking Frame Packs Made in Bend
Sam Powell with one of his bikepacking frame packs. Photo by Alex Jordan

They say that necessity is the mother of invention. That’s certainly the case with Sam Powell, who started sewing frame packs and bikepack accessories a few years ago because he needed them for his own commutes. The creations soon turned into a small side business for Powell, who runs the sewing shop at Bend’s Gear Fix. He sews the hanging bike bags in his home studio and markets them under the name Three Sisters Threadworks. We talked to Powell, 34, about his side business and the allure of bikepacking.

You have a small business sewing/making frame bags and accessories. How did you get started?

I started just making bags for myself and my bike. I would then make new ones and sell the old ones at the Gear Fix, where I run the sewing shop, and then at some point I started making them directly for other people. Since then I’ve put together a little production shop in my garage so I can work when my son is napping and at other odd hours.

Have you seen much growth in demand for your products?

It seems like there is quite a bit of growth in interest, but I’ve only been doing this a couple of years so I don’t have a real long-term perspective on it. There definitely is interest though. We’ve done a couple of intro to bikepacking clinics at the Gear Fix and they were well attended.

Is it like Hairclub for Men, are you the owner and a customer, too? How often do you get out and use your creations?

I am my first customer, for sure, and, yes, both in the sense that I enjoy making the bags and also enjoy using them. I use the bags I make for daily commuting and I typically get out for four or five bike overnight trips each year.

How long have you been involved in the sport and what is the primary appeal for you?

I’ve been riding bicycles and camping for my entire life but only put them together a couple of years ago when I started making the bags. I started making the bags primarily because it looked interesting and then started camping with my bike after that. Making bags is a side business, so I try to only take on projects that are both interesting to me and for people who really appreciate it. I’ve really enjoyed having a consistent creative outlet beyond my day-to-day of repairing gear that other people have designed and built.

High Desert Food & Farm Alliance Makes Fresh Food Accessible

How do we reduce the average distance a piece of produce travels from farm to consumer in the United States from 1,500 miles to a country mile? High Desert Food and Farm Alliance may have the answer.

High Desert Food and Farm Alliance at the Bend, Oregon farmers' market
Photo by Joshua Langlais

“Produce starts to lose nutrients as soon as it’s harvested,” said Food & Farm Director Jess Weiland of High Desert Food and Farm Alliance (HDFFA). The seven-year-old, Bend-based organization focuses on programs—from consumer education to marketing for farmers—that facilitate community access to fresh food that is grown sustainably within the local food system. “We want to make nutrition as easy as possible,” said Weiland. “We want to meet people where they are and be responsive to the community.”

Get a Taste

Taste Local Thursdays highlight a restaurant’s relationship with local farmers and ranchers, shining a spotlight on local ingredients. “Over and over we hear that people care about local food,” said Weiland. “It’s availability in Central Oregon is a thing of pride here.”

Food and Farm Directory

It’s free and it will whet your taste buds. The High Desert Food and Farm Directory, available in print and online, has sprouted from a trifold into a deeply rooted, 147-business strong resource for where to buy food grown locally.

Sixty-two producers and eighty other food-related businesses filled last year’s guide and Weiland said more are signing up. Farmers and businesses can enroll annually for a nominal fee to become an HDFFA partner. For partners who do online sales, the web directory links consumers directly to that producer’s e-commerce.

“So many—I would say around half—of local farmers also have other jobs. They are so busy,” said Weiland regarding the value of the directory as a centralized marketing tool for producers.

“Farmers are really producing a lot but they may not have time to market it and develop distribution avenues. Providing more consumer access points is key.”

Cheap + Healthy = Possible

Preparing meals from scratch can be both healthful and economical with the right set of skills and some fresh ingredients.

Part of a national curriculum implemented through state funding and carried out regionally by HDFFA using chef and nutritionist volunteers, Cooking Matters classes are available to food insecure families across Central Oregon this fall in six-week sessions.

“Cooking with families naturally lends itself to a conversation about nutrition and food budgeting,” said Weiland. “There is an important link between food and health. This is preventative care.”

Food For All

The local food bank is fresher thanks to HDFFA’s Grow and Give program, an initiative benefitting NeighborImpact. At farmers’ markets in Bend patrons can donate to the program in $5 increments and be entered to win a prize at the end of market season. The Madras, Redmond and Sisters markets also take donations. HDFFA then buys the equivalent amount of food from farmers at the end of the market, curating purchases based on food bank needs.

“Food insecurity is a prevalent issue but it can be a bit ‘out of sight, out of mind,’” said Weiland, noting that farmers’ markets play a vital role in our community and provide a good space to facilitate discussion of the issue.

Statistically, one in five people in Central Oregon is food insecure—meaning they might not know where their next meal is coming from. The program represents a new frontier of food recovery (a term meaning food waste mitigation).

“Farmers see it as a value add,” said Weiland. “They harvest more than they may need to be sure they fill demand at farmers’ markets throughout the region. The funds help to support the farmers’ bottom lines, aid in food recovery and shore up the region’s food bank supply.”

An anticipated 15,000 pounds of food recovery will go to NeighborImpact this year.

BVC’s Ryan Andrews Balances Returns and Social Responsibility
Ryan Andrews

Going through the Bend Venture Conference with two different startups, Ryan Andrews was intimately familiar with the state’s largest angel conference. Becoming the manager of the BVC’s first social impact fund, which debuted last year, offered Andrews another way to get involved with the conference—and exercise his investment expertise. Andrews wears many hats, but most of them involve finance. In addition to managing the newest BVC fund, which requires him to both solicit investors and evaluate investable startups, he’s also a partner in Trueline Capital, a Bend-based real estate fund. We recently caught up with Andrews to learn more about the BVC’s social impact, the interest in socially responsible investing and his new side project, a series of letters written to thoughtful investors.

First, how do you describe the Bend Venture Conference’s Social Impact Fund?

The fund invests in for-profit, early-stage companies that have a social or environmental impact as a core part of their business model. We purposely made the definition broad; we wanted to open the floodgates and then be able to decide who had a stronger or weaker social impact proposition. More than thirty companies applied last year. One of our two winners, Hemex Health, creates a portable, inexpensive device that can be used to screen for malaria and sickle cell disease in developing countries. Their social impact was off the charts as well as their potential revenue and market share.

What misconceptions do people have about social impact investing?

I sometimes get pushback that social impact startups aren’t viable or that they generate lower financial returns to investors. But the evidence is stacking up that there’s a strong business case for social impact startups that solve real, societal problems. Society at large is willing to reward these companies with revenue and market share.

The Bend Venture Conference takes place in October. Is there anything new or different about this year’s social impact track?

We have a lot of momentum coming off of last year. People are excited, especially after watching Hemex Health go on to raise another $1.7 million in a Series A round. Our fund was the first investor in the company. Last year, we raised $110,000 for the fund, about half from institutional investors. This year we’re aiming for $150,000. We’re also doing a Reg D 506(c) offering for the fund, which allows us to advertise publicly for investors.

You also manage investments for your day job, a partner at Bend-based Trueline Capital. What does Trueline do?

Trueline Capital is a boutique real estate investment fund focused on residential construction and development in the Pacific Northwest. After the last recession, most community banks stopped lending into the residential construction market, even as the economy came back, leaving a lot of these projects without a good source of capital. We manage the fund on behalf of our investors, investing in smaller, in-city and infill residential developments, usually projects that are too small for a large, private investment and not eligible for bank financing. We’re currently invested in more than thirty-five projects, valued at $32 million.

Lastly, tell us about your Thoughtful Investor series of letters.

I found myself having a lot of one-on-one conversations with investors about how money and monetary systems really work. I started writing about these conversations in a serialized letter format at thoughtfulinvestor.co. The goal is to write sophisticated, but accessible, letters to investors. Recent topics include the role of central banks, the importance of hard assets and whether we’re in a bubble. I also plan on writing about cryptocurrencies, the coming artificial intelligence/machine learning labor revolution and the innovations occurring in real estate finance. It’s pure thought leadership and a chance for me to start these conversations.

Artist Courtney Holton Places Historic Photos in Contemporary Context

Artist Courtney Holton honors ancestral Native American photos with bold colors and contemporary designs.

Courtney Holton's Artist Studio in Bend, Oregon

The familiar, proud faces of native people resemble black and white photos of an earlier time. But familiarity quickly fades to curiosity. Big splashes of color give Courtney Holtons large canvases a contemporary twist, and, yet, why are the portraits striped with the American flag? Do those patchwork blocks behind the elegant woman shape the state of Oregon?

Beautiful painting by Courtney Holton Bend, Oregon

Part of the answer lies with a cache of turn-of-the-twentieth century photos and prints Holton obtained as a student at the University of Oregon in the 1980s. He held onto the archival material for thirty years while his life and the love of a French woman took him to Paris and later the Loire Valley.

He initially sold abstract paintings on Paris streets and sometimes exhibited in bars and restaurants. The owner of the Galerie Expression Libre in Paris saw Holton’s paintings in a theater and began exhibiting his work, leading to shows in Turkey, Belgium, Switzerland and the United States. “Art is everywhere, and can be a wonderful tool in communication, history and thought,” said Holton.

Born and raised in Eugene, Holton spent winters skiing at Mt. Bachelor. In 2016, he decided to spend more time in his home state, and Bend was a good fit. He rented studio space at Cindercone Clay Center where he began to develop this portrait series, enlarging old black and white images onto canvas through industrial ink-jet technology, and then hand layering the canvas with colorful oil paints. Each painting takes about a month to complete.

“With a heartfelt compassion for his subjects and a sincere commitment to accuracy in depicting and painting these subjects, Courtney lends his remarkable talent to his larger-than-life, beautiful oil paintings of the mid-to-late-1800’s Native American occupants of northeastern Oregon,” said Billye Turner, a local art dealer who facilitated a recent show, “Remembrance,” at Bend’s Franklin Crossing.

Artist Courtney Holton in his artist studio Bend, Oregon

The exhibit included a painting with the American flag imposed over the photo of a native man. Holton’s intent was to honor the patriotic service of all Native Americans who served in World War II, including “code talkers” whose job it was to transmit secret messages in code. In a painting of a native woman, he created a facsimile of Oregon counties in the background, a nod to their tribal lands both ancient and current.

“Each portrait tells a story of the beauty and power of these photographs—the desire to remember and respect,” he said of the exhibit. He donates ten percent of sales on the portrait series to the Warm Springs Community Action Team.

Today, he splits his time between Bend and the village of St. Sauveur where he owns part of a 500-year-old convent, that serves as his home and studio. He’s working with a master printer there to create wood-block prints that are more attractive to collectors.

“It’s daunting to start over again in a new place,” he said. “With art, it’s something you grow over the years.” But proximity to family and ski slopes will make his re-entry to Central Oregon a lot easier.

The No-Bake Cookie Co. Taps Into Growing Food Trend

The No-Bake Cookie Co. went from a project for a family-owned deli to one the next great Bend companies.

Tom, Carol and Eric Healy, owners of the No-Bake Cookie Co. Photo by Alex Jordan

Mmm. Cookies like grandma used to, well, not bake. Carol Healy started making old-fashioned, no-bake cookies for her family-owned Expressway Corner Market & Deli in Bend, and soon the nostalgic recipe dovetailed with one of the hottest food demands: gluten-free products. The wholesome treats, made with natural nut butters, premium certified gluten-free whole-grain oats, butter, Madagascar vanilla, cane sugar and milk also boast no preservatives, hydrogenated oils, corn syrup, wheat flour or genetically modified anything.

The cookies developed a fervent fan base among the market’s customers, mostly from the Southeast neighborhood, who head there for burgers and other housemade dishes at the cafe-convenience store-gas station at the Reed Market Road and 15th Street roundabout.

In 2011, Healy and her husband, Tom Healy, created the No-Bake Cookie Co., and it took off quickly that year after she presented the sweet goods to Nordstrom. The high-end retail department store’s buyer and her team had grown up eating no-bake cookies and loved them. The gluten-free certification fit Nordstrom’s demographic and the timing was perfect because demand was building, yet not many products had been certified as gluten free. Stores were looking for them.

Now the cookies are in thousands of stores nationwide—from Whole Foods, Kroger stores and Fred Meyer to Alberstons, Safeway, Market of Choice and Newport Avenue Market—plus convenience stores, including Sheetz, with 550 stores. The growth prompted the Healys to recruit their son, Eric, as chief operating officer, who left his ten-year career as an aerospace mechanical engineer for Boeing and other big corporations. All twenty employees work in the 5,000-square-foot facility in Bend, except for a Los Angeles-based national sales director.

Entrepreneurship is also in the family’s blood. Eric’s grandfather, Bill Healy, founded the Mt. Bachelor ski area in 1957, and his uncle, Cameron Healy, founded Kettle Chips, now an international manufacturer of potato chips, tortilla chips and nut butters in Salem.

The company hit its goal on funding the recent growth with a summer funding round on CircleUp, a crowdfunding platform that serves consumer brands seeking to raise money from accredited investors.

Eric Healy said manufacturing in general has its challenges. Shipping from Bend, in particular, can be challenging, especially last winter, when big snowstorms slowed semi-trucks delivering ingredients. A local advantage has been working with FoundersPad, which is selective in funding and mentoring early stage companies.

“They have been very instrumental, helping with all aspects of the business, working on margins, supply chain, fundraising and branding,” said Eric.

An Old Bend Kitchen Remodel Saves Space

How to turn a bad 1980s kitchen remodel into a space that is modern and usable.

Photo courtesy of Neil Kelly Company

Barb Macomber and Richard Ross’ 1920 bungalow in the Old Town Historic District was perfect—except for a kitchen that was suffering from a bad 1980s remodel. The room’s dominant features were a too small window, a too big refrigerator, and too little storage and style.

The couple enlisted Kathleen Donohue at Neil Kelly to redo the space. “We went to one of her demonstrations,” said Macomber. “She just really resonated with us.”

Confined by the kitchen’s galley configuration, the object was to create an efficient, light-filled kitchen while respecting the bungalow’s Craftsman history. Donohue, who relishes combining creativity with the more technical and practical demands of design, removed everything except the original floor.

To bring light into the eleven-by-ten-foot room, a new thirty-six-square-inch window was placed above the kitchen sink and under-cabinet lights and historically accurate ceiling fixtures were installed. Donohue added light-reflecting white quartz counters and subway tile to the mix.

Photo courtesy of Neil Kelly Company

To increase storage, cherry cabinets were fitted with deep, self-closing drawers and pullouts, and a built-in cream-colored hutch was added as a pantry.

The biggest cure to the kitchen’s ills was the use of smaller apartment-sized, or European, appliances: Installed were an eighteen-inch wide dishwasher, a thirty-inch wide range and a twenty-four-inch wide refrigerator.

Small details such as black pulls and knobs on cabinets, glass shelving, trim work on the hutch and cabinets, and a mosaic above the range connect the kitchen to its history, while the use of eye-popping red paint and red range knobs take the newly-functional room from sedate to warm and inviting.

“It’s a nice room now,” explained Ross. “It wasn’t that way before.” “It was awful,” added Macomber, “but now it’s like a beautiful functional jewel box.”

Flyte Camp Builds Retro Camping Trailer With Modern Luxuries

Flyte Camp, a vintage trailer restoration company in Bend, breaks the mold in the camp trailer industry with its new line of trailers that look vintage, but have modern luxuries.

Justin and Anna Scribner sit in the Neutron, Flyte Camp's new model of vintage-inspired camping trailers.

It all started with a 1958 Shasta Airflyte. To some, a heap of aluminum and rubber tires rusting in an overgrown junkyard. But to Anna and Justin Scribner, it was a piece of living history that deserved a second chance. Their work to restore the vintage trailer to its former gleaming glory spawned a successful business and a popular TV show, but, more importantly, it marked the beginning of their crusade to restore American craftsmanship to camping trailers.

Almost a decade and close to 100 renovations later, Flyte Camp is embarking on a new adventure: designing and building their own model of trailers. Dubbed the Neutron, the trailers are high-end and designed in mid-century vintage style but with modern amenities.

Justin said that the idea came when the trend of vintage trailers picked up and other companies started putting out their own models that looked vintage. But those trailers “missed the mark” when it came to the craftsmanship that is the hallmark of the trailers made in the mid-twentieth century.

The Neutrons are made-to-order, three-at-a-time at Flyte Camp’s Bend shop. Designed and made using all the knowledge they’ve gleaned from years working with vintage trailers and racking up insight into their craftsmanship, the Neutrons are dripping with nostalgia.

Adding the Neutron felt like the logical next step to Anna and Justin, who wanted to make their mark on the retro camping trailer market. Even as they drive the business forward, they do so with one eye on the rearview mirror of history and that first trailer that marked the beginning of a lifetime infatuation with classic design. Anna recalled seeing that Shasta Airflyte when Justin brought it home, almost a decade ago now.

“Man, the first time I saw that thing, I walked through it and fell in love,” she said. “I loved all the mid-century detailing and the quality that was in the small things.”

Justin, a contractor by trade, echoes that sentiment when he talks about what sparked the idea for the business.

“We’re preserving a piece of Americana,” he said. “It doesn’t need to be rotting out in a field somewhere.”

Like many upstarts, success didn’t come overnight. The work grew slowly and organically in the first few years. In some ways, they didn’t know they had a business at all. The couple spent several years buying, restoring and selling vintage camp trailers as a hobby before officially launching Flyte Camp in 2009. Less than a year into it, their renovations caught the attention of a television producer. He offered them a spot on Extreme RVs, then their own show, “Flippin’ RVs,” which is now in its third season on the Travel Channel.

Justin grew up camping in trailers around the Pacific Northwest, and has a passion for all things nostalgic, but especially vintage camping trailers.

“[Vintage trailers] all need to be saved, in my opinion,” he said. “We’re too much of a throwaway society anymore. They should be out on the road.”

One of the reasons the business has been so successful is that they know how to capture the look and feel of an era through their restorations. They also capitalized on a trend that has swept American culture in the last decade.

“People just want that experience of stepping back in time, escaping to an earlier era,” said Anna. “That’s one thing we try to do, is make sure that our restorations are era correct, are the real, true look and feel of the year.”

Justin and Anna Scribner, owners of Flyte Camp, a vintage trailer restoration company in Bend, Oregon.

The business has turned them into experts in the field, and the couple is sought after around the country for their design and craftsmanship.

Despite the TV show, the business and building the new trailers, Justin and Anna are still out camping as much as possible. Though today, they’ve traded in the vintage trailer for the Neutron, taking it camping to places around Central Oregon such as Crescent Lake and Paradise Campground.

Justin and Anna are hoping the Neutrons will stand the test of time like the vintage trailers that they restore.

“Hopefully, we’re putting out something that will last another sixty years,” said Justin.

Mahonia Gardens Gets Back to the Roots of Farming

Mahonia Gardens is a one-acre farm in Sisters that is focused on sustainability and farming by hand.

Mahonia Gardens farm in Sisters, Oregon
Benji Negal and Carys Wilkins at their farm Mahonia Gardens. Photo by Joshua Langlais

Most commercial gardens are not biologically thriving ecosystems. At Mahonia Gardens in Sisters, birds, lizards, snakes, bunnies, and a manner of beneficial insects live amid floral perennials and rare plants. Oh, and fifty crops, which all prosper on just one acre.

“We really like doing things by hand. That is sustainability, not using oil and machines,” said owner Carys Wilkins. “Also the noise, the aesthetic of it. It’s such an art. And a conscious choice that we can make at this point because we are able to sustain economically.”

With this year’s harvest marking their fifth growing season in Sisters comes a confidence in their hand scale technique. “We’ve been honing in on what grows best in our climate,” said Wilkins. “Lots of crops don’t like Central Oregon’s big swing in diurnal temperature. Broccoli is a good example—they like stable temps through day and night.”

It’s also a balancing act between what grows well and what sells well. “Sometimes that means sacrificing crops because of space,” said Negal. “We’ve adapted within our space.”

Jess Weiland of the High Desert Food and Farm Alliance spoke to Mahonia’s model. “Carys and Benji have put so much effort into diversifying what they’re growing,” she said. “They really stay true to what they deem as a sustainable model for them. It’s so easy as a farmer to get pulled in a lot of directions and scale up. They are really clear with themselves about what they want to produce and prioritize, maintaining some amount of a work/life balance.”

Of course, for a farmer that means mostly working from spring through winter’s first snow. The couple prefers working in the field over managing people.

“We’ve said from the beginning: Let’s do it by hand as long as we can. We think it works to our benefit to grow more within a small space,” said Negal. “Our motto: Let’s grow inward rather than outward. Within the confines of our space, let’s continue to get better. Better soil, every corner gets watered, every piece of land gets attention.”

Co-owner of Mahonia Gardens farm Benji Negal
Benji Negal at Mahonia Gardens. Photo by Joshua Langlais

Wilkins and Negal live on a property they bought with Negal’s father just a half-mile from Mahonia and only a couple blocks from the Sisters Farmers’ Market, which Wilkins runs. They keep their cost of living low and didn’t take out any loans to start Mahonia (they raised $9,000 on Kickstarter to fund the business). Benji is also a musician, a talent which also happens to supplement their income. When the couple decided to move to Negal’s hometown after stints in Southern Oregon and Northern California, proximity to family was the primary driver.

Mahonia sells out its CSA (community-supported agriculture) memberships each season, which capped at forty members this year.

“CSA is great because you already know it’s sold when you plant the seed,” said Wilkins.

The other three-quarters of their business comes from farmers’ market sales and a bit of surplus crop sales to Agricultural Connections.

“This is the ‘abundance mentality’ idea. If people try another farm’s CSA or grow their own garden, we feel good about that,” said Negal. “It’s a small town and we’re very much a community,” added Negal, recognizing the work of educators, residents and new farmers to expand the local presence of fresh food. “Of course, that’s a benefit for the business but more than that, growing food becomes purposeful and meaningful.”

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