Esotropiart

Last weekend, at the last second, I got talked into going to the Ethnos Church Camp Out. I'm rather thankful for the 3 consecutive invitations and am very glad I went. It was a much needed weekend away. The turnout was pretty good, some 60 or so people. We had a whole road of the camp to ourselves, all in a big long row. It brought back memories of some of our church camp outs back when I was a kid.

The planning was initiated quite late this year. Due to the short notice, it ended up being quite a challenge to find a camp that could accommodate all of us and allow us to have adjacent camp sites. Fortunately Troy found Black Canyon Campground, east of Eugene on Highway 58. While I enjoy being outdoors in most reasonable conditions, I'm not as much of a campsite fan as I used to be growing up. It requires a carload of stuff to set up camp and often isn't worth the hassle unless the trip is more than just a few days. Perhaps the one feature of site camping that I absolutely love, cherish and can't live without for any significant length of time is a fire pit - a designated legal and mostly safe place to build a fire out in nature. There's absolutely nothing akin to sitting around a campfire at night with people you care about, roasting marshmallows, sharing laughter, recounting stories, singing, and the like.

Nowadays I prefer trekking out on a wilderness trail with everything I need in a backpack. There's less supplies to worry about and tote around, it's awesome exercise, and the nature experience is far more heightened and raw. I'm not necessarily into extreme or dangerous conditions or foraging the land to find food, but somewhere between that and site camping is what I enjoy. Mostly I like the solitude and beauty (attempting to capture it in photos) of backpacking.

As campgrounds go, I enjoyed Black Canyon. The more natural the better as far as I'm concerned. I don't really like when sites are perfectly cleared out, with pristinely groomed lawns, curbs and sparse trees. Black Canyon is far more natural than that unfortunate description, with seemingly untouched nature immediately behind and surrounding each site - just the way I like it, enough to make you feel like you're not just camping in a sanitized city park! The camp is situated close to the middle fork of the Willamette River. The highway is a little too close to one side, and a noisy train cuts through nearby across the river, but I never had occasion to find these "features" annoying.

I was graced to share a large "8-person" tent with Troy, Keith and the two Lukes (I think I got that all right, though some of the names sound wrong all of a sudden). Our site was one of the larger ones, and we had likely the largest collection of food. Fortunately I was counted in on all the well-planned provisions, so pretty much all I had to bring was a sleeping bag, clothes and other normal necessities. I rode down with Keith, Jason and Luke. It was nice to get to know some of the Ethnos guys a bit better. Keith in particular was there for me in a very crucial moment as we arrived back home... and I thank you again for that, Keith - even if you don't read blogs! :)

Though a church camp, there was no hugely restrictive activity schedule. Each person was on their own to pursue what they found most interesting and fun. Of course, since we are all one big happy "family" people grouped together to visit the various venues afforded. This included a hike or two, hanging out at the river, biking to and fro, a more serious mountain bike ride, disc golf, ladder ball, hot springs dip, gun shooting, fire tending and socializing, and perhaps a few other events I didn't witness or hear about. My activities of choice were ladder ball, hanging out at some of the socializing camp grounds (including ours), rock jumping at the river, and the mountain bike ride.

The off-road bike ride was easily the highlight of the trip for me. Jeremy, Troy, Dave, Luke and I racked up our bikes and drove several miles to a path that Troy found in his biking book. I learned that the location we found ourselves in, Oakridge and the surrounding area, is very well known in Oregon for mountain biking.

It had been perhaps almost 15 years since I had gone on a ride that resembled a serious undertaking. While I've gone on far longer and more colorful and varied trails before, this tops them all as far as technical skill required (either that, or I'm just getting old and feeble). The path was rated "moderate" which basically means I'm an absolute beginner - or at least not conditioned like I used to be. Summary: it was about 4 miles up, turn around, and 4 miles back down the same path. The path was single track and seemingly less in some spots :). The steepness of the initial climb sent Jeremy, Troy and I intermittently walking our bikes, a very slow ascent. The "machines" Dave and Luke somehow quickly made it all the way up without dismounting.

All the grueling work of getting up the hill immediately paid off as soon as we all did a 180 and started going down. Woah, what a thrill! We were flying down the trail, recklessly at best, smiling (with the occasional hoot and holler) the whole way! I love activities that - within reason - test my ability to react to the unknown. An example would be jetty jumping (my friend Jim and I on more than one occasion risked life and limb in this splendid "sport", where the challenge is to keep moving while leaping and stalling on enormous boulders, avoiding deadly sharp ridges and pitfalls). This rapid ("thrilling", as the biking book described it) descent fit that category.

Unfortunately I was missing a few key skills that would have kept me in the realm of sensible safety. Dave warned us that we would have to attempt to keep our center of gravity back as far as possible to avoid flying over our handlebars. Well, I was Superman twice... but I lacked his invulnerability and ability to fly more than about 8 to 10 feet. I slammed into the dusty trail ahead of my bike, and gravity called my metallic vehicle right back down on top of me. It was amazing I wasn't severely injured by either fall. At least once my pedal flew inches from my face, and I somehow "caught" the crushing blow instinctively without really being able to see it coming from behind. At first, I thought I was indeed Superman because I didn't initially detect any skin breaking damage. After dusting off, however, I found several scratches on my elbows, arms, knees and shins. A day or two later revealed a couple enormous black bruises on my left knee and the back of my right thigh. There was no permanent or debilitating injuries; nevertheless, and for that, I'm thankful! While there were a few tense moments for the other guys, they skillfully remained mounted on their bikes for the entire descent :).

Bike Stats: 08/08/08 to 08/10/08
Distance	10.51 miles
Ride Time	1 hour, 38 minutes, 47 seconds
Average Speed	6.3 miles per hour
Maximum Speed	25.0 miles per hour
Notes: mileage total includes 0.58 miles: a ride to work on Friday prior to leaving for camp; otherwise the rest was incurred at camp and includes the mountain bike ride

Thank you everyone for inviting me and allowing me - a somewhat outsider as of late - to join in on your "family" outing and feel right at home. I've been going through some amazingly difficult struggles lately, and this time away was quite providential.

To sum it up, Dave pretty much says it all in this magnificent picture. Okay, so I'm not known for striving to make sense in everything I do and say... so perhaps this picture has nothing to do with anything other than making sure the world can see that church elders are allowed to be goofy sometimes.

See more pictures from the Ethnos Church Camp Out on EsoShow