Skagit River Eagle Floats

09 January 2012 Daniel Bolliger

Our latest set of trips has been our five Skagit river eagle floats. the plan was to drive up to the Skagit, float down it looking at lots of eagles, stay the night, and do the float again the next day. The first was a scouting trip in early December to see if it would be a good place to take our friends and family. We decided it would be a great place, so we scheduled two sets of floats, the first set on the 27^th and 28^th of December, and the second set on the 7^th and 8^th. Both trips were very successful and fun; with very little rain most of the time and no gigantic setbacks, except maybe our stove breaking on the morning of the 8^th. This past weekend we decided not to stay up at the Skagit for the two days but instead drive up each morning, which turned out to be just fine and made for a lot less cooking at camp. Saturday was great, there was very little rain and our guests were very happy when it was raining. I believe the eagle count was at 150 exactly. Or at least at the first grader sense of exactly. Sunday the weather was even better, and we even saw a bit of sun peeking through our lovely overcast skies. I believe there were 15 guests total that day, and four guides, which made for some fully filled boats. Everything went incredibly smoothly, especially because we had already floated the river three times before.

Sheppard SnowBlast

31 December 2011 Ian Bellows

Last Thursday and Friday, December 29 and 30, Cascade Challenge headed down to Camp Sheppard for our annual SnowBlast. We met early at the Cave, then our convoy split up to pick up members in Duvall and Kent. By noon we had all arrived at camp and settled in for a fun day ahead.

In order to stay free at Sheppard, we helped out Harrison by moving log rounds and clearing wind debris from around camp, until the rain and dark forced us inside. We cooked a big roast and baked potatoes for dinner, and were grateful for being indoors (and a warm fire!) as a storm raged outside. That night, Mark went over the current plans for 1000Weeks and how all of us youth fit into the equation. The lame people went off to bed, while the rest of us spent the rest of the night watching movies and catching up on old times.

We woke up to intermittent rain and snow showers, but in very good spirits considering that none of had slept and and we had to pack up in a hurry in advance of another group. By midmorning, the weather had cleared enough for our hike to Snoquer Falls (check out the picture at left), while others stayed behind to inventory the camp's Trading Post. We grabbed a quick lunch, hit the road early and made it back to Seattle by mid-afternoon.

SnowBlast was the first CLC trip to involve members from all three of the units charted to CLC- Crews 13, 310, and 502. Over the history of CLC, we've been building our human resource base. We're better prepared then ever to continue growing our program and preparing for the future. Stay tuned- cool things are happening! -I.B.

Hipster Hunt

05 December 2011 Daniel Bolliger

Hipster Bingo Game! Find Them All! Late fall in the Pacific Northwest is kind of a dead time for travel. Where do you go in November where it's not miserable out? We decided it's a good time to explore an urban jungle, so we went Hipster hunting in Portland, the city where young people go to retire!

Wanting to blend in and not startle the wildlife, several of our members disguised themselves as Hipsters. Very quickly they were accepted into the tribe without question. All it took were some striped leggings, a Utilikilt and some hand-crocheted moss green man-capri pants.