High and Dry. It is difficult to imagine that after the number of days of hot weather we’ve had recently there can still be snow blocking any trails, but it’s true. The Metolius-Windigo trail is still blocked by snow and a few remaining downed trees that are due for cutting soon. Snow can also be found on the Kwohl Butte trail (off the South side of Mt. Bachelor) and on some parts of the 370 Road, which provides access to the Broken Top trails in the Three Sisters Wilderness area.

That said, trail clearing is progressing nicely. This is why we live in and visit Bend—the sheer volume of available single track for exploring. By mid-August, we will have access to almost 500 miles of trails within a one-hour radius of Bend. One COTA volunteer actually measured 272 miles of continuous single track accessible right from the edge of town!

A rerun of Thursday’s stage of the Tour de France was on the television behind the bar as people settled onto their barstools at Three Creek Brewing in Sisters. Sipping a beer, one patron commented that it might have been neat if Lance Armstrong at least won a stage to finish his career.

The guy next to me replied, pointing at the television set, “Yea, but hey, Lance’s teammate, our local guy, is doing really well.”

During the hottest time of the year in Central Oregon some people would rather find activities that don’t involve breathing a lot of dust while dodging mosquitoes. For the dedicated mountain biker these are trivial concerns but for others the call of the Coast or the lakes is too great to resist. That’s OK. There are still trails with less of a dust problem and/or fewer mosquitoes, if you know where to go.

It goes without saying the mosquito count in the Cascade Lakes area is “strong”. One crew leader recently reported on a scale of 1-10 the mosquitoes were an “11.” Again the relationship to water here is key. Places like Cultus Lake, Waldo Lake and Lava Lake are notorious for bugs – the best thing is to keep moving or avoid those areas until later in the year.

The photo above that Dick Tipton shot of the Osprey getting hammered by a Western Kingbird is the epitome of what lengths small birds go to in order to protect their home and family from larger birds, whether the threat is real or not.

There is no way anyone could convince the energetic kingbird that the osprey means no harm. To a small bird with an open nest—such as kingbirds use—larger birds mean trouble as they carry off nestlings and eat them.