The Madness! Red River Gorge

After climbing at Smith Rock for a while, I was really missing climbing on some real holds. Knew that my friend Ben (climber in the picture above) was going to Red River Gorge in November (2020), I decided to check out this place. Since lots of people said it’s their favorite place to climb… My husband Jeremy didn’t need to work during that time so he could go with me, and then… our cat Jeans… ended up coming with us too!

It was actually quite a hassle (and lots of $$$) to make Jeans my Emotional Support Animal. After our trip, TSA actually cancelled all the emotional support animals… it means if we want to do air travel with Jeans, we’ll need to pay her a flight ticket (but she would still need to sit under the seat…)

The first day we got there was the coldest… It was damp and ~20 degrees at night. Everything was freezing when we woke up. During day time, it was 45 degrees the highest. They forced me to lead Amarillo Sunset (this route is always in shade), and I didn’t expect how big the moves are in this route.

amarillo sunset at PMRP

The weather got warmer and warmer, and I realized the humidity was the real thing here. (I had mostly climbed in desert climate.) In the morning, sometimes you can feel the water sipping out of the rock…

A nice little rest at Mona Lisa Overdrive

A random cave we found when we were hiking with Jeremy’s parents

Warming up on Golden boy 13b

First time climbing with Ty- he’s a 16 yo strong climber that’s good in all disciplines - sport, trad and bouldering.

Golden boy 13b

Jeremy combined a carrier and backpack so we can take Jeans around while carrying the climbing gears. (No she doesn’t walk…. she’s also very afraid of dogs.)

We were there two weeks in total, and stayed at the campground behind Daniel Boone coffee shop. Didn’t want to be in a party scene so we didn’t camp at Miguel’s. We passed by Miguel’s on weekends and the campground was really packed.

Swedish fish 12a at chocolate factory

Swedish fish 12a at chocolate factory

Jeans chilling in the falling leaves

Getting ready to hop on Hakuna Matata

Hakuna Matata 12a

Ale-8-one. 12b

Odyssey - still a project. 5.14? 5.15?

Bread life

I don’t remember when I got really obsessed with making bread with sourdough starter. I would make any kind of bread, pizza and bun with sourdough starter. If you have a starter, you know you gotta feed it everyday! I don’t like to eat the same type of bread forever, so I have been searching for different recipe and be creative.

Every night before I go to bed, I’m always watching bread making videos on YouTube. Some channels are awesome! They really have some great technique to make it right or explain why you should do this.

I still make mistakes all the time - over-bake, over-proof, too wet, wrong portion, etc. Sometimes it’s really puzzling that why it doesn’t work. But it’s really fun for me to keep trying and see the progression.

For people who want to make sourdough, I recommend this video that teaches you how to make it without sticky hands. (I’m not a big fan of getting my hands sticky… some bread making videos are not appealing to me because it’s super messy and it takes so much effort in kneading…) I still haven’t really dialed down the sourdough yet. They taste good but I want huge open crumb!

I’ve also tried making lots of Asian bun, dessert, noodles that I never thought I would ever make. I highly recommend a Youtube channel 小高姐的 Magic Ingredients if you want to learn how to make bread, noodles, pasta, Asian meal, etc. She always gives tips about what you can do so you won’t fail. She also explains why you should do this and why you shouldn’t.

nutella babka

Icy winter 19/20 at Mt. Bachelor & Tumalo

As a snowboarder, I hate icy terrain. And that’s mostly what this season has offered: hard-as-rock rime or pure blue ice. Last season I was living in Utah and got spoiled by the fluffiest pow on earth. Not much luck when I moved to Bend this season - Mt. Bachelor didn’t get any snow until mid January. Actually this January is the snow fall record year. We got so much snow in a week, and then it rained at the last day.

Sad story.

The rime here forms insanely fast and that’s why all the trees were coated with ice and snow. You would need a thins piece of rubber to remove the rime on your goggles if you ski on powder days. Sometimes I wiped my goggles every 30 seconds.

I love backcountry snowboarding but if you don’t have snowmobile here - your options are very, very limited. I don’t have one, and this season sucks, so I only went to Tumalo next to Bachelor. It was really beautiful but the terrain was not very satisfying. (The front side is very flat.)

The rime on the tree made it a beautiful sculpture.

The top of Tumalo is about 7,700’ and the elevation gain is about 1,400’. If you hike consistently it will only take one hour. So it’s a pretty chill and mellow tour.

In February, we only got a storm and then dry spell for a month. When we finally got snow in March, everything shut down because of quarantine…

Even backcountry.

I’m really bummed that this season is so short… It’s snowing on the mountains now but I can’t even touch it…(All the national forest shut down.)

Here are the photos I took for Cadence. My friend created this sustainable travel products for people to refill their lotion or any stuff.

Don't throw your over-fermented dough away! Make a pancake instead!

It’s weird - when do I become a baking blogger? Well I actually cook and bake a lot (almost everyday). Sometimes I made something amazing; lots of time I messed up especially I don’t like to measure stuff. Freestyle is my favorite.

Ok anyway, I’ve been trying to make sourdough bread. And I failed a lot. My poor bf/ fiancé has been consuming some weird dough/bread in the past couples months. He even recommended me to take a part-time job in bakery (so he doesn’t need to eat all the experiment I produce.) I thought about it because sourdough has so much science involved - how the gluten is formed, ratio of water and flour, how the temperature effects proofing time, etc. I’ve been watching lots of YouTube videos and they’re so informative that I don’t even need to read books anymore. So if you’ve attempted making any bread, you prob have overproofed your dough (if you fall asleep during or ignore the dough like me.) You still can rescue your overproof bread by punching it down and reshape again. But what is over-fermented?

It’s hopeless.

It’s going too far. It’s like a doomed relationship that has to be ended.

Here’s a perfect video by an energetic UK boy showing what an over-fermented dough looks like. (Jump to 3:30 if you don’t want to watch the full video.)

And I realized I’ve done that a lot in my life. (Can I just have a bit more care to my dough?) I tried to rescue it so many times by making a pizza, bread, green onion pancake but they were barely edible. However, the most recent time I over-fermented my dough by taking the dough with me from Bend, Oregon to SLC, Utah driving 10 hrs bc I wanted to make sourdough for my friend (well the purpose of the trip was snowboarding.) As a frugal Asian, I didn’t want to throw it away so I added something and put it overnight …

It’s the best pancake I’ve ever had in my life.

I didn’t say that - my bf/ fiancé said that. (The day I made pancake was the day I drove 10 hrs back to Oregon. My bf ate the leftover pancake…) The thickness, fluffiness, and perfectioness of the pancake made me feel the original pancake is so sad. No, I can’t even go back to thin pancake anymore.

So how did you make it? What if you don’t have over-fermented dough like I have all the time?

Sourdough starter will work. You know you need to dump something out everyday and refill the jar. Don’t throw it away! Other ingredients are just like normal pancake:

egg, sugar, salt, milk, baking soda, melted butter

Mix it well, cover it and put it overnight. It should look like this:

bubbly, bubbly

You can expect some gooey batter that contains lots of air inside.

I like to make the pancake just as big as the size of the pan. This time I use the smaller pan so the pancake is not that huge. I love huge pancakes but sometimes it’s good have portion control.

Sooo thic! I love chocolate chips in the pancake yay!

I’ve made it many times so far and everytime it came out great even though I never measured stuff. I decided to write this down so you don’t waste your dough. It does have a bit sour taste but it’s not overpowering.

As I’m writing this I’m also eating that thick pancake. It’s so good. It’s so satisfying.

Unlimited cuteness

People who know me know that I’m seriously obsessed with cats. I have two cats at home in Taiwan but I haven’t gone back home for a long time. Since I had been moving and traveled a lot, I didn’t plan to have a pet. I had just been watching cat videos on social media…

And then earlier this year I started to date with my bf Jeremy and he has this black cat, Jeans. She was under 1 yo when I met her.

Summer Jeans

Winter Jeans

When the weather got colder, Jeans put on her fur coat.

Fluff

Thanksgiving snowfall

I prob take too many photos of Jeans… but I can’t help…

goofball

Fall foliage at Adirondacks

Jeremy, my bf took me to visit his brother in New York and his family in Pennsylvania in October. I had never been to east coast besides New York City. He intentionally chose the fall foliage season so I would enjoy the trip more. And of course, we would do some climbing during the trip (or I would be too bored in those two weeks...) We went to Adirondacks a weekend with his brother.

This prob can hold your weight haha

Torches 10b

The second day we went to Southern Mountain to find something less mossy.

I led this Little Kisses 5.9

McCormick brother

Climb some granite in Tahoe

Some time in September after I got my eye lasik surgery, I went to Tahoe with my bf for some granite. (There’s almost no granite climbing in Oregon… ) Also visited his friend and jumped into freezing cold stream.

Found some antique sewing machine at his friend’s storage container. It actually works and we brought it back.

The last day we climbed 5.7 Corrugation corner at Lover’s leap. I recommend you to link the pitches from the base… The hiking is kinda pointless. If you want to hike to the main buttress, don’t bring your backpack. Or you’ll have to hike back up after descend. (My bf ran up to grab the pack after we descended to the base.)

Exposure is real.

Did two days single pitch sport climbing and two days long multi-pitch trad climb. I wish there’s granite around the place I live…. The rock quality is just too good.

Oregon summer life

I moved to Bend, Oregon in May and have been exploring quite a bit. Why Oregon people asked. I considered Colorado, Utah and Oregon as three states I would live in the US and Oregon is the only state I haven’t lived in yet. I only have one year VISA to stay in the US (unless I got H1B VISA lottery) so I guess now or never!

Trout Creek

Recently got a flyfishing photoshoot project. I’ve never really gone fishing or fly-fishing because I’m not very patient…. Doing photography is way more fun - constantly worried if I’m gonna drop my camera.

Crooked river

As a climber, Smith Rock is definitely a destination. I usually don’t carry my camera if I just go climbing. Somehow there were some guests visiting and I brought my camera out while hiking with them.

A thunderstorm was approaching and the sky turned so dark and red. No filter!!

I’m notoriously known for obsessed with cats. Now I got a chance to take a cat out - not my cat. I can’t have that responsibility yet.

It’s definitely the cutest thing ever. I think she has potential to be an adventure cat like doing some big mountain hiking and climbing with me in the future.

Maybe not.

The best place to be - Indian Creek

Since I went there the first time couple months ago, I’ve always wanted to go back. This winter was long and snowy. I finally got a chance going down south with my friends twice. My left hand skin was torn at the first day and it only became worse after days. I’m not going to say what I climbed in this article. I hope the photos will tell the story itself.

Spring in Bend, Oregon

My roommate and his friend were planning to go to Mt. Bachelor touring (backcountry snowboarding) for a week so I voluntarily tagged along. Due to the weather I toured zero days. It’s actually desert climate in Bend but it did rain 3 out of 5 days when we were there.

Dan insisted his old school way winding. (We still used google map navigating.)

The place I stayed has the cutest black cat - Jeans.

My host is a very good cook. I barely cooked that week thanks to him.

At the rainy day we couldn’t go out, we had a dumpling contest. He made the gluten free ones for his roommate.

His.

Mine.

The weather was actually great at the first day I was there. We took an advantage going to ride at Mt. Bachelor.

Cone-shape volcano terrain is very interesting… once you reach the summit you can go down anywhere. Wind blow snow makes the wave-like structure which is way fun. But there are some natural heat-venting holes somewhere… I almost fell into one.

I was super stoked to climb at Smith Rock one day. I came here the first time in Aug last year which was too hot. I haven’t climbed outdoor since December so I was a bit too scared to lead. I only led a few easy ones after the multi-pitch route.

I took this photo last year. This time we were planning to do multi-pitches so I didn’t bring my NIKON.

Smith Rock is truly beautiful. It’s one of the earliest sport climb area in the US.

I don’t know why I never blog about my amazing road trip last year climbing from Salt Lake City-Idaho-Oregon. I guess I spent too much time climbing than taking photos… DSLR is definitely too much sometimes when you have gears and rope in your backpack.

3 pitches 10a Thin Air.

Then it started to rain 3 days in a row… also on the mountain… We climbed in the gym sometimes. At the last day they went to skate park I tagged along (no I don’t skate) just for taking photos.

I honestly never had so many rest days in a week for the whole winter. I’ve always been snowboarding, climbing or touring. My body will be lucky if I have 3 rest days in a month. (It’s usually when I have lower back pain that I really need some rest.) I’m glad to slow down a bit in this week and take my camera out again.