Tag Archives: MMC

Apr30

BCEP, 2023 – The first session, climbing at the MMC

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Last year, I took the BCEP class with the Mazamas – Basic Climbing Education Program. It was interesting; a great chance to review my well-trained skills, practice some that I hadn’t used in ages, and get to meet some new climbing and outdoors people. It was fun, and ticked all the boxes that I had hoped that it would.

My faith in the outdoors community reinvigorated, I quickly and happily volunteered to help teach BCEP this year. I was expecting to assist with the same group that I’d taken the class with the previous year, since leaders tend to continue teaching year over year, so I was a bit surprised when I was placed with a different group… but it turns out, this new group was just starting out – the first year the leader had led a BCEP team on their own.

The chance to help out with a new group, and to help build a similar culture of excitement and optimism for the outdoors? All while getting to show people the unbridled joy of rock climbing? Of seeing new views off the side of a mountain?

Well. Sign me right the heck up.


Saturday, 18-Mar-2023


As the intro says, I helped teach BCEP this year! It’s been a long time since I’d assisted with a climbing class in any way, probably since the summer of 2019 or so, and even longer since I’d really been an official assistant. I was super excited, but unfortunately had missed the first few events thanks to being in Ireland when they happened.

I know, I know… bad form, Ben!

But in my defense, Ireland was planned before BCEP, and I had been assigned to this group instead of choosing it, so… yeah. Not my fault, I swear!



Anyways, the first event that I assisted with was perfect for me – the first climbing session in the Mazamas mountaineering center! Harkening back to my own course as a student, the MMC has a few short walls that’re used to teach students the basics of rock climbing – how to secure a harness, how to tie in, how to belay… and even how to rappel!

It was an excellent day – I taught at the rappel station, mainly, and had a blast walking the students through the process while helping encourage them to ask questions and understand the entire system, instead of just memorizing the sequence of events required. It was great, and absolutely scratched that itch to teach that I’ve had in the back of my head.


It would be a few more weeks until we actually climbed real rocks together at Horsethief, but I still got to see the shift in people as they become more and more confident… going from someone fumbling with a carabiner to someone confidently hopping off a ledge with their rappel device locked into place.



I did, of course, get a quick climb in myself. You can’t blame me! Assistants get to have fun too, sometimes!

Apr4

BCEP – An evening at the Mazamas Mountaineering Center

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Who are the Mazamas, you may ask? And what’s BCEP, you may enquire? Well, let me fill you in dear reader. When I first moved to Oregon, I pretty quickly heard about a mountaineering group in town called The Mazamas.

Similar to the AMC back in Boston, they teach classes and do conservation outreach projects. Over the years, I’d interacted with them tangentially – attending a few classes, volunteering with a few groups, but I’d never been able to actually take a course officially. I’d applied to their Advanced Rock climbing class, but wasn’t accepted for one reason or another.

Now, nearly seven years after first moving to Oregon, I was trying again. This time beginning at the bottom – while you may notice that I’m not quite a beginner when it comes to the outdoors, I was tired. These last few years haven’t been easy, and I was just tired of fighting… the chance to just sit back and meet new people while enjoying a few group hikes was more than worth the price of admission.

Friday, 18-Mar-2022


Part of BCEP is learning rock climbing techniques – and while learning about climbing in lectures and in books is helpful, it doesn’t quite match up to learning out in the field.

I remember with NUHOC, I’d teach people how to tie in and belay using a length of rope looped over a water pipe in the gear room – not quite the same as being outdoors, but it was good enough for the university… and repetition is the key point, not the environment that it’s repeated in.

The Mazamas is able to afford a slightly better setup than an old water pipe in a disused back closet, though. Nothing against the NUHOC gear room of my youth, of course! But… Man, if I’d had a full indoor training center like the Mazamas Mountain Center (MMC), well.. dang. I’d have been a happy Ben.

I don’t really have too much to write down here… I mean, we practiced rope skills and climbing systems, both of which I’ve been doing for the better part of half my life at this point. I learned a few new terms for things I’ve done before, and had a chance to practice moving on a fixed line, but overarchingly it was a chance for me to repeat some things and socialize with the team I’d be hiking and climbing with for the next two months.

The biggest item of note, in my mind at least, was some simple validation that I received, in no way related to climbing at all: We had a potluck! And since the Potluck was after a day that I had off from work… well, I had a chance to show off a little, and cook a large-scope meal that I wouldn’t normally be able to eat all on my own.

What did I cook, you may ask?

Well. I’d made ribs the weekend before, so that was out… But I was still feeling porcine, so Pulled Pork was on the menu!

Yep, you guessed it. This is going to turn into a cooking post! First off, you start with…

No, I won’t do that to you, dear readers. I’ve posted this recipe, or similar, a few times before… and while I’ll still add a link below, with my modifications, I’ll just say this – My offering got cleaned out completely. Now, I knew it was good, but that just means that I liked it… and that’s been my question recently; am I really a good cook, or do I just cook things that only I enjoy?

I’m happy to report that I got quite a few thumbs up on the potluck offering, so… some nice ego boost, and a bit of validation, right there.

Not a bad way to start the weekend.





Recipe:

https://www.delish.com/cooking/recipe-ideas/recipes/a58254/best-pulled-pork-recipe/

Modifications:
– Add sage to the rub, to give it a bit of a desert flavor (since I’ve been kind of obsessed with the high desert recently)
– Make the sauce a 50/50 split of Sweet Baby Ray’s, and pan drippings. Lots of liquid smoke, of course!
– Add cayenne pepper to the sauce, since a bit of heat is nice
– Roast the freshly-pulled loin under the broiler ’till it starts to blacken on the edges. Get that nice crisp!
– Finish the pulled pork in a crock-pot for ~45min, set to low, simmering to re-hydrate the slightly dry pork into the sauce

Nov8

Bill and Greta visiting – Kelly Point, Mazamas, and Portland’s Rhododendron garden!

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Friday, 18-October-2019

 

Sarah’s Mom and Dad came to visit!  If you think Sarah and I have been having a busy year… well, you’d be right.  But Her Mom and Dad haven’t had a boring year either, so when they had a chance to escape up to Portland after a business trip, all of us were really excited to get to visit, catch up, and have a nice weekend of downtime and relaxing.

We had a few adventures scheduled up, but we mostly left room for us to explore and spent time together – Video calls are great, and I am extremely thankful to be living in the future where we can video call literally anywhere in the world without even noticing a delay, but in-person visits are still the ideal.

 

So we walked, explored, took them to some of our favorite restaurants, and explored somewhere we’d never been before – The Rhododendron garden!

First up was Kelly Point park – it’s a lovely walk, and a great way to tire Ollie out a bit to keep the crazy down to almost-sane levels.  It was excellent as always, and we even got to see some cool mushrooms!  Not otters or eagles this time, but it was still fun scanning the surf for them.

Then, we stopped by Sarah’s old workspace at the Mazamas – The Mazamas Mountaineering Center is where she’d been teaching kids to climb this summer, and so she got a chance to show off the walls and the Mazamas library.  I… may have… possibly… gotten a little distracted exploring the library.  I admit to everything, and it was awesome.

After the MMC, we headed to the Rhododendron garden.  We hadn’t been there before, but Sarah had heard amazing things about it, and it sounded like an excellent place to explore.  It was raining, as it so often does in Portland, but honestly I think that made the garden even more beautiful.  The rain on the leaves, and the petals on the flowers… it was lovely.