Come hiking with me and the Oregon Chapter of the Sierra Club! I'm leading monthly hikes from April to October with great views and great trees, in out-of-the-way places.

I love being outdoors, the wilder the better. Since 1999 I've hiked the majority of William Sullivan's "100 Hikes in Northwest Oregon," and several dozen other trails as well. Oregon offers plenty of beauty and quiet solitude. There are some great trees in Oregon, and a lot of areas with little current human activity. The one shortcoming is the lack of large animals: elk, black bears, deer, and cougars are the only species weighing 100 pounds or more. I've also seen bighorn sheep, pronghorns and bighorn sheep here which are close to 100 pounds. Of the smaller mammals, beaver, river otters, porcupines, coyotes and foxes can be seen occasionally

Elk and deer are common. I've seen bear tracks and scat from time to time, but only once have I seen them live, in the Badger Creek Wilderness. Cougars I've never seen live (and have mixed feelings about doing so), but I've seen scat and tracks from time to time. The most powerful cougar sign I've seen, though, was a deer kill along the Clackamas River with blood so fresh it was still red on the nearby leaves.

My enthusiasm has been know to get away from me though, like the time I lost my way and spent an unintentional night out on the trail.

Though not an avid birder, I enjoy spotting birds from time to time, and have a particular fondness for nuthatches and sandhill cranes. From 1998-2003 we lived a few mile north of Forest Grove, a quarter mile south of Hillside Road on David Hill. At the house we saw:

A voracious reader, I love reading about ecology and paleontology.