August

The west wind hissed through the countless branches of the Old Growth Douglas Firs above me.  Laying in a hammock connecting two of the six firs on top of the hill,  I rocked slowly.  A subtle cloak of haze obscured the horizon in every direction,  giving the otherwise eventless sky a pink cast.  It was hot by Pacific North West standards, but compared to an early summer run of weeks of triple digit temperatures, the mid 70s evening felt fall like. 

Glancing west,  I closed one eye, held my arm out, forming a line of a protractor with suns trajectory towards the hills behind Portland.  The Suns path was an entire valley to the south of its solstice high-water mark behind the foothills of the Cascades.  The area's long summer days were careening towards the fall equinox, shedding three minutes per day.  Like watching a gas tank shrink towards empty on a remote highway, these slight differences in length of day,  indistinguishable when viewed day to day, but substantial when observed weekly instilled a sense of scarcity.

The unescapable smell carried by the summers wind and conceived by the blossoms and subsequent blackberries, that for a few weeks each year excuse the existence of the brambles that cover so much of the West Coast, had given way to the dull smell of drought and dust.   With a sense of urgency, an hours work and a healthy thorn tolerance,  enough cups of the black fruit to make a cobbler could be appropriated.  

"Shit,"  I announced to anyone that would answer,  breaking the silence observed in that half an hour before sunset spent laying in a hammock. "We kinda blew it on not making a blackberry cobbler."

"Fuck,"  Tim responded after a distracted pause from a nearby hammock, humoring my disappointment and concern about the cobbler, but by no means indicating enough enthusiasm to suggest  breaking the bonds of a hammock in favor of picking blackberries. 

Accepting defeat on my cobbler pipe dream, I extended my leg down so that the back of my knee rested on the edge of the hammock. With a kick of my barefoot, set the hammock into motion.  

Here are some more links,

Fosterhunting (Instagram),

Out of Reception (Tumblr).

The Cinder Cone Book and Video

In February of 2014, long time friend Tucker Gorman and I started day dreaming about building a tree house.  I wanted to set up a home base and build a space to work on projects.  These day dreams quickly developed into loose plans to build a two tree houses and a skate bowl.  After months of preparation and planning,  we broke ground in the beginning of June. 

Friends old and new stopped by to work and stay on the property. Some of us worked as carpenters professionally, others learned on the go. Over the course of build, I took thousands of photos and kept sketches, models and notes from the design process. 

 Since finishing the tree houses, I’ve been organizing these images, drawings and notes into a book. This book will be different than my last two photo books.  Think of it as one part instructional book, one part photo book, and one part tiny homes book. My goal is to make something that shows the process from dreaming up a seemingly outlandish idea to the final result after thousands of hours of hard work and the moments that happened in between.  I hope that result ignites the imagination of people’s inner kid and gets ideas going for their own projects.  To make the book happen,  I'm funding it through Kickstarter here. 

I'm working with Farm League on the production of the book. They produced films like 180 Degrees South and The Fisherman's Son and do print projects for companies like Patagonia.  They also produced the video.  I'm really excited about the progress we've made and can't wait to finish it. Here are some examples of the page layouts and what the front and back covers will look like. 

The Cinder Cone will be 10 inches by 7.5 inches, about 135 pages and with a hardcover. During this campaign, the book will be $30 for a signed copy, if the campaign is successful,  the book will retail for $35.

Material lists, build notes and process photos are organized into sections, like this wood burning hot tub.

Full color and printed on matte art paper,  sections of the book document the steps and process of building large and small projects.

In addition to my photos, shots by Ian Durkin, Trevor Gordon, Java Fernandez and Alex Yoder will be in the book.  The majority of the photos in the book were shot on medium format film. 

 Daily schedule. 

The design and building of the tree house.

Tucker Gorman's (the tree houses designer) sketches from the build were scanned and included in book to show how ideas evolved.

 The building of the skate bowl. 

Lando DOWN!!!

I'm really excited about this book and the video.  Its been a ton of work,  more than I've put into any other project.  The video was a first for me and was an opportunity to work with,  Jess Gibson.  As a kid,  I loved the Robot Food Snowboarding movies and it was a treat to work with him on them this video.  The book is an ode to my favorite childhood books about woodcraft and primitive skills.  Thanks for the support.  

 Here are some more links,

The Cinder Cone (Vimeo),

The Cinder Cone Build Book (Kickstarter),

The Cinder Cone (Tumblr),

@farmleague (Instagram).

Spring

The sun hovered below the canopy of second growth Douglas firs, casting sideways light through the sparsely populated forest. A few pieces of surveyors tape tied to branches of Vine Maple and a sporadically cut log marked the rudimentary trail. As I walked, I checked my watch, it was 7:05, an hour or so before sunset. "The days feel like summer now," I thought to myself.

"Do you hear that?" I asked Lane, confusing the buzz of a gnat with the distant revving of a two stroke.

"I think its an insect."

"Sure sounds like a two-stroke....I think thats early this year," I said motioning towards the buzzing gnats. "Don't they normally hatch in July or something?"

"Yah thats super early." 

The trail dropped off the plateau, switchbacking it's way down the hill towards an outcropping.  Over the sounds of sucking air and sliding on the wet dirt, the faint crashing of a waterfall was audible.  Grabbing a branch, I steadied myself as I slid down the steep trail on the flat soles of my Converses.  The trail dead ended on a hillside over looking a small gorge.  Taking off my backpack, I lowered down, making sure it wouldn't roll off into the river, some four hundred feet below. 

"Last time I was here, that whole waterfall was ice.  It was warming up super fast and huge pieces were breaking off and falling.  It was nuts."

"Crazy, when was that?"  

"November, maybe December." 

"Fuck..Time flies."

"Sure as hell does."

The winter that never was gave way to an early spring in the Northwest.  Instead of my normal routine of traveling most of the spring, I hunkered down this year and focused on finishing the documentation of the building of the tree houses and skate bowl. 

I've been spending a lot of time here,  working on The Cinder Cone Book and video, as well as learning to edit videos.  

Looking out as the sun sets on the hills behind Portland. 

Curtis Cizek launching over the Drink Water Crew at a hip at Mt. Bachelor. 

Tim looking for a place to camp.

Socked in.

Pete flying around the bowl on a warm day in March. 

The finished Octagon. 

Wildflowers on Archer Mountain. 

Bad Boy Rig.

Storms in the Sierra.

F5 Bronado. 

Sea lions were barking and chasing Chinook salmon. 

Lane and I sat on the hillside and listened to the waterfall.  The setting sun chilled the air.  A small sliver of the Columbia River was visible to the south.  Fishing boats trolled for salmon and I sat watching them.

"These are early too?" Lane asked,  holding up a small handful of flowers.

"Yah, those are early too, but I'm not complaining."

Here are some more links,

Out of Reception (Tumblr),

My Instagram (Fosterhunting).

Japanuary

In January, I made the pilgrimage to Japan with Bryan Fox.  Growing up snowboarding in the Northwest, I watched videos of people riding the famous Japanese powder that has inspired names like Japow and Japanuary (its usually the best conditions in January).  Japan's location in the North Pacific gives the area a unique combination of cold temperatures and tons of moister.  With a few days notice,  I packed my things and met Bryan in Vancouver BC.  After 21 hours of travel, we were in a rental van in Hokkaido.  For the next 10 days, we drover around the island looking for hotsprings and powder.  I was blow away by how affordable travel is there when compared to winter towns in the west.  The food is cheap, the 7-11's have delicious sushi.    The hostels are cheap and you can hike to ride world class powder.  They have hands down, the best local snowboarding scene with people living in their vans traveling around in search of the best powder. I hiked around with a tripod and camera and made this lil vid of him shredding for Quiksilver.   We had a blast.

Here are some more links,

Asadachi (Vimeo),

Bryan's blog post on Quiksilver's blog.