We took our time because the business of the morning was riding in a float plane on the Willamette River, docked just half a block from where we were staying. Steve Martz, our accomplished pilot and flight instructor took a turn in the plane first, getting a lesson of his own and logging the new experience of taking off and landing on water. After Steve's lesson was done Greg and Janet had an aerial tour of Portland. We had hoped to get some footage from the air to add to the Oregon videos but cool weather and a less than cooperative pilot made that difficult (not Steve, the owner of the plane).
After the plane business was complete we drove into Portland to meet up with my dear friend Amy Berg. For lunch she had promised to take us to "all the latest rage in Portland" which proved to be a parking lot full of food carts. There were too many good ch
oices and it was easy to see why the picnic tables between the carts were full of people.Full of good food we headed off to the filming location for the day: a rock climbing hot spot called the O-Zone. It was on the Washington side of the Columbia River Gorge and not too far outside of Vancouver, WA. We met up with two friends of Amy's (Amy Berg's that is...don't get confused by multiple Amys) Drew and Karen who were more experienced rock climbers.
It's a good thing that I had planned in my meditation to talk about how poor my rock climbing skills are because, guess what? They are REALLY poor. To be fair the climb Karen set up was a 5.9 (That's on the Yosemite Decimal System, translation: hard for a novice). I had never even attempted a 5.9 route before.
I've had limited success on 5.6 and 5.7 climbs and this one was, obviously, a lot harder. I asked Greg to try and make it look as if I was high in the air by adjusting his camera shot. I hope he managed it because truth be told, I never got above 5 or so feet off the ground. Even when Drew showed me how he made the first 4 moves up the rock, and he showed me in flipflops without a rope, I still couldn't get past the first few holds.The setting was beautiful (do I even need to say that any more?) and Karen and Drew were excellent climbers, providing us with good footage of people ACTUALLY rock climbing. Amy Berg wasn't too shabby herself.
One exciting moment came when I was scrambling up to a ledge (not roped in, I might add. I got higher without being attached to safety gear) and dropped my part of the wireless microphone. Down it tumbled past the film crew and into the forest, down the slope toward the Columbia River as we all just stood and watched. A nearby climber must have heard the commotion because he sauntered down the path, scrambled through the trees and found it, pack, battery and battery cover in all. He acted like it was no big deal to help out, that's the ethic around rock climbing, it's one b
ig community.We finished filming in time to get cleaned up and grab a coffee before heading to dinner. Next time you see a member of the film crew congratulate them on getting down the trail to this filming location (and back out to the car). That in itself required some rock-scrambling skills, it was a 5.3 at the least!
Thanks for reading of our travels. But we aren't done yet! There is one more day of Oregon Adventure to come.
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