Outdoor Central Oregon January/February 2020 | Page 4

4 ABOUT THE COVER: PUBLISHER’S NOTE| Traveling is one of life’s greatest privileges and there are many ways to travel for many different reasons. Most people need to pack in as much as they can in just two weeks. Some may enjoy riding an ocean liner with 3000 other tourists, only to be dropped off at the shopping and restaurant area for a few hours. Then the ships horn sounds, letting you know you have one hour till the ship departs back to sea. While a smaller segment of people like roughing it, by backpacing, staying in hostels, bike camping, or renting a car to sightsee on their own without a tour group. Everybody has a different level of comfort when they travel. For this issue we profile two fearless Oregon women (Cookie and Sierra) who set out from Bend, Oregon and rode mo- torcycles all the way to Buenos Aires, Argentina. The trip lasted seven months covering 6,748 miles, though 13 countries, (some with unstable political situations) and mostly on dirt roads. When seeking out this epic adventure story I couldn’t help being reminded of my love of the Spanish film The Motorcycle Diaries (2004). The film takes place in 1952 and chronicles the story of Che Guevara and his friend Alberto in a coming of age adventure, much like the journey of Cookie and Sierra. In December, I traveled to my first USA Cyclocross National Championships. Since starting this publication this was the first Nationals that was an easy six hour drive. Before this, there was no way I could justify the cost of traveling much further. Once I heard that the “Nats” (or “Naties” as many of the racers call it) were going to be in Washington (Fort Stei- lacoom Park) near Lakewood, I knew this was an opportunity I could not pass up. I teamed up with veteran photographer Mike Albright for the trip. Knowing Oregon cyclocross racers will be very competitive, I was very excited to cover the races for the first time. “The landing slid on the fourth hit of our jump, so Jared decided to hike about 200 yards down to this nice, natural gem in the central Oregon backcountry.” -Pete Alport @pete_alport Jared Elston is a snowboarder, you could say he was born on a board or with a board. For the last 20 years his life has centered around board sports. Snowboarding, skateboarding, and surfing. Jared wasn’t lucky enough to grow up in Australia like his dad. Instead he had to settle for Montana and Bend, poor kid. His rise in snowboarding is no surprise. His attitude is also no surprise: laid back, humble, focused, motivated, and with the willingness to be the best he can be in every part of the sport. JAKE BURTON CARPENTER 1954 - 2019 On November 20th the winter sports world lost one of its icons. Jake Burton Carpenter, founder of Burton Snowboards, passed away surrounded by his family and close friends. To preface this, Jake was one of the most fit men I have ever known. Yes, this is personal, his death at 65 is deeply personal. In 2011, he was diagnosed with testicular cancer, kind of unusual for a man his age. Next came a knee replacement, then to everybody’s surprise Miller Fisher Syndrome, a rare autoimmune disorder and variant of Guillain Barre Syndrome. Carpenter was paralyzed for eight weeks. He fought back and got healthy again. On November 10th, he sent out a Burton Company wide email saying his cancer was back and he was going to fight it with all he had. He started chemo, but unfortunately Jake got pneumonia and wasn’t able to fight it off. See page 28 for our tribute to Jake. -Neil Korn CONTENTS| 6NEWS 10GET2KNOW| ANNIE FAST 14FEATURE| JARED ELSTON 22ADVENTURE TRAVEL| MOTO DIARIES 26POSTER| TOMMY FORD 28FEATURE II| As I write this, Ravi Drugan is in Switzerland racing in his first Alpine World Cup. Since being selected to the US Paralympics Alpine National team this past fall, early winter has been a whirlwind of training camps in Colo- rado, Utah, and Europe. Here he poses with his coach Erik Leiffallom at the National Abil- ity Center in Park City celebrating his cover and feature interview. At Outdoor Oregon Magazine, we were very stoked to have this extraordinary athlete grace our cover. Most people know Ravi for his freeskiing, but it will be exciting to see how far he can take his Alpine Racing career. We hope far and we hope to see him in the Paralympics! thanks jake 35FILM| DRAWN FROM HERE 36ART| JANESSA BORK 43HEALTH 44FISHING 46GALLERY| 2019 XC NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS 48EVENTS 1443 NW Juniper Street Bend, OR 97701 [phone] PUBLISHER Neil Korn [email protected] EDITOR Chris Shredwards [email protected] ART DIRECTOR Brian Zager [email protected] SOCIAL MEDIA COORDINATOR Caleb Ely @caleb_ely_ Contributing Writers Dr. Oliver Wisco Edmond Wadeson Pete Alport Sierra Foster Kevin English Trevor Graves Travis Yamada Chris Edwards Senior Contributing Photographers Pete Alport Richard Hallman Trevor Lyden Asa Silver Contributing Photographers Dan Pyle Dean Blotto Gray US Ski & Snowboard Eric Schramm Ryan Turner Hubert Schrieble Mark Gallup Greg Howard Rohrbacher James Cassimus Nitro Snowboards For advertising please contact Neil Korn at [email protected] Outdoor Media LLC All rights Reserved C. 2019