The Cooper Spur is a good option for those who want a nice grueling ascension but lack the skills/ambition to actually summit Mount Hood. Apparently a bunch of unemployed, yet industrious lads constructed a veritable village (complete with ampitheater!) in the now-fire scorched forest on the Northeast side of the mountain. For some reason that I'm too lazy to research they christened it Tilly Jane. One could imagine the bruised and sore CCC laborers who had to go to their families and tell them that they just busted their asses to build some shacks named Tilly Jane. Regardless, it's another testament to the possibility of public programs to give jobless and eager people skills/meaningful work while giving future generations of future hikers a place to eat their Clif Bars in the shade. Bring back the CCC/WPA!
Or, we can always sit on our asses and wait for Green Technology to Change Everything. According to some powerless, redundant bureaucratic oversight committee who exists soley to make themselves feel relevant, climate change is real! And what should we, the humble lazy guilt-ridden citizens to do to realize the new utopia? Buy this overpriced consumer item as opposed to that not quite as overpriced consumer item. A group of privileged corporate and academic heroes bravely (and expensively) burn several tons of fossil fuels to hang out in Antarctica for a few weeks, take some trophy pictures, and burn several more tons of fossil fuels to come back home to lecture us that we should drive less. Such is the Green Revolution.
Looking for something more practical and less self-righteous, I attended the annual Adult Soap Box Derby, which offers guys with garages equipped with ample beer fridges and too much time on their hands a chance to show off. Amusing and often impressive, it demonstrates what can be achieved when we are left to our own devices. If nothing else, it's a damn fine way to kill a six pack of PBR in the park on a Sunday afternoon.
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