The Gorge is my oven. 7/7

Good morning!

This week’s report is brought to you by 2nd Wind Sports at 210 Oak Street in Hood River. 2nd Wind might look fancy now, but they still consign quality used gear (and some older gear that’s in great shape, for people looking for inexpensive equipment to get into a new sport). Consignment rates are reasonable, and they save you the trouble of trying to sell your gear yourself. Give them a call today at 541-386-4464 to see if they can help create some space in your garage! Thanks to 2nd Wind for donating a Slingshot B-2 trainer kite for a giveaway on the email version of this forecast!

It’s time to break out the bikinis, sunscreen and cold drinks as the mercury’s going to climb to 95 degrees in the central Gorge today. Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to cool off. First, the glassy water from Hood River eastward is going to be awesome for wakeboarding and standup paddling, along with rowing if you happen to have a shell.

If you’d prefer wind sports, head to Stevenson, Home Valley or Rooster Rock today for east winds in the 13-16 range early, building to 21-24 midday, and fading to the 17-20 range this afternoon. The easterlies back off a notch tomorrow, with 13-16 all day long. If you’re headed to the coast, today is your best bet for wind, with 25+ from the Washington border to California, with an 8 foot swell. After today, the wind turns offshore, meaning you’ll have better luck with a surfboard than with windsports.

If there’s any wind at all tonight in Hood River, it’s the Yacht club’s Wednesday night races. Show up at the dock at 5:30 with your puppy dog eyes and cold drinks, and you’ll probably get on a boat.

Boaters, the White Salmon’s at 2 ¾ feet and the Klickitat’s at 1490 cfs. If you’re want boating partners today, it’s Zen and the art of Heat Avoidance that’s laps on the Lower followed by a bbq of delicious hamburgers and gourmet sausages at Northwestern Lake. Meeting time is around 11am at the lake, but you can join in any time. Can you guess who organized this one? Yep, me. The giveaway is all the meat involved. Hope to see you there!

Coming up this weekend is Kiteboarding for Cancer, an awesome event that’s raised over $200k for cancer research over the last few years. If you’ve been affected by cancer in some way (haven’t we all?), please donate to one of the 2nd Wind teams (or any other team):

TEAM IRV : (Pepi, Nate, Irv, and Jason)
http://www.kb4c.org/team_detail.cfm?a=96

2nd Wind Chicks : (Anna, Lisa, Arla, and Claire)
http://www.kb4c.org/team_detail.cfm?a=117

Finally, thanks to Mark T. for the first-hand report of Plains of Abraham. He says there are about 15 short snow patches on the Plain, and that Ape Canyon is in perfect shape. He wins brownies!

That’s it for today. Whatever you do today, have an awesome day!

Temira

P.S. If this forecast is valuable to you, please take the time to donate below and help subsidize my costs. For a suggested donation of $10, I’ll sign you up for the email version of this forecast through the end of next May. You’ll get a near-daily email in summer, snow reports in winter, and a chance to win a cool weekly prize (through September, at least)… Thank you!