Locals Only!

Short Sands is everyone’s Secret Spot

by Scrappers

We all have a place we want to protect. We keep it a secret. We refuse to disclose where photos were taken. We remove road signs. We slash tires. We say, “Locals only!” with our mean faces. We love it so much we build bad-vibe force fields around it. 

I have a secret spot.

It’s my favorite place on the planet.

I wish I could be there every day and feel wild.

It’s where my inner forest embraces my inner ocean. 

My wife and I found our son’s name on a hike here. 

Our son, Camper, has grown up at Short Sands—discovering banana slugs, eating huckleberries, sliding down creek riffles, catching Dungeness crabs, building driftwood forts, exploring barnacled tide pools, and surfing on my back like a koala bear, while his mom watches, snug in the sand.

When I die, this is where they will scatter my ashes. 

Yet, my secret spot has been open to the public since 1913, when Governor Oswald West passed a law that made the entire Oregon coastline public property. In fact, this place is even named after him. Even though we call it Short Sands, the official name is Oswald West State Park, and aside from Crater Lake, it’s the most visited locale in Oregon.

So many people come here to bond with nature and relieve their spirits that they broke the bathroom. For reals! The septic drain field was updated this year to solve a nasty bacteria problem because this place was being “loved to death.” According to Ryan Cruse of Portland’s Surfrider Foundation, this recent fix is a “clean water victory especially important due to Short Sands’ location directly adjacent to the newly established Cape Falcon Marine Reserve.”

The reserve is the second largest in Oregon. Its cliffs are home to thousands of seabird nests, including bald eagles and black oystercatchers. Under the cliffs in the water, the reef and soft gravel sand are home to colorful seaweed, starfish, rockfish, halibut, and the official state seashell, the hairy triton. Farther out, the water gets very dark and cold. This is where giant monsters live in the deep, and I’m too afraid to Google further.

Yes, I said I want to keep it secret, but really… I love Short Sands so much, I’d rather sing its praises to every hermit crab and RV tourist. We all become “locals” when we care so much about a place. It’s called environmental stewardship, but I prefer to call it “Locals only!” Bears and cougars mark their territory with claw marks and piss, but we should mark ours with love and understanding by sharing everything we know in order to protect it. 

Become a Local by getting involved with Surfrider’s Oswald West Action Days. The group focuses on the stewardship of Short Sands and the Cape Falcon Marine Reserve. portland.surfrider.org

Let's Talk Beard

A beard is a way of life. It means you are a natural wild animal (Manimal?). The guy with the beard is likely to be the first one to rip his clothes off and jump in the water for a midnight skinny dipping session howling at the moon. But come Monday, that same howling Manimal has to get it together and go to work. So to help tame that chin mane UpperCut Delux makes beard balm.

Outdoor Retailer // Summer 2015

My name is Scrappers and I’m learning to love the outdoor industry. Keep in mind, I’m an outsider and never want to lose those credentials. Every time I’ve been to the world's largest adventure gear convention, Outdoor Retailer (OR), in Salt Lake City I feel like I’m crashing some rich kid’s birthday party. But fuck it, they’ve got good cake and I’m a fat kid with a big mouth.

This time around I hitched a ride to OR with the fine folks of North. North is an ad agency that makes the best ads for outdoorsy clients like Stanley, Clif bar, Anchor Steam, Granite Gear, Columbia, and other brands I actually use. North has given Stay Wild magazine a ton of support simply because they believe in the idea and want to help it grow. North and Stay Wild are adventure buddies standing outside in the dark holding storm-proof matches over our heads laughing as the crazy world spins us around. It’s weird and beautiful. Deal with it!

When I’m at OR I’m looking for the rare 2% of stuff that’s actually awesome. 98% of OR is a big budget pissing contest between the outdoor industry leaders and brave entrepreneurs with wacky innovations. Here’s the 2% of stuff I saw and loved the heck out of:

Woolrich: Their towel game is strong! Their shoes & boots game is stronger! Their apparel is strongest! It’s tricky being like over 180 years old, because you have to be true to your roots, yet reach the kids in order to stay in business. But they’re pulling it off. For example the collaboration Woolrich is doing with Almond Surfboards looks like classic 50’s surf culture and the emerging PNW surf culture at the same time.

Alite Designs: The future is going to be awesome when Alite’s new line comes out. They improved on the butterfly chair by making it taller and stronger while staying super collapsible, light-weight, and affordable. Their tent folds up like a light reflector (photography assistants are going to love this). The backpacks are dope (more on that in the next issue of Stay Wild)! The meadow mats they’ve been putting out got a billion times better by having one fold up to be a tote bag and another propping up, so you can watch the ponytail-waggers bounce by you on the beach.

Stanley: Nice Jugs! Really though, Stanley's water jugs are nice and if you’re car-camping, bouldering, or partying you should have one of these jugs. They totally come apart, so you can clean the margarita mix out of the spout (for some people this is all they need in life).

Iron & Resin: Their made-in-the-USA clothes are solid. Not just the construction, but the personality is a solid three-way hand shake between surf culture, motorcycle culture, and wood-fired pizza culture. They really do care about culture. For example they came to do this trade show, but organized a party and motorcycle ride for Salt Lake locals along with The Stockist and ourCaste. You know it’s a real thing when over 100 motorcycle show up.

Sanuk: Utah has some weird shit going on with booze regulations. It’s very superstitious. Like some bars mix their drinks behind a tiny curtain, so the drinker won’t know how to go home and make a weak ass Moscow Mule on their own. So when Sanuk, makers of the beer coozie flip-flop and other cool things, teamed up with Stone Brewing to have a simple happy hour they had some crazy impossible obstacles to overcome. My friend Ethan Anderson who works for Sanuk (and has turned me on to Wet Magazine and the book Be Here Now) said, “The obstacle is the way”, so with that Zen-like approach they made history and legally served Stone in Utah for the first time EVAAAR!!!

HippyTree: I’ve loved this brand for a long time because I relate to their fuck-it-we’re-doing-it-our-own-way attitude. That’s why the collaboration backpack they made with JanSport is so interesting. It looks just like HippyTree, but has the easy no-biggy functionality and affordability of a backpack you can pick up at any Walmart. I think HippyTree did JanSport a favor on this one because if JanSport came out with this bag on their own they’d get soooo much shit for jumping on the #campvibes bandwagon.

Nau: The finest in socially and environmentally responsibly made fancy clothes just gets better with each new season. I can't wait to wear this reversible jacket on my chill & chilly morning bike commute to the office (I'm part office jockey part wild animal).

BioLite: You already know how smart their phone-charging wood-powered stoves are, so you should be squiring cupcakes into your pants now that they’re making solar powered stuff.

IndoSole: Conventions suck a bruised banana! They just do, so don’t fight me on this. Ok? But IndoSole, makers of reused motorcycle tire tread footwear, makes convention life lovely. They serve the best slow drip coffee and love to elevate the conversation with the good work they do.

Timbuk2: By focusing on their manufacturing and offering custom-made-in-SF bags they’ve brought a new breath of life to the convention. They even had a nice lady from their factory set up sewing bags for people at the convention. Stay Wild had one made and we’re going to give it away on Instagram soon! Timbuk2 and our magazine are planning some events, so if you like bike rides and art shows you’re in for a treat, especially if you live in Chicago, Denver, and Toronto.

Proof Eyewear: We love their wooden frames, but are super excited to see their new line of recycled aluminum frames.

DUMB STUFF: My favorite stuff at OR is the stuff that should never be made. Somebody was like, “What if we just wrapped shoe soles onto our feet with alien tortillas” and somebody else was like “Here’s a million bucks to make it happen.” Better yet, some problem-solver was like “Snorkeling masks need to fog up more and make people look like Hannibal Lecter with a big dildo coming out of his head.” I seriously heard these masks come with blue tooth. DUUUUMMMMBBBBBBB!!!!!!!!!!!!

Skateboarding the Cambobian Jungle

Adventures in the Jungle Bowl

By Hannah Bailey

Skateboarding has taken me to all sorts of places, but I never expected to end up here with my board under arm and luscious leaves under my feet. In a world in which skaters eye marble ledges and smooth concrete surfaces, I was somehow standing in the least skateable terrain on earth the Cambodian jungle.

I came to this country to meet local skaters and document the scene, and like skate cultures the world over, I was invited in with open arms. Landing in dusty Phnom Penh, Cambodia, with rickshaws and motorbikes zooming by, I wondered how skating fit in amongst the madness. But trips to the local skate shops (there are two) and the skateboarding charity Skateistan cleared it all up. The nonprofit organization uses skateboarding as a tool for empowerment. For the past three years, they’ve invited vulnerable local children to their skatepark, a place where the kids can leave their problems behind and push forward on a board. I had connected my friends at Building Trust International (a design charity) with Skateistan, and together they built a mobile tuk tuk skate ramp to take skateboarding to the city’s pagodas and some of the poorest children in Phnom Penh. I was here to see the tuk tuk and find out more about what skating was doing for the locals.  

Not planned in advance, my visit to Cambodia happened to coincide with an annual bowl jam in the small fishing village of Kep. I’d hardly been there a day and Skateistan instructor Pheakna offered me a lift to the event in their minibus that was leaving early the next day. Turns out, this was the final fling for the bowl jam. The land had been sold and the bowl had a new flatland destiny. Stories of fraudulence and corruption abounded, with rumors that the builder of the skate bowl was forced off his land and out of the country due to a money dispute. Sadly, this meant the end of the one and only skate bowl in Cambodia. But with the bowl still standing, there was a chance to give it one last roll.

So to the jungle I went. A bumpy 6-hour drive from Phnom Penh, Kep is far away from the dusty big cities. Set back from the water and up a hill covered in verdant greenery, it’s only 10 minutes by foot to reach the bowl’s drop-in. A hand-built 6-foot coping free bowl, with a carve-prohibiting bank cut right down the middle, this spot was built for the adventurous, much like the journey to find it. Standing on the side of the bowl, looking down the transition and eyeing the cracks with the sun glaring down, it’s a long way from where I call home in the UK. It’s amazing how far skateboarding can take you. This moment may have been the last for the Kep jungle bowl, but thanks to the skaters, the skate shops, Skateistan, and everyone who was there that day, it’s only just the beginning for skateboarding in Cambodia.

Pictures and words by Hannah Bailey
neonstash.com
@neonstash

Find out more about what Skateistan is doing in Cambodia at skateistan.org
And check out Building Trust International’s amazing work: buildingtrustinternational.org