Winter is a chancy time to paddle on the Lower Columbia. When it is not raining and storming seriously, clear weather usually brings a substantial outflow wind, venting the high pressure inland toward the next offshore low. George and I hit a good weekend, with minimal outflow wind of 5-10 knots predicted and went for it from our favorite put-in on the Oregon side. The day was cold but brilliant, with sketchy fog across the way as we paddled the two-three easy miles across the river to the only legal campsite below Skamokawa, WA. We like this spot, because it is adjacent to the shipping channel with its freighter and tug traffic, and for the open view to the south. On a clear night like Saturday's, Orion shimmers, and the planets (four of em, I think) line up the planetary ecliptic for calming scrutiny while dozing before a massive driftwood fire. Oh, yeah, I forgot, there is also an impressive eddy line off the basalt point nearby to remind us that the River is boss. That upriver point also shelters the campsite from outflow winds, a feature that is a blessing and a subtle curse. George is recently healed from successful heart surgery to correct a heart rhythm problem, and this venture was a bit of a test piece for him. We had proved earlier in the week via a long day trip that he had the stamina. This trip allowed him to vent his energy in hauling firewood, a test for the ticker if there ever was one! Sunday dawned overcast but pleasant. Spuds and coffee got me going, while George attempted to founder on a monster grain bucket of granola. Claims it "... supports my digestion." Yeah. As we gathered our bits, we kept eying the River surface, watching the wind. The tide crept nearer our feet and the drift logs. A half hour before launch time, a small ship's wake nearly washed George's kayak off, and smothered the fire. Blessing and a curse. At launch, the River was alive, with occasional white caps off the point, but with a quiet eddy line. Hitting the ship channel, we braced into the two-foot chop and danced across, some three miles ahead of the big container ship rounding the bend above us. Hey! This is a lot more than I expected! George agrees, and we shift our paddling plan. We are old bulls. We had wanted to take a straight down-river route, shooting between two monster bulwarks of dredge spoil sand right down the channel, and then making a long open crossing to a sheltered takeout behind Tongue Point. The sand bulwarks, Miller Sands and Rice Island, are the last pieces of protection from an outflow wind before the wind hits the River mouth, some 15 miles away. But, looking downwind at Rice, we could see a sand plume flowing off it, a certain sign of heavy outflow wind, usually at least 20 knots or so. We edged across the River and hit the high side of another dredge spoil mass (Jim Crow Sands), donned more warmth, hit the candy bar stash, and hooked a slight right toward one of the low islands two miles away. Hey! This is worse! I watched George fight the short-period stuff and swore it was calmer over where he was. He, likewise, felt I got the better deal. Decks constantly awash and spray slapping us upside the head, we finally hit the lee behind Marsh Island, one of a zillion pieces of federally-protected swamp and mud bank which are home to migrating waterfowl this time of year, including tundra swans. More food, water, and jubilation at having dodged the wind, we contemplated an easy down-wind, down-tide shot along the OR shore, and shoved off. Hey! Where did this stuff come from? More wind from our left, and this time it's over 20 knots, blowing the tops off the chop, now and then breaking on us, and with only a half mile of fetch to work with! George and I are really annoyed now, and he curses mightily. I'm getting tired, hoping the skirt does not pop, and humping my butt for more shelter. Finally we ease in behind Svensen Island, tucked right against the OR bank and eat, rest, drink, and wish there was a place to pee. I am surprisingly beat. George is still strong. Edging out from Svensen on the lower end, we hit the wind again, but this time it is on our sterns, and only ten knots. At last we get our peaceful paddle, ending four miles later at our takeout, a short drive east of home. On the way home, we reflect on our decision to avoid the open River. The relatively sheltered waters we paddled tested us. We are both unsure we could have remained upright in the rougher conditions out in the open River, an uncertainty reinforced later that day when we find out the wind was closer to 30 knots at the River mouth, enough to seriously slow down upbound freighter traffic. Winter paddling on the Columbia River: a lesson in dodging the wind. -- Dave Kruger Astoria, OR *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
I've been busy over the holidays with a major overhaul and facelift of my website. There are over a dozen new articles, a major rearrangement and upgrade of the "Kayaking for Big Guys (And Gals)" section, a couple new essays, several articles on gear and boats, improved links, three new "Places To Go" articles on Georgian Bay -- and even a bunch of new beachcams and a few new one-liners in the "You might be a kayaker if . . ." section. Along with the facelift comes a new name, "Wes Boyd's Kayak Place". After some gripes to the ISP, apparently three different URLs work, although I recommend the first: http://www2.dmci.net/wesboyd/kayak.htm http://www2.dmci.net/users/wesboyd/kayak.htm http://my.dmci.net/~wesboyd/kayak.htm Check it out. Maybe it'll help you spin away a few cold winter evening hours and help you dream of better things to come. See you on the water! -- Wes *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
The month of December was the snowiest on record in these parts; accompanied by several subzero nights and cold days. It seemed like everything had frozen up solid by the middle of the month. Early in January, we had a little thaw -- nothing to write home about, but in the back of my mind I hoped that the thaw might get enough water moving to make a quick kayaking trip to our winter fallback position, a channel on the Coldwater Chain that's always one of the last places around here to freeze and one of the first places to thaw. Our discovery of this channel had kept us kayaking through two winters, but a call to our friend at Dink's Channel Stop, the convenience store along the channel, brought the report that it, too, was frozen solid. With that dismal news, it looked as if my string of kayaking at least once a month that had lasted over 34 straight months was going to come to an end. So, I was a little surprised on Saturday afternoon to get a call from my friend Tom: "You want to go kayaking?" I figured he'd hit the lotto and we would be off to Florida -- but no, he'd discovered open water in a stream between two lakes not far from where he lives. It's a nice paddle in the warmer months, but we'd both figured it would be frozen solid like everything else. "Darn right," I said. "Call Glenn and give him the news." Glenn, we knew, had really been suffering from the lack of liquid water to paddle on. We set a time for the morning; I shut off the computer, grabbed the snow shovel, and headed up to the storage shed where I keep the Heron and the trailer for the winter. I soon discovered my suspicion was right; they hadn't done too good a job of plowing the place out, and there was two feet of snow up against the overhead door. I was glad I had a nice Saturday afternoon to clean it up, rather than having to do it in a rush in the morning. The snow was that crusty, compacted type that would have been just perfect for building an igloo, but I wasn't up to messing around with it, and besides, didn't think the lady that owns the storage building would think too much of an igloo in the middle of the driveway. With the kayak accessible, I went back and started grabbing paddling gear. This was an easy job, since it had been in a big pile in the shop. In fact, one of my projects for the weekend had been to go through that pile of gear, sort it out, do some maintenance, sand out and varnish some scratches on a couple of paddles and other such chores that are best relegated to the dead of winter when there isn't anything useful to do. It was a long evening and a longer night. I was up earlier than I intended, but got going, anyway. It had been five weeks since I'd been out, and I'd been expecting at least that much more. I guess Glenn had been getting to me -- I was getting itchy. But, it was good to sit in Tom's kitchen, drinking coffee and catching up while waiting for Glenn to show up. He made it a few minutes later, his kayak trailer loaded with a brand new sit-on-top that he'd been itching to try out. We headed into town for breakfast, then on out to the stream Tom had found. We knew, of course, that the regular put-in for that stream was all ice, and Tom, in his excitement over open water, hadn't scouted out an alternate. But, he figured we could use the ramp at a bait and tackle shop near one end of the open water section, right after the stream flows under three bridges -- an interstate highway, and two frontage roads. We got there to find that the ramp was blocked by a sheet of ice. Even if we could have gotten to it, we'd have had to drag the boats through two to three feet of snow for a couple hundred yards. A little further up the stream, but more accessible, the stream flowed past a high dock. "We could go there," Glenn said. I shook my head. I'm not good at dock launches and this was a high dock, anyway. "You guys can if you want," I told them. "I'm not screwing around with a dock launch in water this cold." "Let's try the other side," Tom suggested, and we got back in our vans. It looked a little better on the far side of the interstate -- at the bottom of a steep hill, there was the hint of a little beach, when viewed from the bridge, but it was steep enough that getting the boats up and down the hill in all that snow was a daunting proposition, especially since we hadn't thought to bring climbing ropes and such, this being a kayaking expedition, after all. Besides, the road was pretty narrow to be leaving the vehicles. We knew there was a place we knew we ought to be able to get in at a campground along the river, but it would be a long haul through deep snow to get there, and my snowshoes were in the rafters of the garage at home. It looked pretty bleak. A short ways up the road, a lane ran off to a group of cottages along the river bank. "Let's head up there and see if there's something," Glenn suggested. It was about our last hope. The lane wasn't long, and it was narrow. I was starting to hope that Glenn was pretty good at backing up his trailer, since it appeared we'd have to back out to the road, when at the end of the road a wider spot appeared, a cul-de-sac where there were a couple of houses, but big enough to turn around in. As we started to turn around, we noticed a woman trying to get a pickup out of her garage. A huge pile of snow had slid off the garage roof into the driveway, and she was having difficulty trying to bust through it. We were getting out to help give her a shove when she managed to get it free. Since we had the lane blocked, Tom explained what we were doing and asked if we could maybe put our kayaks in behind her garage. The thought about it for a moment, and said it was OK with her if we managed to park our vehicles so we didn't block the driveway. I wished I'd brought my boots. All I had were my kayaking shoes, although with neoprene socks, but that really isn't what you'd like to use to posthole through two feet of snow. We did it anyway. From the top of the bank behind the garage, it looked pretty bleak -- an ice shelf sat out in the river. There was a small open area next to the bank, though, that didn't look too deep. We worked down to the bottom of the bank, and here was this perfect little narrow snow-free area for launching. We stared at the ice shelf for a minute -- it wasn't real thick, and we thought maybe we could do something with it -- maybe shove the Heron out, and use its cruiser bow as a battering ram. And, Tom had brought his ice spud -- maybe that would help. We'd gone to all this trouble, we didn't want to quit when we were this close to success. So, we went and got the boats, managed to park the vehicles so others could get by, got on our gear, and postholed back out to the stream, dragging the boats over the snow. As it worked out, Glenn got onto the water first, and reached out with his paddle, to see how solid the ice shelf was. It was pretty hard, but . . . "Keep pushing, Glenn," I called. "You're moving it!" Sure enough, the pressure of the paddle was just at the right spot to get enough lever action to break off a chunk of the shelf 20 feet long, clearing our final obstacle to the river! In a couple minutes, I was in the Heron and on the water. After sitting in the storage shed for a couple months and out in the open air all morning, the seat was uncomfortably cold and my snowcovered kayak shoes could have been warmer. It felt good to be out on the water in the Heron, though. I haven't used it much since I got the fiberglass boat, but the Heron is the primary winter boat since it'll fit in the storage shed and the Nimbus won't. Glenn and I just sat out in the middle of the slowly moving creek, while I fiddled with the adjustment of his rudder pedals. Once Tom was on the water, we decided to start out by going upstream. We had no idea of how far we could get, but it didn't matter -- we knew we had a quarter mile or so of open water downstream, and we were on the water at last. In January. In a January that we'd thought we were closed out. Although the sky was overcast, it was awfully pretty out there in the marsh, with the dried marsh grasses poking up through the snow, a few flakes of snow in the air. The depths of winter had closed things down, but still, where there was open water, there were things to see. A mallard skittered around the bend raising cain, and we followed. At other times when I've gotten into the boat after a long layoff, it had seemed pretty tippy, but now it seemed solid -- if slow, after having gotten used to the lightness of the Telkwa. Of course, not having done any serious kayaking in two months may have had something to do with that, too. Around the bend, we were surprised to see the water still open, the stream even wider than it had been where we launched, and not much of a current going through. We were just as happy -- we'd agreed this was not a day to push hard or do anything rash. Bend followed bend; at each one, we expected to see the ice close the river ahead of us, and each time we were surprised to see it open to the next bend. At one bend, we surprised a flock of mallards that blasted off into the air, squawking and protesting our unexpected presence. Finally, one last bend and we could see the small lake that fed the stream, and see the ice that would mark the limits of our journey. We'd come upstream a good quarter mile or more, maybe as much as half a mile, farther than we'd expected. Turning around was easy, and we headed downstream, just taking it easy. Fifty yards below our put-in, we found the big chunk of ice that Glenn had broken out, giving us a hint of how fast the stream was flowing -- not very fast. We headed on downstream, through the huge culvert that took us under the frontage road. Places like that bring out the kid in you. I let fly with the opening bars of "Amazing Grace," sung slow, loud and soulful, just to hear the echoes. A mallard that had been sleeping near the end of the culvert didn't appreciate it and blasted off into the skyline far above. Then, through the longer culvert under the interstate, to the accompaniment of more echoing songs, and finally under the concrete bridge under the other frontage road. After another couple hundred yards, we reached the ice front on the downstream end. We'd seen some ice fishermen trying for bluegill when we'd been there earlier, and were expecting some goofy looks when we came by, but apparently the bluegill had moved and the fishermen had followed. We did get an adequately goofy look from a kid in a passing car, though. Yes, kid, we know we're crazy. We turned back and went back upstream, through the tubes and past the sheet of floating ice. At the launch site, we decided to do another lap -- after all, we'd gone to all the trouble, and everything was going fine. Once again, we paddled through the bends to the ice front at the upstream lake looking across the snowcovered ice to the snowed-up regular launch site, then back downstream, under the highway again, noting that the ice fishermen hadn't come back, and finally back to the put-in. Having given the shore a good look along the way, we realized that we'd stumbled upon the only really decent place to put the boats in along the entire chunk of open water. "Well, we got January on the books," Tom said. In a few minutes more, we had the boats back up by the road and were loading them on the trailers again. "It sure was nice of that lady to let us use her place," Glenn said. "If we'd brought a snow shovel, I'd say, let's do her a favor. We might want to come here again." "Guess what," I told him. "I brought a snow shovel." I hadn't taken it out of the van from having to open the way to the storage shed the day before. With three of us changing off working at it, we took maybe fifteen minutes to clear out both of her garage doors. Thanks, lady, whoever you are. Three addicts got a fix that'll get them a long way toward spring, if and when it ever comes. --------------------- This is one of the more than a dozen new articles on my website: http://www2.dmci.net/users/wesboyd/kayak.htm -- Wes *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
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