Four of us completed a 16.5 nm loop Saturday on the lower Columbia, sketching a route in the mist and murk while transiting rarely paddled waters and visiting two features rare to our estuary. [Route track: http://www.pbase.com/bartenderdave/image/127298740/original ] Mild temperatures and dry air greeted us at the John Day boat ramp, totally shorn of power boaters ... all diverted by a hot salmon fishery between the jetties at the mouth of the River. A swift exit past a retired railroad swing bridge lead to more open waters between Lois and Mott Islands, dredge spoil deposit residues of long ago Liberty ship mothball days. At the Lois-Mott pass, helpful upriver current arrived along with less-useful surface murk and a gentle mist. Debate ensued as to the best heading to reach the lower end of Miller Sands, some four nautical miles of open water distant, with the sharp eyes of others eventually spying range markers just down river from our objective. The GPS kept us on the best ferry angle as our eyes fought to pick out a route ahead. This business of sorting out things in poor visibility is rare for us, and the one person lacking a deck compass groaned and griped a bit ... but mostly in envy, not in frustration! An hour and a bit later, we edged ashore on the sheltered, sandy shore of an arcuate three mile long "barrier island" the US Army Corps of Engineers and its contract pipeline dredgers have laid along the shipping channel, forming an open shallow area between the barrier and Miller Sands ("Miller Sands Lagoon" in local usage) much used by waterbirds. Saturday, the lagoon was occupied by a dozen and a half white pelicans (new residents these past couple years), a couple hundred young mergansers, and the usual crowd of Caspian terns and grouchy cormorants found everywhere out there. The barrier has grown from a shallow, narrow shoal to a huge obstacle, in places a short quarter mile wide and 20 feet above high water, over the last 35-40 years, and was not charted for the first 20 years! A foot-borne field trip took us to an active dredge spoil deposition site, resting for the weekend, scattered with heavy equipment. Fifty-plus segments of large dredge pipe were set on land to direct de-silted overflow back to the river. We had never seen one of these areas up close before, which required a thorough inspection. The Corps passed, although one porta-potty seemed maybe not enough for these guys. Back in the boats, as the mist shifted to drizzle we scooted a couple miles up the lagoon to the head of Miller Sands, hit the shore, and lunched under a huge hemlock adjacent to a stunning kinnickkinnick "meadow" surrounded by lovely mixed forest. Most of these dredge spoil areas are so new no soil or decent vegetation has developed yet. This was heaven, and a botanist's teachable moment for succession, showing dots of red huckleberry and the odd doug fir among the pioneer species. I suspect this end of Miller Sands dates back 60-70 years or more, as it shows almost no scotch broom, indicating other species became established to shut it out before the broom became widespread down here. Now the wind had picked up, the rain was coming down steadily, and the mist was heavier than before, so the guy with the GPS confidently identified the course needed to hit a protected channel some three nautical miles of open water distant, using an old waypoint from years ago. Forty minutes later, nothing looked as he recalled it, and those with better eyes began to spot markers in all the wrong places. A raft-up, glasses-wipe, and short look at Bruce's much-maligned "fisherman's map" (not a chart) told the story: the waypoint was a mile wrong! Correcting course, Bruce triumphantly took us to our desired channel separating two huge, low islands, and down the Prairie Channel toward Oregon, away from the never-never land of the middle of the River. Many miles of slogging down-channel, broken by a half-hour raft-up encounter featuring a sing-a-long of old Beatles tunes, lead us back to the ramp, warm dry clothes, and an eventual reward at the Fort George Brewery of Vortex ale and serious oysters and chips. It was one hell of a satisfying paddle, maybe the most fun I've had on the Columbia in ten years. I love being lost and confused! -- 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/ ***************************************************************************
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