Foiled again

Mount Angeles is not a difficult mountain to climb. It's a scramble really, rather than a true climbing experience, steep but nontechnical. It's one of the most frequently climbed peaks in the entire range; it seems most anybody can get up it except me.

I tried it once in winter. Sleet and driving snow kept me down low that day, wind whistling all around me as I turned around and felt my way back to the car. Another time I was climbing strong up the Swichback trail from the main road when the fog came in, thick, white, viscous. A swirling opacity that forced me back once again, to plan for the next attempt.

That next attempt ran short on time. Some things take longer than you think they will, and the result is that you don't get to do everything you might have wanted to do. Like climb Mount Angeles.

I was hoping to finally get to the top last week, but a late start on the trail from Hurricane Ridge doomed that idea fairly quickly. I went right past it, I could see the route clearly in the perfect blue-sky conditions, I just didn't have enough time. There was no way I could summit, and still make it all the way across Klahane Ridge and down the Lake Angeles Trail in the time that I had available.

There is never enough time.

Win some, lose some

There's a new Marine Trail site on Indian Island. According to the WWTA web site, the new Cascadia Marine Trail campsite at Portage Beach on Indian Island is "located on the dynamic waters of the Portage Canal... an ideal stop for boaters circumnavigating Indian and Marrowstone Islands. Visitors can stretch out their sea legs on two miles of hiking trails or practice navigating swift tidal currents in Portage Canal." It's only a mile or so away from the Kinney Point site at the south end of the island, so what this means is that the number of tent sites on that end has just doubled. That should give more options for anyone who's thinking about making it a 2-day trip.

Unfortunately, all is not good news. The next item on the WWTA home page concerns the recent closure of Strawberry Island, possibly the most beautiful camp site in the San Juans. To quote the WWTA page once again: "Due to state budget cuts, the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has closed the campground facilities at Strawberry Island, effective Thursday June 18, 2009. All facilities have been removed, including picnic tables, signs and fire rings and the toilet. Day use is still permitted, but the site is strictly pack in/pack out - including human waste. "

I have two bottles of Merlot cached on Strawberry Island. Before the word came down about the closure, I was planning on camping there this Friday night with a group I'll be leading on a 3-day San Juan kayak trip. Plans change, I suppose. I will miss those lazy summer nights on Strawberry Island, out there in the fast moving waters of Rosario Strait. I will miss the crackling fire, the brilliant glow of the stars and the sound of porpoises feeding in the rip just offshore.

I am looking forward to staying in the new place though. It's just change, right? Change is good.

The long way back down the mountain

It's 6 AM on a Saturday morning. The sun is already high in the eastern sky but the tall fir and cedar trees block the direct rays; the light that reaches me here at the Heart o' the Hills Campground has been filtered through their branches, and the air is still cool. It is a peaceful scene. I am the only person stirring at the moment, and I'm waiting for the water to boil, anticipating that first cup of coffee.

I am sore this morning. After the hike to Hurricane Hill with Mary and Micah yesterday morning, we parted company at the lodge. It was Micah's nap time and I was looking forward to seeing the trail between Hurricane Ridge and our camp site. From the lodge to Heart o' the Hills is about 10 miles, and I'd planned the hike this way because I was under the impression that, since I'd be starting at the top, it would be mostly down hill. Smart me, clever me.

There is a man at the next camp site over, sitting at his picnic bench and staring at his fire. As I walked to the restrooms earlier, he asked me for a lighter... something about he'd lost his, burned it up, something hard to make out. He had a can of Busch in his hand and on the table was a letter he was writing, in sloping cursive on an unruled sheet, and a pouch of rolling tobacco. There was a drama here - I could tell - but it was none of my business. I just got him a lighter, handed it over and went back to camp.

I thought he wanted the lighter to have a smoke but he had something more in mind. It wasn't long before he was scouring the area for dead branches and carrying back armloads of blasty boughs. Combustibles. With all the downed trees here at the campground, there is plenty of fuel. The blaze he has going now is a big one, a real caucasian fire... it must be warm over there.

From the northeast corner of the parking lot at Hurricane Ridge, there begins a trail. I started here, climbing the asphalt path among groups of other day-hikers. Above the top of the ski area, the crowds disappeared and, although I would see other hikers at various points throughout the day, the route was not overused. I climbed for longer than I thought I would, but the views of the mountains and the straits kept me enthralled. My feet felt light and solid. I took off my shirt and hiked on in the heat of the sun.

The trail from Hurricane to the Klahane Ridge is up and down, like a walk on the edge of a pie crust. Swichbacks and skidding stone pathways, far more work than you might expect. More than I had expected.

At one point, I came across a group of 4 or 5 hikers who were trying to get off the trail to the right. The undergrowth was thick and the hillside steep, but they were all moving with dispatch, with a sense of urgency. "There's a big goat coming," one of them said. "You better get off the path." Beyond the hikers, and moving toward me, was a large mountain goat, his wool mottled and hanging, radio collar around his neck. Behind him came his tribe, his women and children, six of them, all told. His pace was steady, his gaze resolute.

I joined the others in the underbrush by the trail, as far from the big fellow's route as I could get without falling down the slope. He watched me as he passed, glowing yellow eyes and an old face. The rest of the family followed, the younger ones sprinting skittishly past and the others holding a steady, unhurried pace. Once they had passed, I got back on the trail.

Once I had made it through the goats, up the endless switchbacks (and past another, even larger, alpha male mountain goat that was blocking my way - but that's another story for a different time), after all this, I finally got to Klahane Ridge. Vistas opened up on all sides, a 360-degree panorama of all that is right in the world. Port Angeles looked like a toy town, and the huge ships in the straits looked tiny and insignificant against the deep blue water. On the south side, the backdrop of jagged mountains changed as I walked on, as my angle of view progressed. From time to time, my trail cut across areas where the snow had yet to melt away completely. It seemed incongruous and a little odd, to be sweating in the July heat while crunching through the snow, but it felt right somehow, just the same.

Down from Klahane Ridge, past Lake Angeles and back to camp: it's all downhill at that point. I relished the descent at first, no longer grunting my way up the slope, done with fighting gravity. By the time I got to where I could see the lake, however, I was singing a different tune. At least my knees were. I slowed down to minimize the wear and tear on my joints. The trail was steep and the footing was treacherous at times, but I eventually made it to the lake and took a well-earned break.

Lake Angeles is cut from the mountain in a way that it reflects their colors and their edges, even their moods. The little island in the middle adds to the beauty, as if that were possible. This is a very special spot, a high country lake in a hidden fold of the mountain, on a Friday evening, and I had it to myself. I sat on a log near the north end of the lake, drinking in the view with the last of my water.

From the lake to the road is just under 4 miles, on a steep but well-maintained trail. I could tell when I was getting close to Heart o' the Hills by all the blown down trees, scattered around the hillside like discarded sticks. I am glad I was not in these parts on the night that storm went down. I can only imagine the explosions, as giant trees snappped in the wind, would have been deafening. I thought these thoughts for a few minutes and then I was there, done, back on the main road just outside the campground. Dinner and family, cold beer and a warm bed, just ahead.

But I am sore this morning.

Hurricane Hill

Above 5000 feet, it is still spring. At Hurricane Ridge, the wildflowers are blooming in little explosions of color all over the meadows and along the sides of the trail, where just a few weeks ago the ground was covered in the last of the winter's snow. Penstemon, lupine and paintbrush abound, along with lanky cow parsnip and the occasional shy orchid. The grass is green and growing, and the entire ridge looks like a well-tended garden.

A garden that is thick with deer and marmots, anyway. The deer hang around the parking lot, jockeying for parking spaces and posing for tourists. Overweight women in sensible shoes circle their subjects, shooting frame after frame of the grazing animals. Some of these pictures will undoubtedly be featured on those rotating digital picture frames, summer vacation shots, proof of a wilderness adventure.

I am always struck by how few people actually get out of sight of their cars in places like this. To drive this far from Cleveland, or Modesto, or whatever blighted burg they hail from, to come all this way just to snap some shots of the mountains, to buy a softee cone in the snack bar and sit on the john for fifteen minutes hardly seems worth it. But that's what they do, over 90 percent of all visitors to our National Parks.

Which, of course, leaves more room for those of us in the other 10 percent. Backcountry trails are often lightly traveled and real wilderness comes a little closer the further out you get, the further away from the pavement. Hurricane Hill is not wilderness, but you can certainly see wild country from the top. The path is thick with hikers (the fact that the entire 1.5 mile route is paved may have something to do with it), but even with the others on the trail, it didn't feel overly crowded. You expect it here... it's part of the deal. We set out from the parking lot at 10 o'clock on a sunny Friday morning.

My hiking companions are the rest of the family, Mary and Micah. The boy has new hiking poles to try out today, old ski poles that I cut down to fit him. "Hiking dicks," he calls them, in that charming idiom of the two year-old.

Most of the hike is open country. There are a few spots where the trail dips under cover, but most of the route traverses mountain meadows and the views are a scene from a fantasy. Under the clear blue dome of the sky, everything is right there, so near. Marmots perch atop their middens, each standing sentinel duty in his own little kingdom. We climb to the top, where we settle in for lunch. The chipmunks quickly find us and scamper about the rocks and gravel as we eat. Micah tries to catch one, holding out his hand and then making an awkward lunge at the rodent, not even getting close. They want food, but we don't give them any.

I can see the deep scar of the Elwah valley, running from the northwest to the south in front of me, easily the deepest and most pronounced of the river valleys within view. Mount Carrie and the Bailey Range are closest and most detailed, but beyond them, the tops of the other peaks are visible. Mount Tom, Mount Barnes and Mount Olympus, these and others rising up, still streaked with snow and cloaked in glaciers. It is a panorama that whets the trekking appetite, and as we start down I am thinking of the hike I have coming up that afternoon, Klahane Ridge and Lake Angeles. There will be less people there, I tell myself. Less people, more of everything else.

Names

There's a movement afoot that is getting some press time, to change the name of Mount Rainier. Native American tribes in the area referred to the iconic Cascade peak as Tahoma, or Takhoma, and there are those who say that these earlier names are more appropriate and more authentic than its current moniker, a tribute to Rear Admiral Peter Rainier. This navy buddy of explorer George Vancouver (the man who hung the name on the mountain in the first place), was a pompous, obese British officer who actually commanded forces against American ships during the Revolutionary War. He was the enemy. Hardly seems right that he should be remembered in such a grand fashion. The Indian name, because it predates the current one, should be returned.

That's how some people, good, patriotic people, see the situation.

But consider this: Elk Lake, on the flanks of Mount Olympus, was once called Beaver Lake. Glacier Pass, farther up the mountain, used to be known off and on as Hoh-Blue Pass and Blizzard Pass. Morse Creek, near Port Angeles, used to be called Chambers Creek. Lost Cabin Mountain had its name changed by the Press Party to Mount Brown (after Amos Brown of Seattle, a prominent Seattle lumberman in the early days), then saw its name changed back again to Lost Cabin Mountain years later.

When it comes to things like mountains, rivers and other unique features of the natural world, just because one name is older than another might not mean all that much. Geologic time is slow to unravel, and human perspective is so foreshortened. Ultimately, the mountain doesn't care what you call it; it is simply there. The river doesn't answer to any particular name; it flows to the sea just the same. Arguing about the validity of the term that should be used in these cases completely misses the point.

Whether it's Rainier or Tahoma, McKinley or Denali, Everest or Chomolungma, the mountains remain the same. Even if the name on the map were to change from the Olympics back to the Sierra Nevada de Santa Rosalia (the first name given to the range), the peaks themselves would look no different. Mountains, rivers and the rest occupy a completely different timeline than the one used by mortals and it can be a humbling (but useful), revelation when this lesson finally sinks in.

The Elusive season

After a month of steady sun and blue skies, western Washington has pulled the covers over her head once more. Clouds have moved in and the sky is gray and lumpy, what author Tom Robbins would call a "hemorrhoid sky," gray and threatening. It's not really cold, but after temperatures in the 70's and 80's for these long, languid weeks, it feels chilly now.

Summer usually begins on the 5th of July around here. That isn't when it's supposed to end.

Hurricane Ridge

The year is 1889. Port Angeles is little more than a wide spot on the Straits, population: 40. A sawmill and a couple of other stores make up the entire business district and the whole affair is still very much in the process of being carved away from the surrounding forest. The interior of the Olympics are terra incognita, and although various mountain men and hunters have made forays into the high country, it has still not been crossed from one side to the other.

Lt. Joseph P. O'Neil is a man driven by an intense curiosity and aided by a strong sense of discipline. Still, the way is far from easy. O'Neil chooses to start his 1889 trip in Port Angeles, because it is situated so well for mountain access. His party of soldiers and scientists, packers and adventurers, sets out southward, in mid-July, toward Hurricane Ridge but they only get there after a full month of cutting trail through tangled rainforest and windfall.

A month. An entire month to do what we can do today, traveling the 17-mile Hurricane Ridge Road from Port Angeles, can do in a half-hour. And once you're there, the entire Olympic range is laid out in front of you like another world. It is possible, even on a busy weekend day in summer, to gaze out onto that tableau and feel like yours are the first eyes to see such raw beauty. "Like stout Cortez," in that crazy old poem.

On one side, the impossible jagged peaks are jumbled together like immense shark's teeth. Snow caps the summits and extends in fingers down the flanks of the mountains, to the dark valleys waiting below. The deep greens and browns of the lowlands weave around and through the mountains, hinting at the unseen course of rivers large and small. To look across the deep chasms and see the real wilderness that remains in the Olympic interior is both a humbling and a hopeful pursuit. Humbling, because of the scale of the territory: steep, difficult and utterly wild. Hopeful, because it is there at all, because we haven't destroyed it yet, and because there's a chance my son will be able to experience these same unspoiled vistas when he is in his dotage.

To the north lies the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Vancouver Island. The sparkling blue waters of the Strait are plowed by freighters and tankers, ocean-going behemoths that, from this perspective, look like child's toys. The western San Juans are visible as well, dots of green in a cerulean sea.

After a month of slogging through thickets of alder and mud, cutting trail through a dank, dark shadow land, this view must have been a tonic to O'Neil's tired crew. From the summit of Hurricane Hill, where the old, doomed fire lookout used to stand, you can see the world. The best parts of it, anyway.

Off to the races

Well, the first annual Freedom Fair Battle of the Paddle is in the books, or it would be if there were any books. On details, I feel I am woefully short, but then I wasn't really watching the race, I was too busy being in it. There were 10 participants (9 men, 1 woman), the course was a 3-lap route that stayed close to the riprap waterfront, and the winner was named Mike. I hear the finish was pretty exciting but I didn't actually see it. I finished in front of some, behind others, pretty much the way I expected I would. The conditions were ideal and it was an enjoyable (and educational) experience for all involved.

After competing in two races in two weeks I have come to the conclusion that my gifts don't include much in the way of racing expertise, ability or aptitude. I have always been a long-haul paddler, regardless of which craft I may be paddling. When it comes to a canoe, a kayak or an SUP, I think I am much better at going further than I am at going faster. Of course, I'm planning on being there again next year anyway, where I will likely learn this same lesson again.

Still, there were a great many people who got their first look at a standup paddleboard yesterday, and I've got to figure that I'm going to hear from some of them in the coming week or so.

Independence Day

First of all, a raising of the glass to our veterans and currently serving military members. For your continued service, in austere and often hostile environments, for standing in our place in some of the most difficult places on Earth, we thank you. Be safe and come home soon.

For as long as it's mattered, my two favorite holidays have been Thanksgiving and the 4th of July. Thanksgiving has all of the friends, food, family and football that you'll find in Christmas, but without the religious conflict, the pressure of the gift psychology and the wretched excesses of runaway consumerism.

The 4th of July, on the other hand, was always a time for me to light off fireworks, to drink too much and to enjoy the heat, if only for a day. It was a loud and rollicking day and night, right up until a few years ago. I'm older now, infinitely older, and I no longer blow things up on purpose, I usually fall asleep before I get the chance to drink excessively and the hot weather hurts. There is still something about the 4th that speaks to me, however, and, in spite of the stickiness and discomfort that it brings with it, even the heat feels right on this day. It doesn't hurt if I can spend part of the day on the water somewhere, either.

Which is what I plan on doing tomorrow. The weather report is calling for temperatures of 89 degrees here in Tacoma, which means that the real high will be somewhere around 92. (If I was a gamer looking to make a living on the forecasted temperature predictions for these parts, I would automatically bet the over. Actual highs always seem to be out in front of the predictions by 3 or 4 degrees. It's almost like we refuse to see the possibility of mercury that high... it's so completely out of character for how we, and our meteorologists, see the world and our place in it.)

With all that, tomorrow, sometime around noon, I'm planning on taking part in the inaugural standup paddleboard race at the Tacoma Freedom Fair. The Freedom Fair is a bombastic, family-friendly, carnival-type celebration held each July 4th on the Ruston Way Waterfront, with midway rides, bands, an airshow and a monster fireworks show, synchronized to music on a local radio station. All that's patriotic, and then some.

I've avoided it for my entire time here in Tacoma but I'm going this year. I will miss the boat race at Salmon Beach and I will probably complain at various points throughout the day about the mass of people I am pressed against, but I'm excited about the SUP race too. Not because the event itself is likely to be anything grand – a dozen participants, maybe – but it will be the first of its kind here in the south Sound.

I predict that the race at next year's Freedom Fair will be a much larger affair. But this one will still be the first.

Mr. Wood

Many of Robert Wood's best books are out-of-print now, which is a shame. I understand why the guide books might be discontinued, since they need to be revised and rewritten every now and then to keep them current. (Bob Wood doesn't update his work much anymore on account of he died some years ago.) So, even though I love the Olympic Mountains Trail Guide and still use it to plan my trips, I can accept that it has been allowed to go fallow.

But Across the Olympic Mountains and Trails Country? These are not guide books, they are portraits of a place; they are art, in the way that so many books try to be, but aren't. They dazzle with deftly chosen words yet come across as familiar, while all the while continuing to inform in shimmering prose. Yes, they are books that can guide your travels, but they can guide your thoughts as well, presenting history, ecology, and politics with humor and wisdom.

Robert Wood was a magnificent writer with a strong commitment to the Olympics. He first came to the area in 1946, and for the next half-century, he walked the trails and the backcountry of his favorite place. That love of the land came through in every line he wrote. In the best tradition of writing, he wrote about what he knew, and what he knew were the stories of the Olympic Peninsula.

Men, Mules and Mountains. Lt. O'Neil's Olympic Expeditions. These titles and others are still out there, if you know where to look. But you should definitely start looking soon.

A Progress report

And, just like that... like snow melting, like the greening of the trees, like the breathy cheeps of the young birds in their nests. It's over, just like that. Bears awaken from dark dens to the light of another season; birds manuever back north once again. The moments blur together into one long chunk of memory and what seems, at the beginning, to be an impossibly long time, is over in a single heartbeat. Half over, at any rate. One day, it's a snow day in January, and the next you find that June is in the books and the year is half gone.

There is, I suppose, another way to look at it.

There is still half a year left.

And another thing...

If you look up the History of the Olympic Mountains on Wikipedia, you'll be hit with a long - albeit deceptively shallow - writeup of all things historical and Olympic. From the days of the Spanish explorers to the time of Lt. O'Neil and the mountain men... and then talk turns to the Press Expedition. For some reason, and I have no idea why, trash-talking the Press Party is cool, at least for some.

To wit: the judgmental bastard who coughed up these lines ought to be flogged. "The team was assembled by a foolhardy Scottish explorer named James Helbold Christie. Christie wanted to make a name for himself, and he knew if he waited to make the crossing until spring that he would be competing against a bevy of similar teams." The writer goes on to describe the Press Party's hardships and mistakes with the clear hindsight of a half-bright Monday morning quarterback. As if there was something untoward about Christie's desire to be first. As if going along with a bevy of similar teams was a better alternative than the one he chose. As if the wiki-critic has ever really done anything.

Tell me, anyone. When have you ever gone off the map? Christie and the others had their faults - they did enjoy their whisky - but once they passed the last homestead on the Elwha and continued upcountry, they were in a place that no one had seen before. The local tribes knew nothing of the interior; if others had previously been through, they had never come forward with their stories. The Press Party went where there were no maps, and it may be entertaining to quibble about whether they should have built a barge or whether starting during one of the worst winters on record was a good idea. But they went somewhere first, and you can't take that away from them.

And this is what's bugging me: those who make their claim to greatness simply by critiquing the performance of their betters. By comparing the real deeds of others against the imitations and imaginations of their own sad mental milestones. Those feeble hacks in their garrets, conjuring up in words what they could never hope to accomplish by their actions, not that they would be likely to try.

I don't know what has set me off this time. These days, I am resigned to the inevitability of my someday becoming a curmudgeon. I just hope I don't snarl, you know, like Dick Cheney.

Another safety rant

I spent most of the day yesterday on the paddleboard. Up one side of Commencement Bay and down the other, a beautiful summer Saturday, with hundreds of people walking the waterfront. At Owen Beach, two little girls were swimming in the water - really swimming and not just splashing about - their delight completely canceling out any thoughts of cold water. The air temperature, even at 10 AM, was approaching 80 degrees. Hypothermia wasn't an option.

Which is why the kayakers looked so ridiculous. Not 100 yards from where the bikini-clad grade schoolers were diving and laughing in the clear water, a group of sea kayakers were getting ready for a trip. If you didn't know any better, you might think they were gearing up for an expedition in the Chukchi Sea or some kind of antarctic survival episode. All dressed in wetsuits and drysuits, with waterproof boots and gloves... one goober was even wearing a helmet. Really? A helmet? In Commencement Bay? For what? And do any of you realize how stupid you look?

I understand that the water is cold and that prolonged immersion can be fatal. I get the concept of safety and how every precaution taken is potentially a valuable part of keeping yourself alive in the event that everything goes south. I have a drysuit and I wear it.

In the winter. When I'm by myself. If I'm solo on the open coast in December and the waves are double-overhead and there is snow on the driftlogs above the tide line. A drysuit is an amazing insurance policy, a difference-maker between life and death when the elements are against you. On an 80 degree day in Commencement Bay, where the only ripples on the water are coming from passing fishing boats, when there is no wind, and when I am paddling with a dozen other people who know how to assist me should I suddenly forget how to kayak... on these days, wearing a drysuit is not necessary.

But I can't help thinking that there's more to it than that. It's more than just unnecessary... all this gear may actually be a hindrance to what brought me here in the first place. Part of why I go to the places I go and do the things I do is that I want to feel the environment that I am passing through. If the weather is inclement and cold, if the situation in which I find myself is dangerous and tenuous, I'll use whatever gear I need to use to allow me to get to where I need to go. If, however, the conditions are comfortable, I want to feel that comfort. If I'm wearing barrier clothing to keep out the water, to keep out the sun, what am I doing here in the first place?

And don't recite that old saw about dressing for the temperature of the water. Bull hockey. On an 80 degree day in Puget Sound, dressing for the water means a bikini - those girls had the right idea. I wore a pair of shorts, with my shirt tied around my waist, as I paddled past the intrepid kayakers. Imagine, if one of those walking Goretex commercials were to capsize and come out of his boat, how quickly he would be rescued and put back in. With the air temperature a'sizzling, it would be a matter of minutes before he'd be warm once more. And I bet he would feel refreshed, when all was said and done. Which is the whole point.

I want to feel the water. If it's cold water, I will think of it as bracing, rather than perilous. I will use my common sense - it has seen me this far - and I will stay away from the herd. And if someone wearing a helmet comes paddling toward me in Puget Sound, I will turn and go in the opposite direction.

A Media moment

Big paddleboard story in the Tacoma News Tribune today, with the boy on the cover of the Adventure section. Not a bad video on the Trib web site either. Just go to http://www.thenewstribune.com/ and click on the SUP video in the video section. Then get out on the water.

The Press Party revisited

I have a book about the Olympics that talks about the Press Party in the most disparaging of terms. "Drunkards and imbiciles," it calls them. No mercy. And perhaps there is some truth to the slam. After all, it did take them 6 months to go 40-odd miles. You don't get numbers like that being sober.

Still, I've always wanted to follow that route, up the Elwah and out the Quinault, from one side of the range to the other. Over the Low Divide, to the headwaters of several of the peninsula's great river systems. There are trails now, of course, but I have heard that, if you know where to look, you can still see the blazes cut into the bark of the old trees, the three horizontal slashes that marked the route of the Press Party Expedition.

I'm going. After hemming and hawing for entirely too long, the Press route is where I'm headed at the end of July, using the time that I was to have been out at the coast. It's a giant, four-dimensional Rubik's Cube, this juggling of time and job, family and self. Always a balancing act. It's just gratifying when a plan comes together.

I want to go ultralight, but taking basic climbing gear... crampons, light axe. I think it went well last year in the Dosewallips, but I think I can get it even lighter this year.

Going faster

I'm not a racer. By nature, I travel fairly slowly. I make steady progress, whether it's in a kayak or on foot, and over the course of a long day, I may go farther than others, but I am not, in any sense of the term, built for speed. Which makes it hard to explain why I'm in a race today.

I suppose the simple answer is that I said "yes." I was asked to be the kayaker on the Mountains to Sound Relay team, Graybeards and Youngbloods. There's a couple of cyclists and a pair of runners involved as well, fairly serious competitors, and I'm pretty sure I'm not one of the Youngbloods. The paddling segment is 12 miles long, down the length of the Samammish River between Lake Samammish and Lake Washington. I will try to paddle with a greater sense of urgency than I normally display.

Scotch Broom

Scotch Broom is native to southern Europe and northern Africa (which is more than can be said for the country of Scotland itself, but that's the way it goes.) It seems just as likely to me, being a casual observer, that it is native to the Olympic Peninsula. It is one of those classic stories of nature run amok, like mongooses in Hawaii or frogs in Australia, that I expect will be on the FOX channel one of these days in an episode of "When Nature Goes Insane." It's another example of the unintended consequences of what can happen when our reach no longer exceeds our grasp.

Scotch Broom was introduced to the US as an ornamental. It was easy to grow and people liked its bright yellow flowers and its hardy nature. It's a tough plant to kill. It's tenacity and perennial growth made it attractive to various highway departments as a means of stabilizing roadcuts. It didn't take long before it was popping up everywhere.

It outcompetes many native species, taking over habitat niches and driving local flora away. Scotch Broom seeds have hard coatings that enable them to survive lengthy dormant periods and are transported easily in mud stuck to vehicles, shoes and the feet of animals. Storm runoff can carry the seeds for miles, and new colonies of the plant appear almost overnight. It is such a prodigious pollinator and seed dispersal expert that, even though it has been designated a noxious weed, it's unlikely that its presence, will ever be significantly reduced, much less eradicated. It's hard to believe that it got here on purpose and that people used to actually take the time to plant the stuff.

When it comes to playing God, it seems we're much better at playing the devil.

The Bar (Part 3)

It takes about a half-hour or so to make the switch between the SUP and the kayak. In that time, the wind dies down a bit and the effects of the current, while still strong, are less of a factor on the displacement hull of the boat than they had been on the flat bottom of the paddleboard. With two blades in the water and the ability to maintain a glide through the swells, it takes a mere 40 minutes to get to the beach at Westport.

The current is strongest in the channel near the Westport harbor. Crossing over to the sweeping sandy beach at Westhaven State Park, I pass from this swiftly moving section to the still water of the cove behind the long south-side jetty. The waves here are smallish and dumping and getting on shore is largely a function of being pushed to the beach by the white froth of the tumbling surf. I stretch my legs and walk on the sand while I eat my snack, take a bearing on my destination, and get ready for the return.

The waves that I had anticipated never really factor into my trip. I can see breakers off in the distance, at other places along the bar, but my route stays in deeper water and with the current getting closer to slack, the turbulence and disorder that I'd been preparing for never really materializes. The paddle back to my starting point is unremarkable and fast, and it isn't long before I'm back in the van, heading for home once again (after a stop at the Blue Heron Bakery in Olympia).

I'm fairly sure that the trip could be done on a SUP without too much difficulty. The currents will always be an issue, but they can be accounted for. When the wind combines with the flow of the water, however, it gets difficult to maintain forward progress. I've noticed the disparity between kayak and SUP cruising speeds in the past - it's a mattter of hull design, not paddler power - and I am still convinced that the way to take advantage of both vehicles is to combine their positive traits and form an entirely new way to travel. More studies should be done.

The Bar (Part 2)

Between Westport and Ocean Shores lies two miles of open water. Not just any open water either; we're talking the Gray's Harbor bar, a treacherous mix of wind, waves and currents that are capable of shaking the nerve of any waterman on any given day. The Chehalis River - along with the Humptulips, the Wishkah, the Hoquiam and others - dumps millions of gallons of fresh water into the bay every day, at least during this time of year. Snow melting in the distant Cascades and the Olympics eventually finds its way here, rushing downward on its gravity-fueled ride from the forests to the sea.

The mix of fresh and salt waters, along with the power of the tides, makes the bar a sporty outing, even on the quieter days. As I slide the paddleboard into the water, I scan the outlying water for any action. It's calm close to shore but there's a breeze that's building from the southwest and within a few hundred feet of shore, I can feel the current, already pulling at me. There are big waves to the west, near the hotel beaches at the tip of the Ocean Shores Peninsula. In front of me, however, the surface of the water is mostly flat, with little wind ripples breaking up the surface.

I make good time at first, my eyes fixed on the harbor and the jetties on the other shore. The wind has increased, more intense and coming right at me. The incoming tide is having its way with me as well, forcing me to take a ferry angle that makes the wind seem even worse. I can't help but think that I'd rather be in a kayak... these are the conditions that are just starting to get interesting, if I'm paddling a sea kayak rather than a SUP. I battle on, but the seeds of doubt are already sprouting.

And perhaps this is one limit of the standup paddleboard, at least in its present form. It has many positives, but beating it to windward against a rising tide isn't one of them. I try, for a while, to measure my progress against the buoys in the current, working my way from one to the next and getting an idea of my rate of progress. It isn't good. When I ultimately make the decision to turn around, I am in mid-channel and I've been paddling for almost an hour.

I am done with the SUP for now, but the day isn't over yet. I'm going back for the kayak.

The Bar (Part 1)

I was standing on the beach at Ocean Shores, looking across the water to the jetties of Westport, when the man emerged from the overgrown area to the west and began walking toward me. He was probably in his thirties somewhere, but he looked older. I had just put the paddleboard down on the sand and was going through my last pre-paddle rituals before attempting to take the SUP to Westport and back, across the Gray's Harbor bar.

"Good morning," he called out as he approached. He came up to stand next to me and gazed out to sea for a moment before he asked, "What are you using for bait? I've been here for four months now and I seen people on one side of me what was catchin' fish and on the other side too. And me, I ain't catchin' nothing."

Somehow, he had overlooked the fact that I had no fishing pole. I looked at him, then looked at the board by our feet, then back at him, and said, "Sorry. I do my fishing at Safeway." That cracked him up. He gave out with a laugh and a snaggle grin before he tuned to go. "Safeway, heh heh," he chuckled, as he walked away.

Westport looked close enough to touch. But not quite.