Goin' back to Cali

I'm home again now. The road voyage with the boy went well, but it all seems a little blurry in my memory already. It was a busy time.

The slide presentation in Portland was outstanding, a great turn-out and enthusiastic people. (I'll be doing another presentation in the Rose City in March at the OOPS meeting. Check here for more info.) From there, it was south and into California. Another show in Redding and a third in Rocklin went well.

As I drove, I couldn't help but look out on the scenes flying by my window. California is where I am from, after all, a place that I still think of as my home. I've lived in Washington for so long that I sometimes wonder if I've forgotten some of what it is to be a Californian, but I know that it's all still there, inside.

On I-5, in the slow lane not far south of Arbuckle, I am passed by at least ten cars in a row, each of them piloted by one person, and all of the drivers with cell phones to their ears.

There are parts of California where it seems that other drivers are personally offended if you happen to be in front of them. The fact that you would have the nerve to be in front of them, it's something they can't live with.

I saw a weathered school bus in the middle of a plowed field. At one time, it had been painted in day-glo swatches of green, yellow and pink, but the accumulation of the years had rendered the colors less garish, and it looked like it had been there a long time. There has to be a story here.

Inmates on a county work crew walked along the shoulder, followed by a couple of deputies in a van. I have an image of the snow-covered cone of Mount Shasta in the distance, and in the foreground, a dozen men in orange jumpsuits with plastic bags in their hands, working off their societal debts.

In the fields near Gilroy, workers were making their way along the lines of plants. Their old cars, dusty and worn Impalas and Chevettes, lined the roads nearby. The air was heavy with the smell of Garlic.

Salinas. John Muir lived here. So did John Steinbeck.

Back in Santa Barbara, at the home of my parents, for Thanksgiving. They dote on their grandson, and he loves it all. I am able to go surfing on the SUP just once, but it is an experience worth every bit of the drive. Point break - small waves - but still, waves that wrapped perfectly around the point, with long rides and easy grooves. There were about a dozen others out there at Ledbetter Point with me, all of them on SUPs.

A marathon drive home, but good to be here. I'm looking forward to the next month.

Road trip

Sometimes it's good just to take a drive. Last Friday, I made the trip from Tacoma to Westport to go surfing with a friend. The surfing ended up not being all that inspiring; the drive was better.

The highway between Olympia and Aberdeen wound through brackle fields and trees that were already bare. There was very little of the fall color that is still on the hills and along the roads everywhere else around here. There were some spots, in the hollows and the glens, where the leaves still clung desperately to their branches, but even here they looked tired and worn, and it was easy to see they wouldn't last much longer. It's most likely the wind that comes through this area, that's probably what stripped the trees so quickly.

The Satsop River was running high as I crossed it. High and brown, the swiftly flowing mud-water scoured the banks as it rushed toward the Chehalis and the sea. It had been raining most of the week and river levels were high all over western Washington. It didn't look like rain that morning, however. High clouds obscured the sun, but there were streaks of blue along the southern horizon, a good omen.

Through Aberdeen, with its tired, hard streets and then the straight shot to Westport, following the southern curve of Gray's Harbor. Over the John's River, with its mountains of oyster shells and acres of mud. By 10:30, we were in the parking lot at Westhaven State Park, gearing up to get on the water.

The sight of that beach stretching south toward Willapa and the Long Beach Peninsula, just that first snapshot, that alone was worth the trip. (Which is a good thing, because the waves were big and quite powerful; our surf session was brutal and short.) And the drive too, that was time well spent.

I'm heading out on another long drive soon. Me and the boy are going to California, to visit his grandparents for Thanksgiving. I've got a few slide shows to do as we make our way south and we're planning on taking it easy, but it's still a big drive. A long way. I am sure it will be an experience to remember. We'll be gone through the end of the month - I'll write more when December comes.

First to flood

It's been raining on and off (mostly on), for the past week and all that water falling from the sky has effects here on the ground. Some are good - my lawn is green again - but some are not so desirable, like those along the Skokomish River.

First to flood and the last to clear: that's the reality of the lower Skokomish. Two dams on the north fork have controlled flooding to some extent, but because the water they are holding behind their concrete plugs is not sent downstream, the river bed has been adding silt at a rate that it cannot discharge. The river bottom is, in some places, up to three feet higher than it used to be. (For an excellent overview of the state of the river and the effects of the dams and area logging practices, check out "Flooded by greed.")

The rain has fallen here for centuries. The area gets less rain than some places on the peninsula, but significantly more than what falls in Seattle. The fate of the Skokomish and the adverse effects that have come to define the Skokomish delta - reduction in salmon habitat, increase in water temperatures - are results of human activity that was not well thought out, and perhaps downright malicious.

Kennedy Creek

There are five species of salmon that call the Northwest home: chinoook, coho, sockeye, pink and chum. Most of these species are in decline – some of them at historically low levels – and it's hard to be optimistic about their long-term chances. One of them, however, the chum, is actually doing quite well, due to a unique set of circumstances that the other species don't enjoy.

Chum salmon, once they hatch and wriggle free of the gravel bed in which they were born, leave for salt water in very short order. Many other species, such as coho and Chinook, can spend a year or more in their natal streams, which leaves them vulnerable to all sorts of environmental stresses. Chums can spawn in seasonal creeks, which gives them a wider range; since they spawn in late fall and early winter, the next generation can be well out to sea before their streams dry up in the warmer months.

This adaptation means that chum are the most plentiful of the anadramous fish that return to Northwest rivers and streams, and there are some researchers who think that the runs are at historic highs. A contrast to the sad shape in which other salmon runs find themselves. Close to 500,000 chum are expected to return to local waters this winter. On a good year, up to a million make the trip.

Kennedy Creek, at the head of Totten Inlet in southern Puget Sound, is one of the most productive chum runs in the state. During the ten-year period between 1992 and 2001, more than 40,000 spawning fish came back here for their final wild ride. It's a short run of a creek, just a little over two miles from salt water to an impassable falls, so all these fish are concentrated in a relatively small stretch of water.

Falling back

Now is not the time for bold adventure. For wild runs in the country and high country quests, this is poor timing. Now is most certainly not the time to spring forward.

Instead we fall back. Regroup. Hunker down somewhere safe, where it's warm and dry and comfortable. It's always been this way.

The Return of the native

"Salmon are heading up the Satsop and Wynoochee"

That was the headline in a story in the local paper this past week. I am not a fisherman - not often anyway - but I look forward to the return of the salmon as much as any angler. And the Satsop is one of my favorite rivers.

I have paddled down river and watched the big fish swim against the flow. In the shallows along shore, working their way from pool to eddy, holding their positions in the water with rhythmic flicks of their tails, getting up the strength for the next lunge toward their destinies. By the time they get to the upper Satsop, many of them have been away from salt water for weeks. Their skin is molting away and their jaws have changed, teeth have grown more pronounced. The vibrant coloring they have always had is gone.

The Satsop was the first river I ever canoed in Washington. It is not a technical river from a canoeing standpoint, at least where I usually go. There are some rapids, but not many. But it's a strong, steady flow and an easy shuttle... ideal for any canoeist. Like the salmon, it is a place that draws me back from time to time; the fish just keep a more rigid schedule than I do.

It feels like the time is coming around again.