Going, going, gone

I've been watching a web site for the past week or so that shows the ongoing deconstruction of the dams on the Elwha River. The hope is that, once these obsolete and ill-conceived dams are out of the way, the river can return to its former glory, and that the salmon will return as well. The Elwha was, at one time, possibly the most productive salmon river between the Columbia and the Mackenzie, before the dams put a decisive end to that.

And now the dams are falling, albeit slowly and in a most controlled manner. I am looking forward to seeing the river running through here again, although it will take some time before the area really looks normal. And, I don't know how else to say it, but there's a part of me that will miss the lakes.

The road up to Whiskey Bend will not seem the same, at least that part at the beginning where it followed the Lake Mills shoreline, where the sun reflecting off the water seemed like hanging gold. And the overlook from the start of the Hot Springs trail, with the lake nestled in the valley below like a rare cerulean jewel in a priceless setting of green. That was damn pretty. And then there's Lake Aldwell, a little further downstream. That will be gone too. There will be no more family canoe trips - like this one - and I know I can't be the only one who will miss those.

I still say it's a good thing, these dams coming down. And maybe I'm just showing my age when I feel a sense of the bittersweet... that's what happens when memories and realities collide, something the young folks don't have to worry about.

Smith Island

I've been thinking lately about Smith Island. It's one of those places that even long-time residents of western Washington probably don't know much about, if they've even heard of it at all.

Smith Island is located near the eastern end of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, about 6 miles off the west side of Whibey Island. The photo above is from 1949 and it's my understanding that most of the buildings pictured are no longer there. I remember seeing a photo of the lighthouse once, taken back in the late 1990's, that showed it teetering on the edge of the fast-eroding cliff, much of the land where it once stood having already disappeared from under it. (I have looked on the web but I can't seem to find it again.)

The cliff just kept getting closer and closer to the buildings until they couldn't survive anymore - at least, that's how I understand it. It's part of the San Juan Islands National Wildlife Refuge now, so going ashore is no longer permitted. Still, I'd kind of like to see it for myself... I'm thinking that an October kayaking junket might just be in order.

More to follow.

On the margins

I'm working on a short review of the Mowich Lake area for a different website. Going over my notes, trying to pick the right superlatives to describe what is a picturesque and unique location... and I can't shake the idea that, although I'm not being untruthful, exactly, I'm also not telling it like it is. When I say that the Mowich area is stunningly, achingly beautiful, that is undeniably true. But it leaves out the fact that there is so much more out there, more that I have never even seen, that few others have ever seen, that is even more amazing.

And it is all so amazingly fragile.

And meanwhile, out on the Olympic Peninsula, there is a plan afoot to add 37,000 acres (or 37 zillion acres, whatever), to the National Park. Wild rivers that are currently under private control, remote tracts of land that are mostly of interest to hunters and timber rangers... it seems they might be in "danger" of being put into the public domain. Jobs are at stake here - as they always are - and, if some folks are to be believed, the guv'mint is out to git the little guy, as it always seems to be.

I don't know. Nothing. Or next to nothing, anyway. Here's what I do know: we - and when I say "we," I mean us collectively, as American human beings, carbon-based life-forms breathing the same common air - we, need to be very careful about claiming as our own those things we did not produce. Forests, clean rivers, things like that. Things that we not only did not make, but that, if they were to be somehow eliminated, we could not reproduce.

There is an active element of the general population that will always believe they are entitled to trees they did not plant. Entitled to fish that were born running through oceans and streams they never understood, and still don't. Who claim as personal entitlement the very minerals that lie under the ground they live on, as if they had some part in putting them there.

Yeah, this whole scheme may cost jobs, this land reassignment idea out on the far-westerly chunk of the continent. But don't forget, more loggers were put out of work by the invention of the chain saw than by any spotted owl. Jobs aren't the be-all and end-all, far from it. We don't just want jobs; we want lives, and somewhere worthwhile to live them.

Climate change

I wore a rain coat yesterday, first time in a while. It was mostly just to get up the hill, take the boy to school, nothing technical. Still, the fact that the rain is falling, that the temperature is dropping a bit, has me thinking about the weeks and months ahead.

I've got that Rainier climb scheduled, about ten days away now, and the autumn chill, along with the precipitation, doesn't bode well. I guess I knew that this little inconvenience was going to probably come up at some point, but I am remarkably good at denial when I want to be. It just seemed that, since summer was so late in arriving this year, that maybe we were entitled to a late start to the fall as well. Doesn't look like it.

I'm not complaining. This wouldn't be the Evergreen State if we didn't get the rain, after all. If I wanted to live somewhere hot and dry, there are plenty of possible spots. And I'm still here.

Probably will have to get used to the rain coat again for a while though.

Mountain

"Adventure travel seems to imply a far-off destination, but a near-by destination can be scarier, for no place is more frightening than one near home that people you trust have warned you against."

Paul Theroux

Docktoberfest

Citizens for a Healthy Bay is putting on an event down at Dock Street Landing next weekend that involves kayaks, live music, costumes and beer. What could go wrong? The organizers contacted me to do a Stand Up Paddleboard demo and for some reason I said "Yes." (It's not that I'm shy at all, it's just that I don't know what exactly goes into a SUP demo - "Here I am standing up, here I am turning the board..." - sounds pretty pedestrian. I'm sure I'll figure it out by then but I am open to suggestions for things I can demonstrate.

And no, I don't plan on either "Here I am drinking a beer on a SUP," or "Here I am falling in." Other than that, if you've got some ideas, let me know.

For the love of water

Although I've spent hundreds of hours at the Nisqually Delta over the past 20 years, precious few of them have actually been on land. Most of the time I've been kayaking, either on my own or with groups of paying clients, exploring the intricate waterways and the ever-changing shorelines of one of western Washington's greatest marine treasures.

As the years progressed, I began to think that maybe we paddlers were loving the area to death. Every commercial outfitter does trips there (I did, for more than a decade). Every club runs several outings a year through the marshes, and individual paddlers and private groups are thick on the water most of the time. I don't know that there's a problem with this: it just seemed to me that there might be negative effects of so much popularity. I stopped offering guided trips in the waters of the Nisqually Reach a few years back and I haven't gone there more than once or twice on my own since then either.

But I think I'm going today. And, just to make it even more different, I'm not taking a boat or a board with me. I'll be taking Micah, however, and we'll be doing all of our exploring on land. The Nisqually Watershed Festival is today - booths, displays, live music and food - but I am most excited to see the Delta again, from a decidedly different perspective. There have been some big changes there in the past couple of years, with more of the area returned to its natural state and a variety of new viewing platforms. I expect it will be a wonderful land-locked afternoon.

Tolmie Peak lookout

There is something special about a fire lookout. There aren't many of them left - airplanes and satellites do most of the fire-spotting work now - but the ones that remain are monuments to a time that, to me at least, seems simpler, more human, better.

It is no accident that these crow's nests were the domain of poets. People like Gary Snyder, Jack Kerouac, people for whom words were magic... they did their time up there on the crags. And yet it was such a bare-knuckle occupation as well, calling for physical strength and vision unheard of at the lower elevations. Not to mention that your average lookout tender needed to be a level-headed sort, in tune with every mountain echo while maintaining an eagle eye on all 360 degrees.

I envy those men for the time they had. For the hours spent in sweet solitude above the clouds, for their ease of daily living. I'm not being romantic here; I know there were hardships associated with the job. But there are hardships that go with any line of work... and the payoffs from this one must have been monumental.

I hiked up to the Tolmie Peak lookout yesterday, in the northwestern corner of Rainier National Park. And yes, the view was superb.

Only an observation

This is not a rant. Not meant to be, anyway. But here we go:

I've been noticing that kayaking/paddleboarding/racing type events have gotten a whole lot spendier in the past few years. Where it used to be pretty common to sign up for a little club contest or a community race for ten bucks or so, for the chance to win a dry top or a paddle, now that same event will be priced more in the $40-$60 range, still with the same basic gear prizes as it always had. And the gear that's given out as prizes is all donated, same as it ever was, so there's no smoking gun there.

Have permits gotten more expensive? I mean, that much more expensive? Is there a global t-shirt shortage that is serving to drive up prices? Are event organizers pocketing the extra lettuce? I don't know.

I hesitate to bring up actual examples, for a few reasons: I don't have any one specific event in mind or any bone-to-pick on any personal level, so I don't want to give the impression that this non-rant is directed at any particular target. Furthermore, I don't have an answer to the question; there may be legitimate reasons why a particular race or surf contest is entitled to charge an entry fee that is quadruple what it charged just a couple years ago.

Seriously though, has everyone turned pro but me?

Epic

There are, when it comes right down to it, two ways to learn a new skill: you can learn how to do something or you can learn how not to do something.

I went rafting on the Tieton this past weekend, in the hopes of getting some education on how to guide a raft. And I did. The Tieton runs in September only - it's a mere creek the rest of the year - and the water released from Rimrock Lake thunders down the east side of the mountains toward Yakima in one long, continuous froth.

The first run, Marc started out in the guide role, talked me through his decision-making techniques, how to hit a hole, how to slide off an eddy, stuff like that. By the time we'd gone through High Noon and just after the Waffle Wall, we switched seats and he turned over the guide spot to me.

Now, I won't say I'm a natural and I did make a couple errors, but overall I feel like I did a good job. I hit the holes I wanted to hit, I could manuver the raft pretty easily from one bank to the other and I hit the takeout eddy with style. All right, maybe not with so much style. But still, with the coaching I got from Marc, I feel like I understood the process and was able to perform with a respectable level of proficiency.

The second run was a whole different story. This time the guide was someone else (who shall remain unnamed, if you're wondering), and the experience was more of the "how-not-to-do-it" school. Nameless seemed to have something to prove on every hole, apparently believing that real fun occupied a spot that was somewhat to the outside of control and just to the inside of disaster. In retrospect, disaster was just a matter of time.

He took us sideways into a pourover just upstream from High Noon, one of the more problematic rapids on the run, and the raft flipped. At first, it was not a major problem and the other three paddlers got back into the boat, with me trailing, holding onto the chicken line. I was in the process of hoisting myself back in as well when the raft went over another drop and flipped again.

This time the crew was scattered, paddles gone, and Marc and Joy (the other one in our group), were down the river. I had a hold of one end of the raft and Nameless had the other. We were able to get to the side of the river, up to our waists among the flooded branches and devils club. I was upstream, holding the raft against the current, bruised and battered from collisions sustained on the way down. At this point, we were just above High Noon, and I was getting precious little guidance from Nameless who, to my way of thinking, was consistently occupied in making a bad situation worse.

What followed involved tying of knots and cutting of line, long tosses of the throwbag from the other side of the river, and a pendulum ride across to the left bank just above the big stuff. As educations go, it was what you might call "intense."

In the long run, we got it sorted out without loss of life or extremities, but I absorbed all I needed to about how not to guide a raft. I'm looking forward to the next trip with Marc, and I will trust my own judgement about whose boat I'm getting into from here on out.

Lesson learned.

In praise of a lighter load

"We found in the course of our journey the convenience of having disencumbered ourselves, by laying aside whatever we could spare; for it is not to be imagined without experience, how in climbing crags, and treading bogs, and winding through narrow and obstructed passages, a little bulk will hinder, and a little weight will burthen; or how often a man that has pleased himself at home with his own resolution, will, in the hour of darkness and fatigue, be content to leave behind him everything but himself."

Samuel Johnson

A Double-shot of car camping

A month or so back, I took the boy over to the east side of Mount Rainier for a couple nights of car camping. The trip was part of a project I've been working on for visitrainier.com, a review of the campgrounds inside the National Park, and the latest installments have just been posted. So, even though Ohanapecosh is going to be closing next month for the winter and White River only has a few more days before it gets shut down, the info should still be timely when they open again next year.

Tieton memories

The Tieton River runs out of Rimrock Lake. A trickle most of the time, but in September water is released from the dam in enough volume to turn the watercourse into a steady Class III. It's not technically difficult, but there isn't a lot of room for error either. The river resembles a pencil, running straight down the mountain without much thought of eddies.

At least, that's how I remember it. Steady white water, not much time between whoop-de-doos. I've kayaked it (not well, and not lately.) I'm going there again this coming weekend, as a rafter-in-training this time, learning something new.

Traveling without a net

"Abandon your mobile phone, laptop, iPod, and all such links to family, friends and work colleagues. Concentrate on where you are and derive your entertainment from immediate stimuli, the tangible world around you. Increasingly, in hostels and guesthouses one sees 'independent' travelers eagerly settling down in front of computers instead of conversing with fellow travelers. They seem only partially 'abroad,' unable to cut their links with home. Evidently the nanny state - and the concomitant trend among parents to overprotect offspring - has alarmingly diminished the younger generation's self-reliance. And who is to blame for this entrapment in cyberspace? The fussy folk back at base, awaiting the daily (or twice daily) e-mail of reassurance."

Dervla Murphy

Decade

For ten years now, on the weekend after Labor Day, I've had the opportunity to go kayaking with the same group of ladies. (Actually, I missed one of the years and the group has oscillated between 5 and 12 different attendees, but you get the point.)

This past weekend centered around Deception Pass, the waters of Similk Bay and the islands north of La Conner. Mostly kayaking, a little paddleboarding, good eats and a very relaxing vibe. I don't know where we're going next year, I just know that we're going... working on the next ten years.

If you can make it...

I can't make it. I'll be in the Deception Pass area, on a rare paying gig. I wish I could be there though, just for the chance to wear another little pink heart as I watch another installment of what passes for justice here in the US of A.

The hearing is today in Port Angeles. If you can be there, you really should try to make it. I know, I know. I'll be at the next one.

Regrets?

It's that time again. Apparently. Thinking of all the trips I didn't take this year, all the places I didn't go. That Highway 12 trip? Still out there. The Olympic Grand Circle? Aborted, and I'm still second guessing that one. Haven't done much on any of the Olympic river trips, the "Summit-to-the-Sea" gigs that I was so into a year or two back. (Not to say they are dead ideas, just very deep into their respective comatose states.)

Time just moves so fast. I doubt this comes as surprise to anyone out there, but it never seems to gel in my mind, not in any way I've been able to deal with, anyway. I need to live to be at least 300 years old if I'm to have any chance at any of this coming together, that's for sure. (On a side note, I heard on the radio today that, with all the advancements in medical science and life-prolonging technology, the first human to live to be 150 years of age is probably alive today. I sincerely hope it's me.)

All that aside, I'm heading to Deception Pass today for a great weekend on the water. I've done a bunch of trips in and around Mount Rainier, the Olympic Peninsula (although I still need to make it to the Tubal Cain Mine), and all over Puget Sound. Close to home, but that's the way it goes right now.

I like home.

Big Hump

There's a fire burning out on the peninsula. I don't know if that's truly unexpected, given the hot weather we've been having lately and the uncharacteristic lack of rainfall, but the fire is believed to have been man-made. An untended campfire, apparently left to burn out on its own, failed to do so and, poof! There goes a couple hundred acres.

The official response is that the fire will be allowed to burn itself out, ultimately being extinguished once we get a good, soaking rain. Meanwhile, it is expected to grow slowly, in steep terrain, but is unlikely to reach the National Park boundary.

The photo above was taken at about 7,000 feet on Mount Rainier on Monday. The hazy smog along the western skyline is at least half-due to the fire.

Just a reminder to respect fire, a concept we humans have been struggling with since caveman days. We could all learn a lot from the Cub Scouts.

Labor Day

I can hear the thunder of rock fall from somewhere to the west but I never see it. Except once. Clouds of dust and debris hang in the air and huge boulders bounce down the steep terrain and make me glad that I am over here, instead of over there. Mostly though, the visible signs of falling rock are over by the time the sound reaches my ears.

We're climbing up to Camp Muir on a perfect bluebird day. It's Labor Day and the mountain is crowded, very unlike what it will be when we come back here in a month, for our summit bid. Today we're in shorts and t-shirts, light packs and no worries.

Ned is testing his rebuilt achilles tendon, seeing if it is up to the effort of climbing again. After 14 years as a guide on this mountain, he wasn't sure how well it would go. From where I'm standing, he doesn't need to worry much; he's a climbing machine.

Ned's daughter Camille and her boyfriend Brad round out our little group. They are going on the climb next month as well, along with a couple others who aren't with us today. I suppose this qualifies as "training," but it doesn't feel like it to me. It mostly feels like a great day to be alive.

Rainier is a long walk uphill, at least here on the south side. "The autobahn." Just follow the steps of the thousands of others who have come before you this year, follow their tracks in the snow. If you're looking for solitude or alpine challenges, you'll need to look further up the mountain, and probably on a different route. Still, the views are insanely beautiful and conditions couldn't be better.

The hike up to Muir takes us a little over 4 hours. Not overly fast but still respectable. We eat or sandwiches while Ned tells us stories of his many visits to this spot, his home-away-from-home. The bunkhouse and cook shack, stone architecture so perfect and precise, belong to the location and seem to have grown in place, not just built there. They are solid and permanent, at least as permanent as the mountain itself.

At one point, I ask someone to take a picture of Ned and me. As we stand there together, I mention to him that, at that particular moment, it looks like we might be the oldest people there at Camp Muir. He looks at the groups of other climbers and hikers for a few seconds, and concurs. "That's happening a lot more often these days," I say, and we both laugh. A little.

On the hike/slide/tumble back down to Paradise, we cross paths with at least three different guided groups, tramping single-file up the snow slope, purposefully fighting gravity, pressure breathing, rest-stepping. Ned knows all the guides and each of them stops their group for a moment to catch up with his life and ask about what he's doing now. I feel like I've broken into a family reunion that doesn't involve me and I continue on down, chasing Brad and Camille down the hill.

Cloud Camp

Camp Muir, just above the 10,000 foot mark on the south side of Mount Rainier, used to be called "Cloud Camp." It was renamed in honor of John Muir, who spent a couple of nights here during his climb of the mountain back in 1888.

I haven't been here since 1996, almost as long as it's been for Mr. Muir; it feels that way, anyway. I'm overdue.

Making the old man proud

He won't be five years old until January, but he's been telling me for months now that he needs his own paddleboard. As he's gotten bigger - and heavier - I've begun to see things his way.

We found an old windsurfer for free (does anybody even do that windsurfing thing anymore?) and got him out on the water a couple nights back. He's a natural, popping up and paddling off on his own right from the start. He's still a little nervous around the big boat wakes and I give him a tow when the current is strong, but I expect he'll be surfing by next summer.

Pretty sure I couldn't be more proud.

Deception Pass, then and now

I can still remember the first time I took a kayak through Deception Pass. The roar of the current in full flood, the horizon line as I approached the narrow opening, where the water ran downhill so fast that the surface was no longer level, as if I were looking at the flow of a river. Which, of course, is exactly what it was.

It doesn't scare me anymore, but that doesn't mean I don't paddle there without a healthy respect. There's a lot of things going on at Deception Pass during times of maximum flow. It's a good place for humility and attentiveness. It is also a good place to have a lot of fun.

I'll be going up again next week for a trip with a group of ladies I take paddling every year. The weekend after Labor Day, for the past ten years, we've been getting together to kayak somewhere. Last year it was Sucia Island, the year before it was the Oregon Coast. We've stayed in tents, resorts and cabins... this year, they've rented a house just east of Deception Pass, right on the water. Ah, luxury.

I don't expect to transit the Pass at maximum exchange this time; it's not the kind of group that calls for that kind of an experience. As a matter of fact, I might shoot for Canoe Pass at slack water, at least at first. It's such an amazing place and I am looking forward to being back there again.