Newest Portland Bridge Paddle
It is a very curious and enlightening
experience to view a city from low on the river. You get to see the
buildings and bridges from a different perspective. Why, just the
light off the water adds that little addition of dazzle and beauty
that enhances the everyday urban adventure. Today I am paddling with
a group from my meetup (my partner has softball games) and we are
starting at one of our usual put-in areas at the Sellwood park and
then heading down into the city.
It was a bit cold and dark when we
started at 11:00. Very overcast. Many of my fellow kayakers had put
on their drysuits for the winter. I wasn't quite mentally prepared to
make that step yet, so I just put on my farmer john wetsuit. Yes, I
have both. I like gear. And it is important to explore the
differences cause you just never know.... The wetsuit is a
neoprene rubber one piece. Pants and farmer john top integrated into
one unit. Mine zips up the front. There are also zippers on the
bottoms of the legs to make them easier to put on, especially if you
are wearing shoes. I usually wear my 10 toes when it is still warm
enough for a wetsuit. Today I had a Columbia tech thermal on under
the wetsuit and a nice fleece on over top. But it was just warm
enough that I put the fleece into my bow compartment before we
launched out onto the water. This turned out to be a great decision
as the sun came out half an hour later and it turned into a glorious
day. It actually turned into the first day of a glorious week or so,
but let's not get ahead of ourselves.
We had a good group turnout, 10 or so
of my fellow Kayak Portlanders headed down the Willamette in good
spirits. We did the usual Ross Island Traverse in the East channel
and ended up eating lunch on Agate
Point (so named by ME). It was an usually good Agate hunting day.
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| River is low. A month ago we paddled through there |
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| Some boat racers out practicing. |
I was combing through the little round rocks out at the point, finding lots of little agates, when one of the club members walks over. He says, “Hey, I was just reading a blog about how great this place was for finding agates. Did you read that Blog?” Then he bends down and picks up a huge agate right at my feet, “Wow, Guess that blog was right. You should read it sometime.”
You would have been proud of me, I
didn't kill him or nothing.
At this point I started to admire the
newest bridge that is going up in Portland. You can see it just past
the Ross Island Bridge from Agate Point. If you are a Portlander, you
know that Portland is the “City of Bridges”. You can see that
quite clearly as you paddle down the river. Parts of the city are on
either side of the Willamette and there are numerous bridges from
various eras that stretch across the water connecting up the sides.
There are Train Bridges, Car Bridges, Interstate Bridges, and now,
the first new bridge in many a long year, is going to be a beautiful
light rail and pedestrian bridge. It is also going to be the first
suspension bridge across the Willamette.
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| A view of Bob from under the Ross Island Bridge |
This new bridge from Portland to
Milwaukee (Not to be confused with the City that made beer famous)
doesn't have a name quite yet, but I have submitted my recommendation
and since it is clearly going to be the winner, I have decided to go
ahead and be the first international publication to call the bridge
by it's new official name, “Bob”.
Bob is pretty cool. It is being
constructed from 4 points at the same time. Of course it is starting
on both shores, with anchor points and on-ramps and such, but it is
also being built from the towers out in the river, with the
supporting cables being used to build out in a balanced manner toward
the shore and toward the other tower. It is going to be so cool on
the day that it meets in the middle. I would love to be out in kayak
on the water on that day. As is, I have some great shots of the
bridge from underneath.
With the completion of Bob, there will
be a complete circuit of the greater downtown area by the Portland
Street car. Currently the street car crosses the river down by the
convention center and then goes up toward OMSI. When the new bridge
and light rail tracks are completed you will be able to ride the
circle past OMSI and back over into town near the OHSU cable car
lower hub. It will also have 2 14 foot wide paths for pedestrians and
cyclists. You won't be able to drive your car over, but they will be
able to drive emergency vehicles across. So perhaps you can arrange
some sort of bizarre bicycle accident on one side during a major
traffic jam on all other bridges and get to ride across in an
Ambulance !!
I like the clean looking construction
of the concrete and cable lines. It appeals to my engineering
sensibilities.
Bob will be complete in September of
2015. Quick check the date. I need to get a bicycle before that so
that I can peddle over it.
Today we float under Bob, taking
pictures and commenting on the architecture. We are headed yet
further down river.
Just past Bob, we do a little stop and
group photo op in front of the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry
(OMSI) at the cool pre-nuclear attack sub that is parked there. The
Blueback was one of the LAST non-nuclear fast attack subs and the
first class to use the torpedo shaped hull. It was also in the movie,
“The Hunt for Red October” (that sub breaching scene). It is
always good to get your picture taken along side a movie star. Hey,
if you like, you can take a nice tour inside of the Blueback (which
I, affectionately, call “Bob”). Get your tickets at OMSI.
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| A Great shot of the two Bobs |
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| Cool as a Sub |
Just down stream from OMSI is the
hulking expanse of the Marquam Bridge. This is the Steel and Concrete
monstrosity that carries I-5 over the river. It isn't even beautiful
from underneath. When you are driving over it, however, you do get a
good view of the two Bobs.
Now we paddle past the Portland
Boathouse, home to many a crew team and rich local rower as well as
the downtown site for Alder Creek Kayak. My Partner and I were down
at this dock a couple of weeks ago checking out a demo for the Oru
Kayak. This is a cute little Origami inspired folding kayak. Not
a bad design. We demoed it and paddled it around a little. Very quick
and easy to maneuver. Good secondary stability. Goes up on a edge
pretty nice. I guess I was slopping some water over the side when I
was testing it and freaking out the demo guy. He made my partner wear
a skirt. Silly Demo Guy.
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| Did I already put these in a blog? |
But on this Glorious day, we just
waived at a Dragon Boat crew that was loading up for practice and
continued off down the river. Our final destination was the Hawthorn
Bridge. This is another of the historic bridges in Portland. It is a
drawbridge (which many of the older bridges are) and was built
in..... Hey, Wikipedia says it is the oldest vertical life bridge in
the United States!! Cool. (oh, built in 1910). It was actually raised
when we were crossing the river underneath of it to allow the
Portland Spirit to pass through. Not sure what other large boat
traffic would ever have to go up the Willamette past the Hawthorn.
There used to be piers and shipping up where Bob is being built, but
all that is there now is a slip for making river barges and some old
wooden piers. Perhaps the tugs that would take a new river barge down
to the Columbia would need the bridge raised.
I have been out on this part of theWillamette in November (just looking from the shore, mind you) when the
current is running much faster than a person could swim. In fact, I
thought it might be moving faster than I could kayak, and I wouldn't
go out in it. Today, though, there was pretty much no current at all.
Total slack. I know (from our time on Agate Point beach at lunch)
that the tide was coming in. Perhaps that was counteracting the river
current and making for essentially slack water. Sure made it an easy
paddle back up river.
This time we paddled on the West bank,
retracing our steps past the Marquam, Bob, Ross, and so on back to
our cars. The sun shining all the way.
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