Halloween Scare-O-Paddle

Halloween Scare-O-Paddle

Paddling at night can be an unworldly experience. Paddling on Halloween with a bunch of lit up goblins and monsters can be positively otherworldly.

Julie, the leader and founder of the Kayak Portland Meet-up, is trying to get a tradition going for a “end of the season” group paddle. In this case, “end of the season” is to mark the turn from “Ok to be out in warm clothes” to “Geeze dude, you really need emersion gear to be out”. Halloween happens to be a good time of the year for this occasion, and it doesn't hurt that it is OK to go a little crazy with personal and boat decorations on that day. Well, Night.

This year the Pre-Halloween Saturday night paddle got postponed due to rain and wind and so we re-scheduled for the next weekend (which was November 1). Extra bonus for being the day after Trick O Treating, the Pumpkins are all free at the grocery store! The group event was scheduled to start at 6:00 (right at sunset) and my kayak partner and I got there way early (a first). What did we see? Not only were a bunch of friends cars were already there, but our friends and their Kayaks were already gone. What the? Well, there were other people still showing up and unloading and putting on custumes and such so we were pretty sure we were on time.

And then our friends came up out the water. They did not look like monsters from the lost lagoon. They just looked like tired people in dry suits. They had been up to something. In fact, half of the “senior staff” of the meetup were too tired after their pre-paddle setup activities to go on the actual paddle. So sad. But the rest of us were going, and now we knew that there was something special out there...... waiting.

Turns out we had something special that we had all brought with us. Everyone had gotten into the dress up spirit of the event and had either brought a costume to wear (Bill had a particularly good green nose) or had decked out their boat in lights and spiders and balloons.

My Partner in Adventure Appropriate Gear. 

I don't think I need to fuzz the faces for this posting

Not at all sure what this is..... but I like it.

The battery powered LED lighting technology has improved greatly over the last decade or so. You can get a string of (essentially Christmas) lights that are power off of a few AA's that will burn for hours and hours. You can also get cheap individual “Finger lights” that will burn many hours. My partner used the finger lights that she twist tied to safety lines on her new Valley kayak. They were left over from our Trick or Treat evening. We gave them out to the Princesses and Ninja instead of Candy at our house. My partner said that this was doubly good because not only did we contribute less to the Obesity of American Children, but we had no left overs sitting around at our place to contribute to the obesity of...well.... us. We did have leftover finger lights, however.

My glowing Rear Boat

I had gone on a different line. A few years ago I was experimenting with the perfect portable lighting to carry on camping trips. I had come across these 5 meter strips of LED lights. You can order them from Ebay (or Amazon) for like $10. They are 12 volt strips and I cold plug them into the 12V multi-function car jumper and tire inflator and air mattress inflator that I carry when I go car camping. Instant Decorative campsite lights !! And hey, says here they are waterproof and self adhesive. Now if I just had a waterproof 12V power source. Well, on a different occasion, I was experimenting with built in water pumps to clear the water out of my kayak after flipping over. I had built a power source out of some AA batteries in a 8-battery (12 volt) configuration that I had placed in a waterproof hardbox with a switch on the outside. Hmmmm. The self adhesive lights went right on to the slick surface of my Eddyline journey. Since they were waterproof, I placed them to be just below the waterline. I thought it would look cool if they lit up the water. The power supply goes in it's usual space, hooked to the velcro patch behind my seat. I was a little worried that “waterproof” might not mean what I think it does and that either the lights would pull off the boat (and get tangled on a log and then pull me under) or just refuse to stay lit. But everything sure looked good upside down in my Garage the night before!

My partner was itchy to get out on the water and paddle her new boat (It evidently spontaneously bought itself on Wednesday evening) so I had to hustle some to get out on the water. We had also been put in charge of making sure that no one started up the river ahead of the group. Unclear if this was a “paddle in the dark” safety thing or just a “don't ruin the suprise” thing. Either way, twilight was good and secure by the time that we all grouped up for a safety lecture and the 11 of us brave explorers headed up the Willamette river toward the narrows. Oh, Sorry, I meant to say, Set out on our hazardous journey into the threatening maw of the Haunted Narrows.

It can be fun to paddle at night. Things look different in the dark. Most people have gone home (where things don't eat them) so things are quiet. Misleadingly serene. Off on the east shore of the river, a freight train blows it whistle. Overhead the last of the Geese wing buy looking for a safe haven for the night. The spooks are becoming restless and they peer at you from the darkening shore. The stump monsters stir up from the deeps. They reach their branchy arms up and a kayaker has to be careful to avoid their embrace. You have to be especially careful if you have lit you kayak up like a fraking search light and so ruined you night vision. I had least had enough foresight (earned from a previous boat lighting experience) to only light up the read half of my boat. So I could at least see a little in front of me.

About a mile from the boat landing at West Linn is the islands and waterways that define the Narrows. This is the same place that the club went to a few weeks ago for the Willamette River-keepers cleanup day. In fact, we were going to the same campsite that my team had cleaned up that day. So it was just like that day only raining, cold, dark, and the river was up and the current was flowing. It would have been scary except all of the boats had all of the festive holiday lighting. Then, out of the gloomy water ahead, a light loomed. What was that? Sort sort of floating gremlin trying to attract us with his eiry light? No, it was a special signal jack-o-lantern that had been placed to mark a large raft of logs and growing plants and other debris that had been washed out of the narrows by last weeks heavy rains. Julie said that it had been anchored there and she marked it some people would be careful of the ropes running over to the shore and secure the 40 foot long menace to navigation.

Fairy Lights (by Kerry)

Shortly after that decorate obstacle we came to the side channel that goes up the west side of the islands. Now we see the cool part. Both sides of the channel have been marked, every 100 feet or so with lights and pumpkins. Some one explained to me that they were PAN devices. Pumpkin Aids to Navigation. It was like we had our own port to the fairy world, lit with the magic of our friends hard work.

We paddled up the channel and the increasing current flow. Some boats had a tough time getting up that stream and we all got strung out a bit. This is one of the problems with trying to do something like this for a group event. The age, strength, fitness and boat type of each participant comes into play at about this time. The long boats are easier to paddle then the short boats. The right side of the channel has much less current than the left side. So the more experienced people were up front and waiting at the turn and some others were in the dark moving water wondering if they should turn around and head home. And anytime conditions are a little more unusual like that, there is the greater danger of flipping over and needing a rescue from the cold water. No rescues required tonight though. We all came back together at the cut through to the other side of the island, and we swooshed through to the rocky muddy beach that was all lit with up with those solar powered yard lights.

We did have some challenge there. It was dark and it had just rained and there wasn't enough room for everyone to get out of their boats at the same time. We putted around a little waiting our turns. One person did take a quick plunge (kayaks can be a little unstable right at get in and get out time) but soon enough we were all up on the shore trying to get a campfire lit so we could get warm and roast marshmallows and such. Since I was there a couple of weeks ago for the cleanup, someone had come and dumped a bunch of shipping pallets there on top of a big plastic ground sheet. For firewood? Must have been brought in using a big boat, certainly didn't float there by themselves. Oh well, we will just burn a little of it up. It is really hard to light freshly rained on wood. Luckily I had my little stick stove and the Goblin with the big nose had some white gas. Took a bit but we had a nice little fire.

Ghouls making fires (by Julie)

Spooks by the Fire (by Julie)

Then we all talked halloween. Did you know that there are “Trick Or Treat Destination” towns? Silverton is evidently the place to go around here. A couple of the kayakers live there and said they had over 300 little monsters demanding candy last night. They said that people were bringing kids in “by the pick-up truck full”. These were evidently people “From Salem”. Not sure why that was funny, but most people were chuckling. There were so many little goblins out roaming the streets that traffic through the town (there is really only one road) was stopped by all of the random street crossing. Silverton is a very pretty little place and I think a lot of money has wondered out there. And I guess they invite some of this on themselves by doing a lot of decoration. I had 15 kids at my house in the city. Good thing because I sure didn't have 300 finger lights.

When you paddle (especially in a dry suit) you get warm. When you stop (especially in a occasional light rain) you get cold. So we did some socializing and then it was time to reverse our boat entry process and head back down the river. For the down the river stage we first had to go up the medium strong current through the cut, but after that it was a coast to the cars. Along the way we all fanned out and picked up all of the electric lights and glow-sticks and such that had illuminated our haunted entry. Even that was fun, since it is a little bit of a challenge to snag a light from the shore when you are trying to stay in your boat (in the current).

We want to make this a yearly event. If we get more people, we will need a different destination. Too bad, I really liked that little channel, nestled there between the cliffs and the islands, all alight with pumpkins and christmas lights and glowing ghouls.

PICTURE CREDITS: I took a bunch of pictures from things posted to the Meet-up public site because it is so dang hard to take pictures at night.

Oregon Coast Romantic Rock Hounding

Oregon Coast Romantic Rock Hounding

When things get a bit stressful and life is pushing in on you past your accepted boundaries, it may be time to consider an Emergency Coast Rendezvous (ECR). As one might suspect, ECR requirements tend to soar as the After Work Sun Availability (AWSA) dwindles. This is how my Kayak Partner and I found ourselves on the road to the coast on an early Friday afternoon just around the equinox (autumnal). She had suggested a yurt with kayaks. I had agreed. She had revised to a condo with Kayaks. I had agreed. We ended up in a plush resort with no kayaks. I also agreed. I mean...... you get your own Robe !! And they have a spa!! And there is a rumor of..... wait for it....... Agates!
(Editor's note:  the reservations were a direct result of what happens when life is pushing in on you past your acceptable limits)

(Special Alert for those of my readers that have some off color expectation for blogs that have the word 'Romantic' in the title: “Robe” is all you get. Perhaps later, in my Novel)

Clouds and perhaps threatening rain in Portland. On the Coast? Sun, Sun, Sun!! It is like a weather inversion weekend. You will hear more non-complaining from me on this.

Sun on the Beach (At Fogarty Creek)

There are a lot of places to stay up and down the Oregon Coast. Some are modern establishments, and some are old kitsch 50's style mom and pop joints left over from another age. This weekend we are staying in yet a third type of place, the “old posh golf club resort”. This arose out of logging fortunes and was actually built on an old logging site. The great big tree stump out front has a great big brass plaque celebrating the life of the stump as a WWI fighter plane.

Yes, you guessed it, we are staying at Salishan on the bluff's overlooking Siletz Bay in the south of Lincoln City. Not only is it built up on the hillside, it is sort of built up in the Trees. With the building designed to fit around the majesty of the old growth forest. Well, unless the old growth forest got in the way, then we would have the majesty of an old dead stump in the breezeway. Still, you gotta admire wood.

My first thought upon driving up was noticing the many people out on the putting green in their Resort Robes. “Oh,” I thought, “This must be a custom of the insanely rich to go golfing in their Robes. They certainly seem to be having a great time.” I mentioned how cool I thought Robe Putting was to the front desk clerk and she frowned and hurried off out the back door. When we emerged from the lobby with our room keys the Robe Putters were no longer visible. Perhaps they had moved to the driving range (kayak partner points out that “drinking range” is more likely).

Our room was very nice. Up on the third floor with a view of the upper canopy and a fireplace. There may have been a bed. I will have to consult with my kayak partner about that.

For once I was really glad we did not bring the Kayaks. Lugging those things around takes a lot of work. But that isn't the bad part. The bad part is that once you have gone through all of the work of lugging them you feel obligated to use them. And using them just eats a day. Good exercise, good fun, great adventure, but eats the day. We were looking for something more open ended and relaxing. We went rock hunting.

There are a lot of resources you can get on finding interesting minerals on the Oregon Coast. All of those resources advise that the best time to go is “in the Late Winter or Early Spring after a Storm”. The idea is that you want to get there after the storm surge and rain have washed the top level of sand off of the beach and exposed the underlying rock and newly churned gravel. You also want to get there at low tide and before anyone else gets there and takes all of your good stuff. If you read between the lines here, you will see that the WORST time to go is in the late Summer or Autumn when the sand has washed in and covered the rocks and all of the readily available good stuff has been previously scoured or buried. So the haul we are going to get this weekend is a data point for the Worst Time.

Duly Noted.

We picked out a few beaches up and down the coast from our base of operations and set out on a mission of discovery.

I wanted to make a point here. Have you noticed that I keep referring to the “Oregon Coast” and not “The Beach”? This is a distinction that Oregonians insist on making. I believe this is partially to discourage people from California from showing up on their waterfront but it is also to draw attention to the fact that you don't go to the ocean to go sailing and surfing and swimming and laying in the Sun. Not In Oregon. You go to take long walks in the rain and enjoy the stark and majestic Coast Line. My Son learned this idea one Spring Break when he visited me from Southern California. I asked him what he wanted to do and he said, “Let's go the beach!!”. I figure he wanted to see bikinis and I was new enough to Oregon to entertain that as a sane idea in April. So we packed up the car and headed that way. Going over the coast range on Highway 26 the temperature dropped 20 degrees and it started to snow so hard that we had to detour into the Rest Stop for a while. We built a snowman. First one he had ever made. Spring Break on the Oregon Coast.

I don't know what all this talk about The Beach is about.  I went to The Beach in California a few times.  Once I went to Santa Monica for a training.  The beach was beautiful except for the two feet of trash that lined the entire coastline.  So much trash that I couldn't walk in the sand safely.  So I thought I'd walk in the park on the bluff.  There was a beautiful grassy park running the length of the beach.  Full of homeless people.  Not a few, mind you, but on every bench and on the grass and all over.  Not a very pleasant early morning walk for a woman alone visiting The Beach in California.  This past May I was in Carlsbad, during a heat wave.  We had a beautiful room with an ocean view.  I went to The Beach to play in the ocean.  It was full of people.  I mean, there may have been some sand under them all but who could tell? And they weren't doing anything!  Nothing at all!  Just laying around, looking at their phones, and each other.  I don't even think they knew there was a Huge Ocean right there!  I, of course, went swimming, with maybe six other people who dared to touch the water.  OK, it was warm, I must admit.  And the waves were great. Big, fun waves.  When I'd had enough, I got out and couldn't find my stuff.  Where did I leave my stuff?? There are acres upon acres of people laying on the beach, how am I ever going to find a little towel that is mine?  In Oregon people go to the beach to be out in nature.  We play in the sand, get wet in the water, and the rain, and get sandy and sloshy an walk on rocks and try to stay warm (or just get numb quick, that's my best motto).  And there are rarely any other people there, unless you go to Seaside in July...   

But the weather this weekend was sunny and hot and wonderful. Why..... it was Beach weather!

We had set out pretty early on Friday from Portland. I think we just barely stayed ahead of the wave of traffic toward the shore (not beach). We made such great time that we had some sunlight left to go out and look at some beaches. My MIL had said that she has found some nice agates down at the mouth of Schooner Creek, by Mo's. That was only 10 minutes away and so we head over there. On the way we had to drive along the road that runs on the shore side of Siletz bay. This is a really nice tidal estuary area. The bay is typical of many of the Oregon Coast tidal bays. There is a river that dumps in (usually at the north end) and this seems to create a sand buid up that grows into a barrier spit that defines the bay. If you look on the map and follow down the coast you will see this kind of bay pattern repeated a number of times. This one has some really nice dead logs out in it. It also has some rather fierce tidal changes.

So, we park close to Mo's and then walk out on the beach near the mouth of the bay. We got there as the tide was right at its max flow going out and the water was really roaring along. Much faster than you could swim or kayak. There were seals out on the other side playing in the current. We found some little gravel beds and a few nice but tiny stones. We also had a very nice walk down the beach to The Inn at Spanish Head. We got back near the car just in time to watch a wonderful Sunset.

My Partner took this one.

“You know where the good agates are?” asked my Partner. “Over there on the other side of the channel. On the Spit.

The rocks are always better on the oher side of the impassable stream.

Impassable stream

So, we went back to the Resort and had dinner. The food was great, the service was a little iffy. They like to give you plenty of time and not pressure you. While they were doing that we got bored and went and found the hostess and paid her.

We could walk back to our room along this outdooor corridor. It started out at ground level but then went over a bridge through the trees to the other side of the property where our room was located. Very swank. We sat up in our bed later and planned our attack on the rest of the weekend.

The next morning we ate breakfast at the resort. The service still sucked. My partner used to run a place like this and she said it is very hard to get trained waiting staff outside of a big city. Instead of getting the professional waiters, you get the kids that didin't get out of town and go to college.

Oh well, Time to go.

First we headed south, through Depot Bay (Whale watching capitol of the world. Home of the worlds smallest Harbor) to Beaverly Beach State Park that had beach access that was listed as a good spot to rock hound. We found a few pretty stones, but no agates. Next we tried a creek (Fogarty) on the way home. Some interesting gravel beds, some red jasper.

Beaverly

Funny ways to Die at The Coast

We moved on. I wanted to hunt for stones at “Roads End” so headed out there. Roads End is, as one might surmise, the end of the road. I am guessing that at one time this was the actual end of the paved road as it was hard to get around the Cascade Head headland that starts up just north. Perhaps you had to go inland a ways and that was just the end of the beach road (sorry, The Coast Road). Hell, it is still that. Sort of a cool place, you drive out past the Road's End park down a row of cute little beach houses. (Most of these places are for rent, which is yet another way to stay on the beach. We picked a couple out that we might want to try in the future.) Eventually we came to a little 3 car beach parking lot and we set off from there. We picked this weekend as a matter of anti-stress need, we really lucked out with the Sun and More Sun, but the tides were not in our favor. The place we really wanted to get to, which is beyond the end of the beach north of Roads End, is really only accessible during low tide. So, when the tide is low, you can get out around the rocky point into the agate infested beach and cove on the other side. But if you get trapped there by the rising waters you die a horrible death which is filmed by people at the top of the cliffs and posted to You Tube. (or, as happened last week, rescued by helicopter. I will see if I can find that video). However, we were spared that fate by the fact that low tide wasn't going to be until after sunset. Not very easy to hunt Agates in the dark, you know.

These are Rocks embedded in solid (once Molten?) rock

However, we did have a really nice walk down a beautiful beach. The tide was (at least) going out, so we did have a chance to get some of the first occasional stones on the sand. Some of them were very pretty (nice grain) and others were even agates. We went as far north as we could and then started back toward our car (we were getting a bit peckish). Then in the waves ahead, we saw this guy. He was, well, perhaps fishing? He was struggling mightily to do something and he was concentrating on something out in the waves in front of him. Cold waves that were lapping up to his waist but not stopping him from his work... what was that? Something in the water. We were getting closer. There WAS something in the water. It was a dolphin!! NO..... a fish of some........ It is a Mermaid !!

Yes, and he wasn't fishing, he was photographing. He was taking pictures of a Mermaid. We walked closer and took picture of him taking pictures. The mermaid turned out to be a girl in a Mermaid fin and wet suit, but it looked so adorable and fun that we watched for awhile. And then, since it was going to happen whether we participated or not, we stopped and watched the sun set. It was a really great sunset. That was our second one of the weekend.

 

 

We had dinner at 101 Roadhouse. Or maybe not. Let me check a map. No, it was Pier 101. This is a quaint local watering hole containing lots of quaint locals. The place was really hopping when we got there and so we ended up in eating at the bar instead of waiting the 20 minutes for a table. I like eating at the bar (on occasion). The people in the bar are usually happy and talkative, they all know the bartender, and the bartender gives good service. The people watching is good too. We had the very young girl (why didn't she get carded?) out with the older guy with a very big beard. Second Date thinks my partner. I was thinking first date. Hard to see how that beard wouldn't be a deal killer. The older couple next to us was dressed in their Saturday Night out Cowboy gear including matching shirts, hats, and boots. He too had something of a beard, but he was a old guy and looked more refined in it. They were pretty cute. The young woman next to them (and they themselves) had just come back from a psychic reading. The young woman was not very impressed. Didn't think the reader was much of a psychic. She put her hand on my shoulder to ask if she could sit beside me, bought herself a shot of whiskey, conversed with the older couple and then disappeared. I find it strange that a seemingly self possessed young professional woman, buying her own whiskey alone at a bar, would be talking to strangers about her expectations vis e vis psychic readers and their magic abilities. Does that show two ways of looking for a man? (Magic and Bar) Or is that just me projecting my sexist attitudes onto the limited data available. Please insert your own interpretation in the comments below. Also please feel free to insert your own facts including mysterious strangers and zombies.

Oh, we had fish for dinner. It was really good. I recommend the place. You might consider shaving off that beard, though (People will talk).

The next morning the sun rose bright and warm once again. What is gong on here? We can't just let a sunny day on the beach go. We must explore more. And it turns out.....

Salishan, the resort, is also Salishan the Golf Country Club and Salishan the ritzydo House by the Golf Course and Ocean place. As such, they have their own private road that winds around the golf course and beach homes until it finds its way out to the end of the spit across from Lincoln City. This spit is a sandbar thrown up by the ocean and the Siletz River and is what creates Siletz Bay. This is the very spit that my partner said the good agates would be found on earlier is this very blog! You need a card key to get through the gate off of the highway. We had one from the Resort that they told us it would work until Noon.

But first we had to pack our stuff and get out to the car. So I am carrying my bag down the stairs to the parking lot and I hear a something hit the roof on the landing above me. What was that. There it happened again. Sounded just like a golf ball hitting the roof. There was another one. What is going on? You know what it is..... this place is so swanky that it has a putting green or perhaps a chipping practice area in their top level rooms. How cool is that? Then I think about it and realize what a silly idea that is. So what is making that noise? Is the sky falling? I get in a positiion where I can see up to the roof and I see a pine cone rolling off the roof and falling to the ground. What? Then I see one fall from a branch. And another one falls. Then I see the squirrel. He is up going along the branch and cutting off one pincone after the next and dumping them onto the roof. Proabably for winter. Sneaky little bugger. He notices me watching him and starts yelling at me. Yeah, Yeah, I am going. Geeze.

We went through the gate, drove a ways, parked at the end of the road and walked the 100 yards across the dunes to the shore. There were a few people walking out there. But not many. It is, essentially, a private access beach. Keeps out the riff raff.

We were directed by a fisherman with a popeye corn cob pipe (perhaps not all of the riff raff) to a little bed of gravel. This was in the sand a few hundred feet south of the parking lot. The gravel was pea to lima bean size and was just below the high tide mark. The tide was making so we had a few hours. (Editor's Note:  The tide was flood, which means coming in.  I can't find anything online about a "making tide" except the title of a fiction book)  Turned out the gravel was full of little agates and it was a little wet still so it wasn't too hard to find them. We ended up laying down in the rocks and digging through the stones and filling up our pockets with treasure. Such fun. Nothing big. Nothing too exotic. But lots of little very round orange and yellow agates.

There Be Agates, ARRRRRRRR

Seals on the Beach.

When we got tired of that we walked out to the end of the spit to see the seals. They were just lazing around. At this point we were across the mouth of the bay from the place we went walking on Friday evening. This time the tide was coming in and the current was not quite as daunting as it had been the other evening. But still, it didn't really look like ideal Kayak Portland Meetup type conditions. I was thinking that we might like to host a KP event out here some time, but I need to figure out good take-in and tide conditions before I do that.

We found a few more agates. We went back to the car.

Then we headed North. Our plan is to have a nice lunch at a place we like and then continue up the coast to 100 Stair Beach and have one final shot at rock hunting before we admit the end of the weekend and start home.

Our wonderful lunch place was right off the road in Nescowin. The Hawk Creek Cafe. It is a very nice little place. We sat on the patio in the last sun of the season and had yummy sandwiches and great service. Go there. Tell them Jon sent you. That always gets a laugh.

I think I want to end this here. I am rambling and it is getting late. And we didn't find any agates at the next place anyway......

Well, 100 stair beach is always scenic

I think that is an agate still in the rock. Left it on the beach for another century or so

Great Willamette Cleanup, 2014.

Great Willamette Cleanup, 2014.

One of the last wonderful sunny weekends of the year. And a Saturday, to boot. Should I sleep in til 7:00 and then sit around with my partner having our weekend coffee and banter? No, clearly I should get up at 6:00, jump into my pre-loaded car in the dark and scurry off to pick up trash with my Kayaking meetup.

Thats right, pick up trash. Because it is once again time for the annual Great Willamette Cleanup. This is my third time for this event. It is run by the Willamette Riverkeepers organization. They stage little local events down 187 miles of the river. Some are land based, some are BYOB (Bring your own boat). But all of them have Riverkeeper support and someone will show up with trash bags and plastic gloves and coordination from local government for proper removal of whatever it is that you pull out of the river. And there are some pretty strange things that are pulled out. More on that later. Today we have this absolutely wonderful morning to do something about. The Meetup is …... well..... meeting up, at 8:00 at Willamette park in West Linn (not the one in Portland, no no). This time of year, this means that the sun is just clearing the trees when I go onto the 205 curves that lead from the 5 to the river at West Linn/Oregon City. Good thing I saw that line of sunlight on the road ahead and had my sun glasses and car visor ready cause that old sun was BRIGHT. I expected to see cars swerving off the road in front of me when the hit the line. No such luck. Perhaps next year.

I arrived a little early and got a prime parking spot at the boat ramp. Even then a few cars with kayaks on top were already parked and getting ready to unload. I walked down to the ramp and took a look at the morning. That warm looking yellow morning tinge was on the trees (some with a little fall color) and the river was calm and steaming. A few fisherman were out trolling for salmon and across the river a freight train was making itself known with a loud click a clack and whistle. Wow. What a wonderful morning. I suddenly didn't feel bad about having to get up at 6:00. Better get my boat in the water.

My partner couldn't make it today (don't worry, she is relatively safe back at home and will join us again in a future adventure) so I had the job of unloading my boat by myself. My partner and I have talked some about this whole loading and racking and self reliance thing and we are going to author a joint posting on that topic. Our readership base demands such things, you know. Where was I? Oh yes, unloading my boat. To facilitate the solo thing I brought my short light high tech material boat, an Eddyline Journey (which I call “Journey”). Haven't had the old girl out on the water in a while, but since she is 10 to 20 pounds lighter than a Tempest I can sling her on and off the car (and the water) by myself. Makes me look very impressive and it is highly likely that I will still be able to walk the next day. In retrospect, I would also say that a shorter boat is better for a clean-up day. Easier to get in and out of the boat (because the short boats usually have larger cockpit openings) and easier to maneuver into tight places.

Ooooh. They have the new Origami Kayaks from Oru Kayak.

While people are pulling up and getting all of their kayaking paraphenalia together I think we might want to ask the question, “Why the Great Willamette Cleanup?” The Willamette is a unique river in a few fun ways. It is the longest river in North America, for instance, that flows North. Of course, if you try to name another big river that flows north you are going to be hard put. (The Nile doesn't count as that isn't in North America. Really).

Back at the end of the last ice age (10,000 years or so ago) the Missoula Lake would break it's ice dam and drain a lake the size of the state of Montana down the Columbia river.  The water is said to have flowed 80 miles per hour!  This process happened a bunch of times.  The place where the Columbia and Willamette met would get clogged and the flow would back up into the Willamette Valley, making a new lake that was 400 feet deep and reached from Portland to Salem (call it a hundred miles). Into this lake would float pieces of that ice damn. Ice Bergs, really, and these ice bergs would have huge pieces of Montana rock encased in them. When the ice melted, they would drop these chunks of the midwest right into the flat mud of the receding lake.  And there they stay to this day. You can find them around the valley, they are called Glacial Erratics. (Not to be confused with Glacial Erotics, which is a different blog entirely)

Erratic State Park

The Willamette was also the terminus of the Oregon Trail. And it seems that as soon as the Oregon settlers got to the river they started throwing things into it. This seems like a bad idea as the river was also the water supply for the inhabitants of the area. In Oregon City, where the Oregon Trail ends, is also the Falls of the Willamette. This 40 foot falls was impassable to shipping and neatly cut the river into 2 different waterways (well, at least as far as white settler's barges were concerned). But the falls did make for a neat way to generate power, initially as motive power for running the paper mills that sprang up there, but eventually for electric power for running the lights and the various electric train and tram ways that were growing up in the city. All of this industry attracted people, and both the industry and the people were dumping their waste directly into the river. By the 1920's the river was essentially an open sewer and the City Club of Portland condemned it as such naming the city of Portland as the chief offender. Though the State passed clean-up initiatives and various governors tried to crack down on major commercial polluters, things continued to get worse. In 1990, the lower part of the River, below the falls, was named a super site.

Before the worst of it.

In the 50's

And all of this was just the big guys polluting. At the same time people were being people and practicing the age old habit of pretending that something wasn't there if you couldn't see it. Want to get rid of that tin can? Or that shoe? Or that old car or bail of barbwire? Just throw it in the river !!

Now the factories have been largely shut down and cleaned up. The Lower River, through the city, is now considered safe enough to swim and play in. But those shoes and cars and bails of barbwire are still in there and just need to be pulled out.

And so, here we are. Our boats unloaded and ready to venture out a cleaning.

First, Suze, the river biologist for the River Keepers (Sorry if I got that wrong) had us fill out the legal paperwork and gave us a safety and process talk. (You know what to be careful of on the Rock Islands in the Narrows? Of course I know. Poison Oak !!). Then we grabbed some big trash bags and our kayaks and set off up river.

oh good. Some Canoes. They can haul the heavy stuff and the dead bodies.

You may have already figured out that we are cleaning from the Willamette park in West Linn (right at the mouth of the Tualatin River) up stream to the Rock Islands that form The Narrows. The Meetup goes that way pretty often as it is close to town and very scenic. Today we are looking for a different kind of scenery.

Everyone is spaced out pretty far from each other, some people are powering toward the Narrows (“there's good trash huntin' in those islands”) others are poking in all along the way grabbing random trash on the shore (the trick is to wrangle it with your paddle so you don't have to get out of your kayak). I saw this one funny thing. Looked like a net hung between some green metal posts. The posts were exactly spaced and the netting (not really visible) tied up on the shore side. I waved people away, “looks like some kind of scientific experiment someone is doing on the River” I said, using my vast engineering knowledge.

Hey, Stay away from that SCIENCE EXPERIMENT !!

Our River Biologist was less sanguine. “Looks like an upside down pop-up gazebo to me”.

I looked closer.

Dammit. That is exactly what it was. No wonder those 4 legs were so precisely spaced. Must have blown out of someones yard. It wasn't even all that “involved” in the river. Came right up when we pulled on it. Must have gone in this summer. But you know what? It is hard to pull a large (even light) thing out of the water when you are in kayaks. You just can't get a purchase anywhere except right from the middle of your boat, and even then there is this tendency to flip the hell over. We got one corner up and then started to undo the cloth top. What did we find? It was a dang Oregon Ducks Canopy. Probably came out of the yard of the million dollar house right behind us. We were tempted to just pull it over and drop it on their half million dollar dock.

It would have looked like this set up in their yard:

Well, perhaps some grass would have been there.

We got the cover off, but we still couldn't manage the thing. We couldn't get it to collapse. We thought it was broken or stuck open cause we pushed and nothing moved. If we were on land, we may have gotten one person on each corner and pushed, but you really can't push like that in a bunch of small boats. We did finally mange to get one foot of the thing into 4 different boats. Now what?

Yes, I blurred the faces some. How do we move this thing?

Well, since it wouldn't collapse we just paddled it the half mile back to the dumpster. Slow and easy. We were not exactly a nimble combination craft. But we did manage to get back in 20 minutes or so and only got minimal abuse from the local fishermen trolling by in their big boats. This entire thing had turned into more of a team building exercise amongst strangers that any real trash collecting. Good thing the rest of the club was out hitting the narrows for us. Once we delivered our haul to the collection point we hit the river again.

We followed along in the wake left by the rest of the group. We took the West channel up around the rock islands. Our biologist explained that this channel was fairly unique. It had deep slow running water and a place for fish and other animals to hide in the shade and away from predators (and fishermen). It was steep too, on both sides (especially the land side) with rock facing coming up 20 feet out of the water. Most of the islands and the big hill going up to the main road are now owned by the Nature Conservancy. They are doing some work on the hill for preservation. The islands are habitat for a number of species unusual to the area, including Madrone trees and some rock growing succulents. Also Poison Oak.

We landed in a little bay and went through the woods to the little campground on the island to pick up trash. Or rather the rest of the team did this. As the token big strong male, I saw the Poison Oak and bailed back out to the safety of my Kayak. Perhaps it is a phobia when you are faced with the possibility of going through the stuff and you suddenly feel the desperate need for a Tums.

See the Green Stuff? That is Poison Oak. Or perhaps Poison Ivy.

Sigh.

I went around through the connecting channel and met up with them on the other side. Turned out there was a perfectly serviceable Poison-Oak-free beach on the river side of the islands. Not much trash there, however. The rest of the group must have beat us to it.

The cliffs on the rock islands are high.

The undeveloped campsite.

 

And time is getting late, so back to the dock we went. We got to see some of the other trash that people have pulled in. The main big things our group got were the pop-up canopy (which folded right down once I saw the damn release catches) and a set of car tires. I also got a half a beer can.

Damn Thing folded right up. Not so impressive now

Not quite as impressive as the things I have seen in past years, pulled out of the river by groups down below the falls and in the really populated parts of the river.

Things like:

1. Large steal plumbing pipes
2. Railroad Spikes
3. Bicycle Tires
4. Bicycles
5. Fridge (OK, we couldn't get this, but we could see it down there)
6. Many Newspaper Dispensers
   1. You know, the kind where you put in a dollar and take just one paper, cause you are honest.
   2. But someone wasn't honest.
   3. Someone went around stole a bunch of them, took out the quarters and then threw them off of the bridge. And there they were.
7. Bail of Barb Wire (ha. You thought I had made that up, didn't you?)
8. Door
9. Tires
10. Plastic Bottles
11. Paint Cans
12. And lost of random pieces of styrofoam

Check out the Riverkeepers website. They should have some good pictures. Oh what the hell, here is a link. If you want to do something like this, it happens every year. You can sign up for water based or land based work and afterwards you get a nice T-shirt and a big party back at the Portland Boathouse. You also get to do something for your community. Hell, for your grandkids community.