Columbia River 2002 An 86 mile Trip by Kayak

Paddle Columbia 2004! 85 miles on the Lewis and Clark trail

I'm not going to go into great detail for this event. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves here. We traveled from the 42nd Street boat ramp in Portland, Oregon, just a stones throw from the airport, and ended 20 miles from the Pacific in Skamakawa Washington. Here's just a few pictures and details. This was an awesome trip. Big water, wind, sun, long horizons and miles of beautiful sandy beaches unpopulated except for a few fishermen. See for yourself!

It was 5 days spent in good company with excellent speakers every night documenting the history power and impact of the great river and it's early visitors and inhabitants. Our first night at Sand Island. We had some hard days of travel but the rewards were great in exchange.

Although most of the paddlers were in kayaks , I made this trip for the first time in a canoe with Travis. We used a Wenonah Odyssey laid out in Kevlar (pictured above at a waterfall just above Kalama) and it proved to be the cat's meow in big water. Travis paddling the Odyssea with his father at the end of the trip. We took on a little water on a couple of rough crossings but there is so much margin in this excellent boat I can't help but recommend this boat to anyone venturing out on the big waves of the lower river. This boat is awesome (catch Wenonah on my links page). As you can see from the photo below we didn't skimp on the gear either. In our boat we carried all the extra spray skirts for the kayaks on the trip, a gallon or two of drinking water, extra life jackets, 2 extra kayak paddles, pumps, sponges and their assorted gear, lawn chairs, lunches, maps for everyone and a complete communication center including FRS radios, UHF and weather band, and several cell phones. Then we had our own safety gear, a boat bailer, pump, 5 extra canoe paddles, two types of first aid and several sets of extra clothing.