We started on Vancouver Lake in Vancouver Washington.  This shallow inland lake connects to the Columbia via the Lake River, a long tidal slough.  Lined by house boats in places, Lake River is tranquil enough to cross right through the Ridgefield Wildlife Preserve at the Columbia River confluence.

Sunday May 7, 2002 the lake was smooth as we started out.   We put in our heavily loaded boats and headed out among some excited rowers who were at practice sculling up and down the lake. At the confluence of the lake and its tributary tall stands of cottonwoods supported bald eagles and great blue herons.  Young osprey skipped over the water harassing the skimming swifts and jays.  Good omen abound and we made our way against a strong breeze down Lake River to Sand Island across from the river side town of St. Helens Oregon.  From our camp on a high hill along the river, we set up our tent and collected firewood as fishermen buzzed home on the river.

A late start on Monday got us onto the river among a growing number of fishermen in their buzzing runabouts.  A cool and breezy day developed as we headed on down to Kalama on the Washington side of the river.  Rain showers had us duck under a dock at the Kalama Grain Port.   The weather worsened.   We were hit by repeated squalls.  Hugging the Washington shore, we were exploring Carol Slough when the first tidal effect we were to experience started to build up.  Rollers started to develop in the slough even though we were not in any path current could take.  Checking his GPS, my partner Mark estimated our speed to be over 3 miles per hour without even paddling.  We were on an express train heading for the main channel.  With speed comes stability, so we knuckled under and started to paddle.  Already wet from a day in the weather we decided to head to Rainier across the river, almost a mile and a half away. 

Just as we cleared Carols Island and our bows started into the main river, a huge Honda freighter blasted by.  The swift current, wind driven chop, and 4 foot rollers off the wake of the freighter had our hearts in our throats.  Here was everything negative about a Columbia river trip in one deep water crossing.  Mark reported to me later that even though he was but a boat length behind me, I was frequently lost from his sight.  A brief reprieve occurred as we dropped into the smooth zone inside the “V” of the ship’s wake.  We were so close behind the freighter I could see rust streaks and rivets in her stern plating.  Then we were busy as we caught the secondary set of waves and paddled for all we were worth.  This was “loose hipped” paddling at it’s finest.  The longest mile and a half we would experience for the whole trip.  Here I am wringing out at the dock in Ranier.

Beaten by the weather, our spray skirts soaked through and blisters developing on our hands, we were awful happy to be in paddling jackets and nice warm pogies.  We squished into Rainier and rented a room at the local motel.  

We steamed up the room drying out our gear and wolfed down cheese burgers at a local restaurant.  Never did dry clothes and a heated room feel so good.

            But the next day we rose early and ate breakfast at the same restaurant.  We were back on the water by 8:30 AM and we paddled west now as the river had finished it’s long slow turn to the north.  Breezes freshened by 1:30 PM and we found a suitable camp on the east end of Crims Island, tucked in out of the wind behind a huge berm of river dredgings, forty feet high or more.   We set up a comfortable camp and hiked around the island.  The dredging pile, only a couple of years old, had formed a high grassland with a great view of the river.  It was already becoming habitat for deer and wild birds.  Canada Geese had built a nest right on one of the animal trails, we encountered frequent deer scat but no deer.  We hiked up to an old fishing shack, now hopelessly land locked as the giant pile of sand had moved the water that it used to be near a different way.  Mark, always a beach comber, found a camouflage Gortex  Seattle Sombrero in very nice condition.  Fortunately, it was my size and not his. 

            We drank tea, ate a big dinner, and slept well.

            The next morning brought worsening weather.  Not in the form of wind and rain, which we were getting used to, but in freezing temperatures.   We struck camp and started out around 9 AM.  There was fog in the channel but it was clearing.  We headed down river in a calm to Point Westward where the island channel rejoined the main river.  As we approached, a large ship passed unseen through the fog blowing her fog horn.  In a couple of hours we were in the thick fog , a freezing cold mist that obscured all vision.  We decided a 240 degree  compass heading would get us out of the channel and into shallower waters not used by freighters.  But the waters proved thick with fishing boats and we spent an uneasy hour or so with our ears listening for the telltale buzz of an out board.  We stopped at a fishing camp on an unnamed island for a break.  A pair of beavers moved off the island and watched us from the water.  The fog broke and a beautiful sunny day developed.  We crossed what is usually the windiest parts of the river in a calm and headed along the north side of Puget Island . We popped into a slough there that starts as an opening to a marsh.  We paddled around the marshland grasses into a neighborhood waterway that was a half century old or more.  Every kind of watercraft was moored there, from commercial fishing boats to big expensive sailing ships.  There was an old navy PT boat, a sinking crane, leaking old runabouts, and many rotting pilings.  We popped out of the channel, called Bernie’s Slough on the chart, and headed into Cathlamet for lunch.  

            After a Chinese buffet and a good leg stretching in the town of Cathlamet, we left Cathlamet moorage and plodded through Elochoman slough.  The slough has been piling up silt over the years and can only be navigated in high tide.  As we were still half way through the ebb, we passed through just fine and noticed waves lapping the shores as we headed out to the river channel.  Again the tide had reached its fastest speed in the middle of changing, and the slough was draining us into the main channel like an escalator.  We rode the escalator out into a heavy wind out of the south and Mark and I were split up as we clawed our way into the next slough.  A rip rap levy on our right reflected wind driven waves right back into the current and I hugged the shore without too much difficulty.  Occasionally a partially submerged log threatened to hammer me between waves, but I was aware of the sunken hazards after the first one nearly took me out.  I dodged 2 others but I lost sight of Mark as he stayed in the main channel in the roughest, and fastest, water.  Later he said that this was even rougher than our earlier crossing to Rainier but I was not at all that beat up hugging the shore.  We followed the slough down to Skamakawa creek, then up the small tidal stream to the Skamakawa Paddle Center .  We put our boats up on the paddle center dock and rejoiced in hot coffee and CNN on a tiny TV in the Paddle Center Cafe.

            After a couple hours of chat, the wind died down, the tide eased up, and we dropped our boats in and paddled around the point to the Skamakawa Vista Campground.  We set up camp and again ate well.  But we were troubled by the even fiercer wind as we got ready for bed that night.  We agreed to see what the next day would bring and make no commitment on our destination before we went to sleep.

            We awoke again the next morning to winds in excess of 10 knots and building.  It was Thursday; by kayak a one-day trip from Astoria or a 3-day travel down the Washington side of the river, to Ilwaco.  We debated ending the trip with our good luck intact or extending it another day to Astoria.  With a strong headwind our plans to end in Ilwaco were now out of reach in the time we had left.  We checked the local weather and found it to be worsening. 

            So rather than take a risk, or push time against increasing odds we called it quits that morning on the beach in Skamakawa.  We could have stayed and paddled around the islands there, we could have gone back to Cathlamet to buy steaks and bar-b-qued that night to see what nature might bring. We could have hung around hoping for better weather, but we called it quits .  Sometimes in the course of paddling, the river, the ocean, the weather, or the lake, wins.   Like a climber who gets hit by a storm, or a backpacker who finds the trail washed out, we had a choice to take a greater risk, but we chose to end it there.  The rest of the Columbia would be there later in the summer, and why do all of the good paddling in one trip?

    Mark & Russ