Fish & Ships

January 2009

Annual adventure takes on the agenda of the sometimes crowded, sometimes wild Columbia River Water Trail

This is an article from WaveLength Magazine, available in print in North America and globally on the web.

To download a pdf copy of the magazine click here: > DOWNLOAD

By Peter Donohue

Friends of mine save up their annual vacation time so they can take a two-week-long adventure. They had been considering a kayak trip along the Big Sur Coastline of California, but were a little put off by potential risks from waves and limited landing points. But then they heard about the Columbia River Water Trail, which goes about 150 miles (240 km) from Bonneville Dam to the Pacific Ocean. And after a bit more research and some preparation, we find four intrepid explorers – Brian Lucido and Janet Wagner in the double, and myself and my partner Sylvia Wu in our singles – trying to puzzle all our gear into our kayaks at the launch ramp just below the dam.

The Columbia River Water Trail offers extremes – in some cases the need for care to stay out of the way of deep-draft ocean freighters, in others paddling through pristine gorges.

This river was made famous when Lewis and Clark traveled down it on the last segment of their overland route to the Pacific. They picked up one of the tributaries to the river at the Rocky Mountains near Glacier National Park, following it down an increasingly large river – much larger. No surprise, as the Columbia is the watershed for most of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho (and pieces of other surrounding regions).

We launched from the river on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend and started our way downstream amongst the sturgeon fisherman and barge traffic. Our first day was easy, both because we only covered around 10 miles (16 km), but also because the current was flowing at 3-4 knots. We had strong currents, sometimes up to 5 knots, for the first third of our trip.

Many of the islands along the river are open for camping. For our first night we stayed on Skamania Island. Being Labor Day weekend, many of the prime camping spots were already in use, but we still found a nice spot with a view of Multnomah Falls in Oregon.

Our second night was an upgrade. After paddling about 13 miles (20 km), we stayed on Reed Island, which had pit toilets, picnic tables and a fire ring (pretty high class, for free camping). Also, being the Monday of Labor Day, the crowds started disappearing. We got to the site early, and then did some extra kayaking. Sylvia’s kayak is a Chatham, and we were directly across from Chatham Island, so a trip there was a natural.

Unfortunately, I found my front hatch flooded – not with water but with port. I earlier salvaged a Mylar bag from a box of wine. Too useful to discard, we couldn’t use it for water, as it held onto the wine flavor. And if we transferred more wine into it, the wine would likely go bad (the bag not being sterile). So I thought we had a winner of an idea of using it to hold port. This worked fine until we found out the hard way the valve could open when pressed into a tight space (like a packed hatch). Even to this day, my front hatch smells like port.

The next day we paddled 14 miles (22 km) to Government Island, with a view of Portland Airport. The campsite was semi-developed, as free campsites go, thanks to a fire ring and pit toilet but no picnic table. Plenty of nearby blackberry bushes provided a garnish for our oatmeal breakfast.

Past here the trip morphed into a new phase. Between Portland and Longview the river became more industrial, with our first glimpse of deep-draft ships.

For our fourth day we headed to Alder Creek Kayak and Canoe (which can be hard to find from the water) so we could confirm that they would handle our return shuttle. We then paddled alongside the area's many house boats. We had to wait to cross the Willamette River, as many tugs and deep draft ships were passing. We realized we were out a bit late in the day when we saw the kite surfers playing in the wind. No islands were in the area, so we camped on shore on the Oregon side. Our total distance for the day was about 18 miles (29 km).

The next day we made a side trip to Scappoose Bay Kayaks. We had heard about this awesome hot dog place next door, but unfortunately it was closed for the season (a big letdown). The folks at Scappoose Bay Kayaks were nice enough to allow us to use their showers, and gave us lots of good information for the remainder of the trip. On their advice, we stayed at the island off of Saint Helens. Once again, high-class free camping. A bonus was this island was basically one big blackberry patch with campsites mowed out, so we overdosed on those scrumptious little berries. Our total this day: about 16 miles (26 km)

Day six was 15 miles (25 km) down to the southern tip of Cottonwood Island, where we camped with a view of a decommissioned nuclear power plant across the river. We had a wonderful fresh salmon dinner, despite our lack of fishing gear. Brian, who we had nicknamed MacGyver because he was constantly sprucing up campsites with tables and chairs made out of driftwood, used his skills to get a fisherman’s truck out of some sand during our lunch stop. A road construction crew couldn’t do it with brute force, so Brian solved it with driftwood. In appreciation, the fisherman offered us up a whole fresh-caught salmon. It was more than we could possibly eat, and we didn’t have any ice, so we happily settled for a meal-sized fillet.

Day seven was a short day – only 12 miles (20 km). We poked along, stopping in the town of Ranier to get some supplies (though it turns out there isn’t a grocery store there, so we did our best at a convenience store). We also found the LST Washtenaw County, a military landing craft that was highly decorated in the Vietnam War, which is now stored in a side channel. We ended our day at the west end of Long Island, where we once again ate lots of blackberries.

Here the personality of the river changed again. We left behind much of the industrial area and were getting back to bald eagles flying above us and other signs of nature. We also found that tide was becoming more of a factor. By starting our trip on Labor Day weekend, we saved a vacation day and avoided the summer crowds. Unfortunately, we didn’t factor tides in. If we had scheduled based around the tide, we could have had an ebb tide for the whole trip. Tides are about an hour later every day, but if you move downstream about 20 miles each day, the tide will be an hour earlier – offsetting each other to give you high tide at the same adverse time each day. Oh, well.

The next day was another 12 miles (20 km) down to a small island off of Wallace Island. A highlight was seeing a beautiful bald eagle at water level while going through Bradbury Slough.

We started our ninth day with the goal of reaching Skamokawa Kayak Center for more local advice and some fresh food from the local grocery. After the mid-day break, we headed to a beach campsite that Skamokawa recommended, totaling just over 18 miles (29 km).

The first nine days were all under mostly sunny skies, with just a little bit of drizzle one day. But that night the fog announced itself in a big way. We were camping on the beach at Jim Crow Point, with the shipping channel less than a quarter mile away. At about 2 a.m., we heard one very loud fog horn. The fog had settled in, and a passing freighter started his fog horn blasts just offshore from our campsite. That was a rude awakening.

From that point on, it felt like we were always paddling in fog. Thankfully it was only two more days, as my solar battery charger wasn’t able to get much juice in the fog to recharge my GPS batteries. The blackberry bushes also pretty much disappeared – oatmeal just wasn’t the same after that.

The next day was a 20-miler (32 kms) to the Deep River area. We had made the decision at Skamokawa to stick to the Washington side, which pleased me. If we went on the Oregon side, we would have stopped at Astoria, a little short of the ocean. Instead we were now headed to Cape Disappointment and the ocean’s edge.

Only on our last day of paddling did we finally enter salt water, just before the Astoria Bridge. We stopped at the town of Chinook for lunch as we waited for the tide to turn. We then headed out to Bird Islands to see if we could find a campsite (camping is allowed on the larger one). Huge flocks of sea birds such as cormorants live on these islands. We didn’t find anything that looked good for a campsite, so paddled on to Cape Disappointment State Park, where we checked in to the bike and hike-in campsite.

Unfortunately, this campsite was a half-mile from our boats at the ramp. Brian tried to MacGuyver a transport solution, but in the end, one of the park’s rangers was nice enough to transport our boats to the campsite on a flatbed truck.

More information:

Guidebook: The Lewis and Clark Columbia River Water Trail: A Guide for Paddlers, Hikers, and Other Explorers, by Keith G. Hay

Web Sites:

www.columbiawatertrail.org: The official water trail website.
columbiariverwatertrail.gotoes.org/index.pl: Unofficial Wiki for the water trail – all the stops in this article are listed.

Local Outfitters:

Look to these locations for gear for rent or purchase, local information and guided trips for those who don’t want to put a trip together on their own:
Alder Creek Kayak and Canoe, Portland, OR, phone: 503-285-1819, www.aldercreek.com
Scappoose Bay Kayaks, St. Helens, OR, phone 503-397-2161,
www.scappoosebaykayaking.com
Skamokawa Kayaks, Skamokawa, WA, Phone: 360-795-8300,
www.skamokawakayak.com

Peter lives in San Francisco and over the past six years has paddled many places along the west coast between Baja and the San Juans. To pay for his kayaking and bicycling, Peter owns a consulting company focused on helping Japanese companies do business in America.