Day 4: Putzing around on the Willamette River and a night in Portland

Bridget and I started the day with some english muffin/eggs/avocado/tomato sandwiches before heading out for an epic kayaking trip. We rented a stubby Otter recreational boat from Peak Sports in downtown Corvallis. The put-in was allegedly a block away, so Bridget carried the boat while I drove to meet her. 5 blocks later, I found her staggering along, half dragging the boat through the grass. I parked to help her carry it the next 4 blocks. We launched onto the Willamette River and soon realized that paddling upstream would not be the relaxing morning paddle we had envisioned. Naturally, the response was to call Bridget's dad to see if he would meet us in Albany (10 miles downstream) a couple hours later and shuttle us back to my car. His response was a firm "No, I'm working today," which we found rather suspicious since he is retired... We struggled up ~ 1 mile of river before reaching a shallow spot with rapids where we were forced to turn around.

Launch site on the Willamette River

As we were relaxing in the confluence with Marys River, I decided to take a little nap by laying on the back deck, flinging my sunglasses off the top of my head and into the (luckily) shallow water. I recounted that a similar event had happened with Alice a few months prior, on a much deeper reservoir. With 15 minutes left on the boat rental, we started the float back to the launch site. Within site of the beach I once again decided to lay back, again flinging my expensive icelandic sunglasses off the back of my boat, this time into much deeper water. I watched them slowly slip into the darkness, like Jack in the Titanic.

The loss of the sunglasses, however, afforded me the opportunity to chat about kayaking with a couple of the guys working at Peak Sports while I tried on some new pairs. Apparently they had seen one other Greenland style paddle in the past 8 years. I attempted to demonstrate some greenland style kayak strokes inside the store (without a paddle), which really just resulted in an awkward solo dance.

Bridget and I stopped for a free slice of bread at Great Harvest before heading back to Bridget's house for showers/packing/lunch. We made a quick coffee run to a very hipster cafe, where we observed a man wearing leg-warmer-type leggings that started at his ankle and stopped just below the knee. Is this a thing? Spoiled by the 4 types of milk at Peet's coffee in Berkeley, I accidentally used an exorbitant amount of half-and-half, resulting in a rather unappetizing vat of iced half-and-half with coffee. Bridget and I sat in my car for another 30 minutes waiting for the rain to pass while we were on hold with the WA DOT ferry hotline to find out if having kayaks on our roofs would ramp up the cost of ferrying around the San Juans (it will, but only if it makes your car longer than 22' or taller than 7.5', yay!).

Date: 7/22/2014
Distance: 2.3 miles
Duration: 2 hrs.......

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Day 4 continued!
I arrived at Ju, Mike, and Simeon's house in Portland around 5pm. Ju and Mike both had busy days at work, so while I waited on their stoop I had a very productive planning call with Sara about our upcoming trip to the San Juan islands. We made the executive decision that having our own tents is fantastic, and that there is more than enough space in the car for this luxury. Mike arrived shortly after with Simeon (2-years-old and adorably bilingual). The last time I saw Simeon he was ~2 weeks old and had not yet acquired the dance moves, energy, and style that he has today. Juliette arrived shortly after (yay!) and we walked to a fusion/street-cart style Indian restaurant where I was impressed by Simeon's ability to tolerate some spicy food. Our dessert stomachs still empty, we made our next stop at a nearby ice cream shop.

The walk home was punctuated by a painful-looking faceplant by Simeon. He could not be consoled by pointing out that he'd managed to save his ice cream cone in the process. At the house Simeon, Mike, and I played with Big Purple. He's a natural. We're planning to bring Big Purple with us to the Columbia River tomorrow night (where Mike and Ju store their boat) and take Simeon for a real ride in the kayak!:

We wrapped up the evening with a dance show by Simeon and perusing Mike's fluvial restoration design drawings. Last week Mike wrapped up the design and construction of a fish passage project on Nettle Creek.

Lewiston Lake: The Annual Freshwater Paddle

Let me introduce you to Alice, my wonderful Bay Area kayaking buddy. She wrote this guest post about our quick trip up to Lewiston Lake over Memorial Day weekend. We also paddled on Whiskeytown Lake, which you can read about here. The last time we paddled on freshwater was at Clear Lake in June 2013, so this was quite refreshing!

After dilly dallying waterside at the Berkeley Marina (Nena had just completed a heroic game of kayak water polo and we were watching the more advanced paddlers warm up), Nena and I left the Bay’s sparkling waters for the heat of mid CA. At first it didn’t feel like it made sense to leave such pleasant weather behind because the Bay was so glorious, but it was cool to travel through so many climate zones- arid, agricultural, mountains and valleys. My camping book guided us just north of Whiskeytown Lake to Lewiston Lake, where we nabbed the final walk-in site at the end of the loop, hugging the southwestern side of the lake.

Lewiston Lake view, facing south, from a short hike we did before our paddle.

We were struck by the beauty and calm of Lewiston Lake and were pretty pumped to get on some fresh water, but after a 4+ hour car ride, we opted to stretch our legs first and kayak around part of the lake’s 15 miles of shoreline. We saw some amazing blue flowers and some cool butterflies. Apparently blackberry bushes line the lake, but we were a little early for those.

Eager to paddle before sunset, we unloaded our boats and launched into the water from the parking lot's rocky slope. The wind seemed to pick up just as we set out on our mini paddle. We hugged the shore, heading towards the dam that separates Trinity and Lewiston Lakes. Nena was in heaven to be on a lake and I was too; so much that I lost my Native sunglasses while reenacting a whitewater event. I leaned back, hit my back deck, and felt my glasses bounce off my head. They spiraled slowly down into the lake’s depths. We accepted their fate, and continued on, noticing fish jumping and pretty wildflowers growing off of the rock slopes. 

Alice, with sunglasses

Lewiston Lake felt more like a fishing destination than a paddling one, but it was beautiful, and with a motor craft speed limit of10 mph, it was pretty peaceful. As we paddled by a Marina, the lake turned into more of a riverine environment, and we noticed some marsh mazes and cool tufts of grass sprouting up intermittently - a scene from The Lorax. We took shelter from the wind in the grasses, and headed into the more lake-like area along the other side of the reservoir and behind a tall hill slope that jutted out and cast a shadow from the wind. The return was wearisome, as the wind continued, but we invented strategies to pull through it, such as closing ones eyes while paddling (surprisingly fun), paddling backwards, and singing.

These grassy tufts reminded me of the Lorax and Nena of Wilson, the volleyball

Beaver dam!

We made it back before dark, but considerations of practicing rolling or swimming were dashed as the temperature dropped and our stomachs grumbled. We decided to forego a campfire, ate dinner in the (scenic) parking lot, and surrendered to quiet/sleepy time. I ventured out of my tent in hopes of glancing a few straggling shooting stars from the meteor shower the night before. Instead, I dozed off while watching the gorgeous sky full of stars through my tent fly, no meteors in sight… All in all, a pretty relaxing spot, a great paddle, and good camping that all lead up to the larger lake that followed: Whiskeytown!

Date: Sunday, May 25th
Distance: ~ 6 miles
Time: 2 hrs?