PNC Days 102-104 – The river doesn’t want us to finish

During this stretch of the trip we encountered a slew of new and unexpected challenges that had mostly left us alone before: waves, wind, and even tides! We paddled through Yakama, Warm Springs, Cascades, Cowlitz, Grand Ronde, Siletz, Multnomah, Konnaack, Cinook, and Chinuk Wawa ancestral lands.

Day 102 – CR Mile 1057.8 – Weather day

We woke up to very strong winds. Frighteningly strong. After breakfasting and eating coffee we assessed the situation and weren’t sure what to do. The waves hitting shore didn’t seem too bad, but farther out they looked like big rollers with foamy white caps. We were on the Washington side of the river and we wanted to resupply a few miles down river in Cascade Locks, on the Oregon side. We decided there was only one way to find out if the waves were too big for us, and that was to go for it! We tied everything down well and pushed off. The waves were far too big. We were surfing the canoe over waves we estimate to be 8 feet tall from crest to trough. They were huge! We quickly realized we wouldn’t make forward progress in the conditions, so we focused on getting straight over to the Oregon side without flipping the boat or taking on too much water. We made it, but the shore we landed on was a very steep slope up to a railroad track. Not ideal! We struggled to get the boat up the slope but made it eventually (with plenty of fresh scratches, oh well). Once safely on flat ground, we were sandwiched between train tracks and the interstate, so all we could do was carry the boat forward to the next boat ramp we saw on the map, two miles down the tracks. We regretted that we didn’t just wait out the waves from our nice campsite.

After two miles of walking, we ended up at a Yakama Nation fishing camp. Since we aren’t members of the Yakama nation, we don’t think we were officially allowed to be there, but everybody was super nice and welcoming and we made some great friends. Jack showed us around, let us charge our phones with his generator, and helped us find a good place to camp and store our boat. Cynthia and Willa made us coffee. Frank let me help him work on his boat and taught me how to clean a steelhead (Jack helped with that too). Scott drove us into Cascade Locks and back to get our resupply done today instead of tomorrow. We are bummed to have missed a day on the water, but we had an amazing time meeting so many kind people. Tomorrow the wind should die down (at least in the morning), so we hope to be on our way at the crack of dawn. For dinner we had peanut butter veggies and rice. Yum! -T

Day 103 – CR Mile 1102.9 – The river is in control

It was windy overnight. We woke up early and were ready and waiting at the rivers edge before it was light enough to push off—we were a bit anxious and couldn’t stand the thought of another weather-forced day off. At first light we headed out. The water was choppy with a headwind but totally manageable. We were able to make forward progress (unlike yesterday when the wind and waves were pushing us backwards). We made it to our final dam, Bonneville Dam, and carried the canoe 2.5 miles around it! The water below the dam to the ocean is free-flowing. We saw a sea lion right after we started under the dam. We were hoping for a strong current, but instead we met another headwind. We made forward progress, but it was much slower than we were hoping for. The wind finally settled down in the afternoon. We tried to chase the current by staying in the shipping lane. We’ve realized that the river is in control out here. We can paddle from sunrise to sunset every day, but how that translates into miles can be hard to predict due to things out of our control like current, wind, waves, tides, etc. We have much more control when hiking. This evening we found a fun sandy island to camp on with a view of the Portland airport. One of our sleeping pads blew away yesterday as we were struggling to get our canoe out of the water, so today we ripped the remaining sleeping pad in half. We each put our half under our hips and a life jacket under our upper bodies. -R

Day 104 – CR Mile 1143.4 – Ocean river

We realized we are on a very different river now than we were for the last month. Early this morning we enjoyed a wonderful current that took us through Portland/Vancouver, WA and under the Interstate 5 bridge. Immediately on the other side of the bridge there were massive ocean-going ships that dwarfed the barges we were wowed by just a few days ago. Compared to the container ships and car haulers, the Columbia River barges look like cute little toys. A head-wind kicked up at around 9 and didn’t let up all day. That meant big waves and choppy water, but fortunately because of the current we were still moving forward fast… until we weren’t. All of a sudden we were struggling to go 2 mph, even though we had been cruising at an average of almost 5 all morning. We looked up tide charts and realized that the tide was coming in. Even though we are far up-river from the ocean, the river is now tidal and the current goes away completely (maybe even runs backwards) when the tide is up. We eventually decided that fighting the wind + tide was hopeless, so we got out on a beautiful sandy beach and took a break. We did some swimming, napping, and ate lunch. It was a perfect spot for a break and forced us to step out of our “go-go-go” mentality and try to relax. Eventually it was near high tide so we hopped back in the boat and got back to fighting the wind. As the tide went out the current picked up, but not too much later the sun was down so we found a sandy beach to camp on. For dinner we had Curry rice. Yum! -T