kayak – red alder ranch

Christmas bird count by kayak

31. December 2011 · 2 comments · Categories: kayaking, river · Tags: birding, christmas bird count, columbia river, kayak, kayaking, lewis and clark national wildlife refuge, paddling winter, river

I think it was the winter of 2005 when I first went out with Andrew for the Wahkiakum County Christmas Bird Count, and I’ve done it nearly every year ever since. I usually paddle the section of the count circle that is lower on the river, in the Lewis and Clark National Wildlife Refuge. It’s usually a very cold, and sometimes stormy kayak trip. This year was no exception.

I set off from Skamokawa around 10:30 in the morning, and paddled out into a strong ebb tide, with a lot of extra runoff pouring out of the mouth of the creek. It was almost instantly windy and rainy, and I saw almost no birds for the first couple of miles crossing the river.

When I got to Woody Island I was ready for a break from trying to look at birds from a kayak that was getting tossed around in the wind and waves, and I pulled out for a half hour or so, had some tea and a Clif bar, dried my freezing hands and put on gloves. I usually don’t use pogies, since I’ve mostly used a Greenland stick for years, but lately I’ve been using my bent shaft Werner, and I sure was wishing I had pogies now!

I had planned to paddle down the west side of the refuge islands, but the wind was just too heavy for decent birdwatching, and I finally gave up and moved to the inside of the islands. That didn’t take me out of the wind completely, but it cut it way down, and I could finally set my paddle down without having it blown away.

My last stop was on Karlson Island, where Andrew hoped that I would be able to climb up on top of the old dike and find a treasure trove of birds in the large field inside the dike. Years ago, someone hit the jackpot here, so I gave it a try again. Sadly, this spot was nearly devoid of bird life. I found a dozen mourning doves and a Fox sparrow, and that was it. I did find a sizable congregation of coots, though, inside the little channel next to the dike.

Numbers wise, this wasn’t a great bird count year for me, personally. I only got 28 species, and there were quite a few that I was expecting to see that I did not. And my position as Scaup Sighting Champion, which I’ve held for several years running, was taken away from me. Last year I counted almost 7000 Scaup, this year, only 1020.

But I did see more White Winged Scoters than I have ever seen before, and I think my Coot count was the highest I’ve ever had, too. And I saw the Tundra Swans, and a few Ruddy Ducks, which I don’t get every year.

I pulled up to the Knappa Docks in Oregon at about 3 PM, just as another squall hit, nearly taking away my paddle again. Twenty minutes later it was back to flat calm, as I loaded up the kayak on the car. All in all, a nice winter paddle.

New Year’s Day

01. January 2011 · Write a comment · Categories: fishing, kayaking, river, travel · Tags: fishing, kayak, kayaking, nehalem, nehalem river, oregon, river, steelhead, steelhead fishing, whitewater

Up until today, I had never managed to catch a winter steelhead. A few winters back, I would spend hours every chance I got wading up and down the very, very cold Elochoman and Grays Rivers, casting, drifting, and retrieving, over and over, in every different spot I could imagine would hold fish. I never got so much as a bite, and eventually, even I gave it up as a waste of time. Steelhead gear and poles got pushed into a corner of the shop, and nearly forgotten.

Up until a couple of years ago, white water kayaking was something I had never tried, and my first and, until today, only trip on whitewater was with Brian, on the Nehalem River in the winter, chasing a plump and promising looking cedar log, with chainsaws, peavies and other gear lashed to and stowed inside the kayaks. This trip resulted in my first unintentional wet exit from a kayak in a long time, and those of you who know me well have probably heard that story. Fortunately for both Brian and I, neither of us had cameras with us that day, and neither of us wrote about it in our blogs.

A few days back, Brian called me up and invited me to come down and go kayaking and fishing on the Nehalem, and, since I’m apparently a glutton for punishment, I agreed. I got down there last night and had a pleasant, quiet and early New Year’s eve, playing with the cats in the main house at Revolution Gardens.

We got on the water this morning just before dawn, and started down the river, stopping and fishing wherever it looked promising. To our amazement, we nearly had the whole river to ourselves. We encountered only about a dozen bank fisherman and one raft all day.

I’ve spent so many hours casting, drifting and retrieving without success that it sort of becomes a mindless repetitive exercise, which is a nice break from the occasional bout of despair and frustration at how many hours have been spent accomplishing so little.

So it was a big surprise when, on one of the zillion drifts of the day, I actually hooked a steelhead. Better yet, I actually caught it using one of the spinners I had made years ago when I was doing this every weekend. We eventually got it in the net, and it even turned out to be a hatchery fish, meaning I could keep it.

This amazing burst of activity energized us, and we spent the next hour or so, combing the surrounding waters. I lost a couple of spinners, and eventually decided I was done fishing for the day, but Brian persisted until he had covered both sides of that section of the river very thoroughly. No more fish.

When we got back to the shop, Brian posed the fish for a nice whitewater kayak picture, and I snapped one, too.

Maybe it’s time to revisit this whole winter steelhead thing, after all…

a long hiatus

25. October 2009 · 1 comment · Categories: education/symposiums, fishing, forest, home, kayaking, river · Tags: BCU, bear, columbia river kayaking, deer, elk, farm, fish, garden, gardening, hunting, kayak, kayaking, Loco Roundup, rifle, salmon, shotgun, skamokawa

Well, here it is, almost Halloween and more than three months since I last posted anything! It has been a busy season, and I just haven’t felt very organized about blogging and posting pictures to Flickr. I have to admit, Facebook has absorbed a good deal of the time and energy I have for blogging and social interaction on the computer, but I am not ready to give up the blog just yet. So here’s a somewhat long update.

Salmon fishing this year was incredible. Almost every time I went out, everyone on the boat limited. One day Brian and Lisa and I went out in the ocean and kept six fish in under an hour, and put back five natives. It was about as hot as I have ever seen it. I smoked and froze a bunch of fish and when it got to be too much fish to have time to smoke it all, I vacuum packed and froze fillets instead.

In August, we held the Loco Roundup kayak symposium on Puget Island again. After a whole lot of last minute wrangling and logging approved training hours, I took the BCU four star sea kayak assessment, and passed. This is something I have been trying to get done for almost a year and a half, and it finally came together this summer. It was a two day, on the water assessment, leading a group of paddlers near Cape Disappointment at the mouth of the Columbia River. I was so focused on the task at hand, that it was only later I realized that I hadn’t taken a single picture for two days. But I did take pictures during the training sessions, and that’s where this picture is from.

I also passed the three star canoe assessment, and took the new Level Two coaching class. With luck, a lot of hours practicing, and piles of paperwork, I might be ready to take that assessment next spring. I helped Ginni with two BCU assessments this year, one of them was a new two star with canoes and one was a three star assessment with candidates from three countries, speaking two different languages.

At the end of August, Shannon and I went to see Al Green at the Edgefield. Does Al Green still have it goin’ on? Yes, he certainly does…

Al Green at the Edgefield, August 28, 2009

Near the beginning of September, Columbia River Kayaking got the news that we will be allowed to run our own Elderhostel programs here next year, without the need for a middleman like we had this year. This will allow us more direct control over our interaction with Elderhostel and we will keep more money in the bank at the end of the day as well.

Oh, and Elderhostel, for reasons I cannot fathom, decided this year to change the name that it has spent 25 years building brand recognition around. Apparently there is a sizable piece of the over-55 demographic that found the word “elder” to be offensive. The new name, which I might never get used to, is Exploritas. I’m sure there were many interesting committee meetings involved in that decision…

Skamokawa Center continues to languish in limbo, though. There had been a foreclosure auction scheduled for October 2nd, but the day before, Greg and his LLCs filed for bankruptcy, which automatically shielded him from the foreclosure action. The auction was rescheduled for Friday, November 13th. Heh, heh, heh….

The well ran dry this year. There was not enough August rain to keep it full for the whole dry season. I carried water for about three weeks, which isn’t too bad compared to other years. One year I hauled water for something like 80 days. Unfortunately, it always runs out just at the time that there are fish to clean and process…

It was a great year for food preservation. For the first time in a long time, I was very organized and persistent in keeping on top of all the food that was showing up this year. Besides fish, berries were also in abundance and I made a lot of jam. And when Ginni left for Mexico, we had a big garden gleaning day at the farm and hauled away bags and boxes of produce, including an IKEA bag half full of jalapenos. I pickled a bunch of those, and Shannon and I made some jalapeno relish, and I have a big tray of roasted ones sitting here that I need to finish putting in jars tonight. I still have to get in the rest of the apples from here and Ginni’s place.

All of that food, plus the fact that I’ve been really broke this year led me to break ground on a new garden. I haven’t been willing to go all out with gardening here, since the water is not all that reliable, but I have been reading Steve Solomon’s “Gardening When it Counts” and setting this garden up with his minimalist irrigation plan in mind. Basically, you give each plant more space, and then relentlessly weed out any competitors for the water. I borrowed Krist’s tractor and tiller attachment and tilled up a space about 40×60 feet, and then made nine, five foot wide beds out of it. I planted three beds to garlic and the rest to cover crops for now. Fencing is next.

This will be the biggest garden I’ve grown since I lived in Salmon Creek, in 2000.

This is also the first year I have purchased a hunting license. I didn’t grow up with hunting, so I never really learned anything about it, but I have had deer and bear in my yard this fall, and there are always elk around here, too. Last year, we bought a quarter of a local steer for the freezer, and spent several hundred dollars on that. It was delicious, and it’s nice to support local folk who are growing local meat. We bought a half a hog this year from Crippen Creek Farm. But I sure would like to put an elk or a bear in the freezer, too. We’ll see how that goes. With hunting season in mind, I’ve been sifting through the armory here, looking for an adequate elk rifle. I’ve been shooting my brother’s Dragunov rifle, but I haven’t been able to set it up on a bench and sight it in properly yet. It seems to shoot a little low and to the left. My practically new Browning shotgun might actually get put to use this year, too, since grouse are abundant around the land here and they are open until the end of December.

I should have put up more firewood this year. I did a lot of work in the woods here this summer, making tractor trails so I can access the stands of trees there. But what I pulled out in that process is still only a cord or so, and three cords is more like what I use in a season here. No doubt I will actually end up purchasing a cord or two this year. I’ll get back in there in the spring to pull out another batch of logs to inoculate with Shiitake mushrooms.

SSTIKS 09

15. June 2009 · 1 comment · Categories: education/symposiums, kayaking, travel · Tags: event, greenland kayak, hood canal, kayak, kayaking, paatit, qajaq, south sound traditional inuit kayaking symposium, SSTIKS, Twanoh State Park

We just got back from SSTIKS 2009 last night, and both Alice and I slept late today. It was a great weekend, made even more amazing by the fact that for the first time in a couple of years, it did not rain! It was mostly sunny and warm, and the water was warmer than I remember it ever being at SSTIKS. Warm water, though, means happy algae and we had to contend with some really yucky masses of smelly, orange algae blooms, especially when the tide got low.

The big highlight for SSTIKS this year was the presence of John Pederson and his son Lars, from Ilulissat, Greenland. John actually hunts seals from a kayak, which is what they were intended for in the first place, and anyone who got to take one of his strokes classes got to practice silent paddling and sneaking up on seals, which showed up as if on cue. His son Lars joined the kids’ games, and was an aggressive dead fish polo player.

Alice finally got to paddle her new kayak for the first time, too. It looks nice! Only a few people were able to fit in it though, and I will be loosening up the fit a little to make it more comfortable. It is a pretty snug fit, even on Alice.

As usual, I spent a good deal if time with the kids’ sessions, playing games and getting all wet. Also, as usual, my drysuit started its annual summer leakage this weekend as well, but this time, I am going to try to repair it myself, rather than send it in. Wish me luck!

We held an informal rolling competition, too, and although I’ve been feeling sore and inflexible and out of practice lately, I was talked into competing by Mckinley and Dubside. I missed several that I normally hit every time, but I was surprised to find myself not at the bottom of the points spread after all. I really need to do more yoga, and spend more time in tight fitting kayaks, though. Sadly, none of the pictures I took of the rolling came out very well; the lens was covered with water on almost every one.

A couple of kayaks that Maligiaq Padilla built were there for a little while on Saturday, and I got a chance to scope out some construction details on those.

And Brian from Cape Falcon brought a beautiful East Greenland replica frame to donate to the fundraising auction. A lengthy bidding war ensued….

The salmon for the Saturday night dinner came fresh from the Copper River this year, and was delicious.

Unfortunately for me, I came to SSTIKS without any spare camera batteries and my Pentax battery was almost dead when I got there, so I did not get nearly as many pictures as I would have hoped for, but there are more on my Flickr page here.

Every year I am reminded again how lucky I am to live near this event; I can hardly wait until next year!

qajaq finished!

08. June 2009 · 5 comments · Categories: boatbuilding, kayaking · Tags: kayak, kayak building, kayak construction, qajaq, skin on frame

After a few trials and a tribulation or two, Alice’s kayak is finally finished.

When I last posted, I had a finished and oiled frame. I still had a piece of fabric left from when I ordered materials for my last kayak a couple of years ago. I dug out the fabric, bought a couple of rolls of dental floss and set up the kayak frame at the paddle center one night, and proceeded to sew the skin on.

The zig zag stitch on the inside of the skin tightens the skin considerably and I went through this stitch several times, taking out more slack each time. Finally, I decided, wrongly as it turned out, that the skin was fully tightened and I stitched up the center seam. After such adventures with the woodworking part, it was sad to see the frame get all covered up in bright white fabric…

A couple of days later, I mixed up some acid based dye powder in some vinegar and water, and dyed the fabric what I was thinking would be a grayish brown. And the skin suddenly sagged and loosened…. a LOT. I went to the paddle center to get the iron, but when I got back the sun and the wind had dried the fabric somewhat and it tightened up again. I used the heat gun on some of the worst of the wrinkles left behind, and went to bed, planning to take it to Brian’s shop the next day to put the polyurethane on.

In the morning, it had loosened again, even worse than the first time, but I thought it still might be salvageable if I could shrink it back up again. So I loaded it up and headed down to Brian’s to put the coating on, a part that I didn’t enjoy much the last time I built a kayak. I also didn’t remember the details very well either, and wanted to put it on where Brian was handy to yell at me if I did something boneheaded.

I coated the skin, but it was so loose by now as to make it impossible to get a decent finish on, or to get the excess off. By now, I knew I was going to be reskinning this boat at some point. I thought about it overnight, and the next morning went back to Brian’s, begged a new and different fabric off of him and came home to cut off the newly installed skin.

Eight hours later, I had the new skin sewed on, with the coaming installed and fabric dyed and drying. This fabric was much nicer to work with; I was able to keep the skin almost perfectly wrinkle free, and it stayed that way.

It took a couple of hours to put the coating on the bottom of the hull. The next morning, I found that the edge had dripped a little in spite of having masked it off with tape, and there was a little haze in the coating, telling me that I left it on a little thick. I shaved off the worst bubbles with a razor and then coated the deck. I did this out in the sun and wind, and it dried pretty quickly, although I did catch a number of mosquitoes and other bugs.

As soon as it was dry enough to handle, I put the deck lines and fittings on. The toggle and beads are caribou antler, that I purchased in the silent auction at SSTIKS a few years ago.

I have a set of brand new float bags for it, and a Snapdragon spray skirt to fit as well. It’s finished!

qajaq building

31. May 2009 · 4 comments · Categories: boatbuilding, kayaking · Tags: bending wood, cedar, greenlandic, joinery, kayak, kayak building, kayak construction, lashing, qajaq, qajaq building, qajaq construction, skin on frame, spruce, white oak, wood

I have been making noises for a while now about building a Greenland style qajaq to fit my daughter Alice. She has paddled my Romany, but that is a big clunky boat on her. SSTIKS is coming up soon, and one of the best ways I have to motivate myself to finish projects like this is to have a deadline. With that in mind, and a chance to put the final coat of polyurethane goop on the skin at Brian’s shop on Friday, under his expert gaze, I set aside this week to devote it almost entirely to building Alice’s qajaq. As of tonight, I have about 50 hours into this project, with another day and a half or so to skin and coat it, and it will be done in plenty of time to go to SSTIKS.

I kept thinking I would break this process apart into several blog entries, but each night, when I stumbled into the house at 10:30 or later, ready for a beer and bed, blogging was never what was on my mind at that point. Now, I have the frame finished, and the time set aside to finish the rest, so I can take a little break and post some photos and comments.

I did not set out in this case to replicate any particular qajaq. What I wanted was to build a qajaq that would end up about 15 feet long, 18 or 19 inches wide, and snug enough to be a good fit, Greenland style, on a 15 year old girl. I had a stack of books that helped me through this process; I mainly use Robert Morris and HC Peterson’s books for construction technique, and Harvey Golden’s masterpiece, “Kayaks of Greenland” as my guide to design and details.

I wanted to make a qajaq that fell generally within “Type V” or “Type VI” parameters, as described by Harvey. I ended up deciding to follow the Type VI description more specifically.

What I ended up with, for you qajaq nerds out there, is 14′ 9″ LOA, 19 1/4″ wide at the masik, and 5 3/4″ deep from the top of the keel to the underside of the masik. It should be a good fit on Alice, and might even turn out to be a decent “cheater” rolling boat for someone a little larger.

I learned a few important lessons this week, as I always do with projects like this. One thing I did not realize when I started this project is that I had sold off all of my perfectly clear, matched sets of gunwale quality lumber. I did a lot of scrounging through the woodshed trying to find a pair of good sticks for the gunwales, and in the end, I came up with one pretty bendy quartersawn piece, and a much stiffer flatsawn piece. I knew that this would be challenging to make a good frame out of, but I didn’t quite realize just how challenging it would be. The first night after I got the lumber picked out and sawn to size, I even left a heavy brake drum hanging off of the stiff piece suspended between two sawhorses, hoping that would help. It didn’t do much, and it ended up taking a lot of careful lashing, shims and clamp ties to wrestle these two divergent pieces of wood into a mostly symmetrical frame. I ended up having troubles with my homemade mortising jig for the router, too, and buggered up a couple of my mortises, which also gave me headaches later.

I eventually prevailed, though, and after I got the gunwales and deck beams bent and pinned into their basic shape, it was time to set up the masik, which is the piece that supports the front end of the coaming. In addition to the masik, I added another deck beam, the seeqqortarfiupo. This one supports the aft ends of the forward deck stringers, and provides a snugger fit on the thighs, which seems to make for easier rolling. I used clamps and battens, and a few hours of fiddling around to set up these important deck beams. I hope I got them right!

One of the other problems I had was also related to the wood I had on hand, ironically, since I own a sawmill, and have no excuse… but the white oak I had to make bending stock for ribs out of was a little too dry, and had a lot of grain runout that did not make things too easy when it came to bending ribs. My first run at steam bending the ribs resulted in a pile of broken and almost broken pieces. I patched up the better ones with lashings, but the next morning I came out and tried again. The steamer seemed to get hotter that time, and I had much better luck.

When the qajaq gets exceptionally shallow, it helps the ribs fit easier, with less breakage, if you notch out the inboard side of the mortise. I wish I had done this sooner, and on more of the mortises, but better late than never.

I fussed around with the chines quite a bit, too. If I put them too far apart, the boat would have tons of primary stability, but no secondary stability, and would be harder to balance brace and roll. But if I put them too close together, the boat could turn out to be uncomfortably tippy. I also used a string across the chines and keel to make sure that the skin wouldn’t touch any ribs, something I wish I had done on my last kayak project.

One of things I love about building kayaks is that you don’t need a ton of space, or a lot of expensive tools. And you don’t need to be talented at furniture grade joinery either. This stuff, plus a drill, router and a couple of small shop power saws and a planer were all that I used. There is no metal in this craft either; the frame is held together with joinery, lashing with artificial sinew and seine twine, and pegs.

I finally got the frame nearly finished late last night. I was working away and caught myself brushing mosquitos off my arms with a sharp chisel in the brushing hand, and I realized it was time to quit. When I got in the house, I realized it was a quarter to midnight, and I had been at it since 1 PM. Once I got the frame mostly completed, I oiled it.

Nothing brings me the same kind of sensory joy that heating up a nice fragrant batch of “boat sauce” does. This is made from linseed oil, pine tar (you probably won’t find that at Home Depot!), turpentine and Japan dryer. I warm it up in a can on the propane burner in the shop and brush it on hot. Hours later I will come back and rub the frame down with a rag, and today I got to set it up in the sun and wind to finish drying.

All that remains now is to put the skin on and rig up the deck lines, and it will be ready to paddle. More later, when that part is done! For more photos of the construction process, you can check out my flickr set here.

river time

25. March 2009 · 2 comments · Categories: boating, fishing, kayaking, river · Tags: columbia river, columbia river kayaking, columbiariverkayaking.com, fishing, grey, kayak, kayaks, net, q-boat, river, skiff, spring, spring chinook, Valley, water

It’s been a long and grumpy winter for me, with lots of time spent on the phone and email trying to sort out a new way forward for our kayak center here in Skamokawa. It’s easy to lose perspective when you sit inside all day, and a couple of weeks ago, I finally started breaking away from the office to get out on the water. I put the skiff in the water on my birthday, March 10 and started fishing for spring chinook. So far, I haven’t caught anything, but it is early yet, and tomorrow is the first day of another three day opening, so maybe my salmon luck will change soon.

And yesterday, I finally got out in a kayak again, for the first time in weeks. I took out the Valley Q-Boat, which was loaned to me by Rob Avery of Valley Kayaks. It is a fiberglass, hard chined, Greenland style kayak. It seemed to roll pretty well, and for an 18 foot long kayak, was very maneuverable and nimble. Andrew took out one of the new plastic Valley Avocets and we paddled down to Three Tree Point and back. I took the harpoon along just for fun, and found that I’m sadly out of practice, compared to what I was able to do with that last fall. Sigh…

Enjoy some pictures!

kayak logging, part 2

21. February 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: forest, kayaking, sawmilling, travel · Tags: cedar, kayak, kayak race, log salvage, logs, lumber, oregon, river, spruce, timber, wood

So, back last November and early December, my friend Brian and I spent a few days in kayaks and my skiff, pulling clean spruce and cedar logs out of log jams on the Nehalem River. But how to get them out of the river and back to the shop, where we could mill them up?

The nearest good boat ramp was over 3 miles downstream from where the logs were tied up, and Brian’s idea was to have a kayak race, where teams would each be assigned a log, and the first ones to get their log past the highway 101 bridge over the river would be the winner.

So, On February 7th, with a strong outgoing tide in the afternoon, a groups of kayakers converged on Brian’s shop in Nehalem and he laid out the plan. There were prizes offered, including a skin on frame kayak, a well used copy of “Kayaks of Greenland” and a quart of excellent beer.

Within an hour, all the kayakers were putting in at the upper boat ramp, having already shuttled a mess of cars to the dock in Nehalem. Andrew Elizaga came along in one of Brian’s adirondack guide boats and filmed the whole thing, his movie can be seen here on Youtube.

When we got to where our logs were tied up, we separated into teams and I started passing out logs as I untied the raft. Some people got enormous huge logs, some got smaller logs, and it was evident pretty quickly that a close competition was not going to be had, as those with lighter cedar logs quickly took the lead, and the team of three paddlers with the monster butt log struggled to stay with the group. Brian switched teams around a bit and he and I rotated around between the teams that had bigger logs, helping keep the group together.

We passed a motor boat and some folks out on their decks as we got closer to town and got some strange looks and odd comments here and there.

Finally everyone made it to the dock and we tied up the logs, and then paddled back upstream to Nehalem, pulled out on the dock in town and wandered over to have some pizza and beer. And that was the kayaking race.

The next day I came back with the truck and a trailer and Brian and I spent the day loading the logs onto the trailer and taking them back to his shop, where we finally figured out how to unload them without getting stuck in the wet grass. This one was the biggest one, at eighteen feet long and 34″ in diameter at the small end. It was a one log load, scaled at 950 board feet on the Scribner scale and we guessed its weight at about 5,000 pounds.

There are still a few small logs tied up there, and once we have them pulled out and moved to the shop, I will move the mill down there and saw it all up into lumber, some of which will get built into kayaks, and some of which will get built into a new back porch to replace the one I lost to snow load on Christmas day. Stay tuned!

a few favorite photos of 2008

02. January 2009 · 1 comment · Categories: boating, forest, home, kayaking, river, travel · Tags: cat, columbia river, forest, kayak, newt, photography, photos, pictures, pilings, river, ship, tree, unimog, water

None of these have been blogged before. No words today, just pictures. Enjoy!

other uses for a whitewater kayak

20. December 2008 · 3 comments · Categories: home, kayaking · Tags: kayak, kids, skamokawa, sled, sledding, snow, whitewater kayak

So, it doesn’t often snow this much in Skamokawa, but today I’ve had several inches of snow on the ground for days already, and more is predicted to arrive this afternoon. It is already about seven or eight inches deep in the pasture.

Alice and I went out to do some sledding, which usually gets done with garbage can lids at my house. When it rarely snows, you don’t own a proper sled. So we were scrutinizing the garbage cans again, when I suddenly remembered the whitewater kayaks! Perfect sledding substitute!

It took a couple of passes down the driveway to get the snow nicely packed down, but then it worked very well. Too well, almost! On one pass Alice ended up under a rhododendron bush covered in snow, and on another pass she ended up in the ditch by the road, having just missed a small alder sapling.

Already being a kayaker, I knew a little better how to steer by leaning and bracing, but having no paddle, I used my bare hands for bracing, which worked alright until my last run, when I hand braced into the blackberry bushes on the side of the driveway… and then ended up flipping over at the bottom while leaning a little too hard trying to avoid the ditch.

All in good fun…and I’m still picking blackberry thorns out of my hands.

red alder ranch

Christmas bird count by kayak

New Year’s Day

a long hiatus

SSTIKS 09

qajaq finished!

qajaq building

river time

kayak logging, part 2

a few favorite photos of 2008

other uses for a whitewater kayak

red alder ranch

Categories

Archives

Blogroll

Recent Comments

Meta

NOAA Weather

Current Buoy Conditions