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| A wave breaks over my sprayskirt as I paddle down the Elwha River |
How I managed a 40-mile non-motorized adventure on the Olympic Peninsula starting from my home running to 5,700 feet, kayaking down the Elwha River and paddling on the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Stay tuned for a forthcoming video.
Thursday
Walking with the weight of 43 pounds of roto-milled plastic kayak on my back was not so bad — at first.
At eight-feet long, my baby blue Pyrhanna whitewater kayak was a cumbersome beast when out of water. Bird crap splattered on the hull testified to the fact that I had left it out of my adventures for too long. Now, I had my arms through homemade shoulder straps (padded out by pool noodles) and started walking it along its 11 mile journey to the river.
I walked through the suburbs, painfully aware of people looking and wondering at me. It was a relief to get to the trail and disappear between the trees.
My back and neck were killing me already.
I was kicking off this dubious expedition on a Thursday night. Yet, I wouldn’t paddle down the rapids of the Elwha until Sunday. In the days between, I would go to work and sleep in my own bed. The plan seemed tough, but manageable. I wouldn’t suffer the agony of moving the kayak in a single push.
Sunday was the day I would cash in (I hoped) on the hard work I’d invested up front in a glorious, non-motorized adventure loop from doorstep back to doorstep. I’d start by running 22 miles up the Black Diamond Road to the Little River Trail in Olympic National Park, thence to the 5,700-foot summit of Hurricane Hill and then down the west side of the mountain into the Elwha Valley. Once I got into my kayak, I’d ride 10 miles of river down to the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Still not done, I’d paddle another seven miles on the Strait to Hollywood Beach in Port Angeles Harbor, portaging my boat over Ediz Hook along the way. It would be a mere two mile uphill haul from there to bring the loaded boat back to the apartment.
The germ of this expedition was in my fanaticism for completeness. By linking the mountain snow to the river rapids and the ocean waves, I figured I had found the perfect way to combine all the best things about the Olympic Peninsula. I liked that it made a neat loop, and I liked the challenge inherent in doing it all without motors. Even though I had thought about this expedition for a year, I always told people it was something I might do. I didn’t know if I would actually pull it off.
The little trail in the woods behind my neighborhood has no official name, but I call it the Sasquatch Trail, because I begin to feel like the mythical man-ape when I start jumping over logs in the path and getting bark in my hair crawling out from under fallen trees.
Though the Sasquatch Trail was technically a shortcut, I began to wonder if it was the best idea as I began to negotiate the trails obstacles with a kayak on my back.
The trail narrowed to a thin notch cut into a steep, eroding gully. A tree had fallen over the path right here, requiring me to grab a nylon hand loop that someone had attached in order for me to pivot over the obstruction and put my foot down on the other side. I have done this dozens of times before, but now I took extra caution. My foot connected, and I started to move away, congratulating myself — only to feel a sudden snag.
Earlier, I had secured the kayak’s bilge pump in a loop off the bow (dumb idea.) Now the rope I had used was caught on a branch. I was stuck under the full weight of the kayak, the only thing holding me up was the crumbling dirt notch beneath my feet. Reaching back to unhook the rope, I found it was impossible to do this without throwing myself off balance. I sank to my knees as I started sliding down into the gully. One foot, two feet down. There was nothing to grab. The ground was crumbling from beneath my feet.
I finally sunk low enough that I was able to grab the rope and unhitch myself. Now, I was five feet down the gully — but if I didn’t get myself back up, I would go down a lot further than that. I dug my fingers into the hard gravel for purchase, ground my knees into the dirt, and worked myself up one inch at a time on trembling legs.
Beyond the gully, I encountered other fallen trees that obliged me to get to my knees in order to crawl under. The kayak’s weight sagged as I continued along the trail, eventually, the cockpit began pressing down on my skull as well.
The trail bottomed out on a stream bottom. I marched through, not daring to attempt hopping from rock to rock. I climbed up the switchbacks out of the valley as red illumination seeped through the cedars from the setting sun.
I emerged at the Verne Samuelson Trail, a better used footpath, where I wouldn’t have to worry about falling down death gullies. Wellman Road, lay just a bit further beyond, a short ways to Black Diamond Road, which was my passage to the Elwha.
I hid my boat in some brush and started running back home. This short kayak hike made the rest of the crazy journey seem possible. In the past, I have sabotaged my adventures by pissing away the preparation stage and getting a late start. This time, I was ahead of the curve. I took comfort in knowing that, even as I went back home to sleep, my kayak had started the journey.
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| Light seeps in through the trees on the Verne Samuelson Trail |
Friday
I got on my mountain bike before work and started pedaling toward Black Diamond. It felt satisfying to bike past the dicey section of Highway 101 that I would no longer have to worry about, just as it felt good to climb up a mile of Black Diamond Road that my Sasquatch shortcut had enabled me to skip.
That lovely feeling of optimism waned when I reached the kayak that I now planned to bike three and a half miles uphill with.
If you think that pedaling a bicycle with the weight of a kayak on your back would suck, you think rightly.
Wearing a helmet only made the weight of the kayak even more unbearable, because it scrunched down the amount of space between my head and the cockpit. The weight hung evilly on my skull and neck. It was near impossible to look up at the road above.
The sun beat down as I climbed the hot asphalt and trucks flew by my left side. I had to stop after a mile to scrunch the boat back up and earn a small measure of relief. I didn’t take the weight off though. Getting it back on would be too hellish.
Finally, I put my feet back on the pedals and began chuffing the rest of the way up. It sure felt good to know that I wasn’t going all the way to the Elwha River in one day. I think I would have cracked up.
I got strength and confidence back as I neared the 1,000-foot crest of the Black Diamond Hill.
I gratefully ditched the boat behind a tree off the Little River Trail. I felt so free and light without the weigh, I could have burst into song (though my neck would feel sore the rest of the day). It was exuberant peddling down the hill through the farmland toward town. The kayak had already gone up the big hill on the way to the put. The crazy idea was going to work. Even better, my friend Jarrett said he wanted to come along with me for the last bike leg.
I was sailing high on confidence, riding toward the complete doorstep adventure. Yet the toughest challenges still lay ahead.
At work, my thoughts would drift to the kayak several hundred feet above me, and the miles it had to travel. It was strange to be in one place, while also in the midst of an expedition somewhere else. After I was off the clock, I biked down to my friend Jarrett’s place to hang out and drink a beer. He put a YouTube tutorial on how to make a proper kayak pack on his TV — I admitted that the design I was using could have probably used a tweak or two. I pedaled home at around midnight and looked at a ravaged room full of in various stages of unpacking after various weekends of paddling, hiking, skiing. This was a big part of my life now, for good or for ill.
The compulsion to go here or there, stacks up a list of infinite possibilities, against a finite number of weekends — along with my own limitations as an athlete and as a planner. Dimly, amidst this frenzy of strategizing for the next weekend, I have been aware of a back burner where I have pushed other obligations and expectations. Amidst that feeling of incompleteness, or when I finally set aside the time to do other things, the maps call me back to me even stronger. I long to forget my worries by running down a mountain trail or set of rapids.
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| The kayak is on my back as I grit my teeth and climb the hill |
Saturday
Jarrett pulled his truck up near my apartment at around 10:30 Saturday morning.
“Sorry I drove. I’m not a pure doorstep adventurer like you are,” he said as he unloaded his mountain bike.
“I ran it by the High Committee of Doorstep Adventure. They said it was cool.” I said. “I’m glad to have the company.”
We pedaled downhill together toward Highway 101, then up Pine Street to the overpass and onto Black Diamond Road for the long climb up to my kayak.
There was little shade beneath the high sun. We took a break three miles into the climb so that we could eat lunch in a pine grove where someone had built a BMX track. I glided over a couple of the easy rollers, but didn’t have the guts/skill to grab some of the big air jumps further down.
As we resumed our journey, a big rig with ATV’s loaded on the back blew by us in a cloud of volatile organic compounds.
“Motors pulling motors,” I remarked.
I pulled up to the Little River Trail feeling anxious. The ride was about to get a lot harder.
I pulled my kayak out from the brush and threw it on my shoulders. Immediately, the weight of it sagged down to my helmet, knifing pain down my spine.
“Yeah, I think we can improve this,” Jarrett said.
Working together, we decided to change the position of the straps, to make the rig look closer to what we’d watched in the YouTube video. Now the straps went lower on the kayak, through the seat and to the yellow grab loop at the front of the boat. The result was a higher riding kayak that would no longer hit the top of my helmet. It was also a kayak that would be far less steady.
I struggled, as Jarrett laughed, to brace the thing against a tree and stand on my feet, only to have the thing suplex me back to the ground.
I loosed a chain of expletives, tried again, rose painfully to my feet. I was barely able to swing back into the bike saddle. Pedaling brought instant fear as the kayak shifted leftward, compromising my balance.
There were about three miles of downhill pedaling from here to the river. It was going to be very steep.
The more the boat leaned, the more that the strap started cutting into my neck like a karate chop. If I started going too fast, I’d feel wind resistance gather and threaten to send me flying off the bars. Pain forced me stop in less than a mile and take everything off my back. We adjusted the straps again, and I started up again. Jarrett breezed by me taking footage with his iPhone and having a grand time cruising with his hands off the bars. I made it maybe about a mile and a half, eyeballs bulging, face twisted in a rictus of excruciation.
Jarrett was laughing as I pulled into a gravel lot, sick with pain.
“Get this damn thing off of me!”
We got it off and I hunched over the handlebars, panting.
“I think what it needs is some kind of stabilizer,” Jarrett said. I had some extra rope that we used to tie a line down from the top of the kayak to my homemade chest strap. This innovation ended up being the turning point.
Pedaling with the kayak was still agony, but it was manageable agony.
The hill ended at the Olympic Hot Springs Road. Beyond, I could finally see the Elwha running fast and glacier blue through the valley alongside the road.
“Looks like a good place to leave the boat here,” Jarrett mentioned.
The pain in my neck agreed that this was a good place to stop. But I’d planned on bringing the boat further up river so that I could get in more kayaking, and less running the next day.
“Nah, I’m going to keep going to the washout,” I said.
The washout was a couple more miles up the road, past the gate to the park where the lot overflowed with stationary cars, shimmering in the heat. They could drive no further. Sandaled tourists walked both sides of the yellow line. A mile beyond that, we stopped our bikes in front of a churning stretch of whitewater. An angry braid of the Elwha River had decided to rip through the pavement here, and this would be our stopping point.
We could look forward to a much more chill, much lighter, pedal back home.
Jarrett decided to take a nap, while I went to scout a good spot for a put in.
The new river channel was choked with fallen trees, so I ended up backtracking a ways to a small bridge where there was an eddy of slow water — a good launch spot. I concealed my kayak as best as I could next to some hedges. Inside, I tucked my drysuit, the life vest, spray skirt, a dry bag with warm clothes. I laid the paddle down next to it. It was a lot of expensive gear that I was leaving unlocked in a public space. I prayed that it would all be there when I came off the trail the next day.
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| View of Mount Angeles, biking back from the Elwha River |
Sunday — The run
I went through the bleary motions of the early morning: oatmeal, last minute fussing with my backpack, the hydration bladder.
I walked out and shut the door — knowing I wouldn’t open it again until many hours and miles had passed me. Everything was in place. Time to roll.
I shuffled through the gray neighborhoods with still-stiff muscles. The bright light of sunrise had already torched the white summits of Klahhane Ridge at 5:30 a.m. A muscle car growled from door to door as the paper boy flopped the news onto slumbering doorsteps.
I had slept in a bit, and was about an hour behind my planned start time. I imagined that I still had plenty of time to make the 40-some-mile journey, but still worried about unknowns like staying on the trail up on high where there were likely to be a number of fallen trees along with snow drifts. What would the river be like when I got there? Would I have the energy to run whitewater after running up and over a mountain?
There were so many questions, but I forced my brain to slow down and focus on the present. I had just turned back onto the Sasquatch Trail, and it would suck to turn my ankle when the run had just begun.
The sun’s illumination filtered moody orange through the top branches of the spruce and cedar. I grabbed the nylon strap on the trip log and swung my body over the gully that had almost eaten me the other day.
Horses in their pastures along Black Diamond Road turned their heads as I went by.
I didn’t feel strong, but steady. I kept glancing up to my watch, setting and revising expectations of where I should be and when. I knew that each time I dawdled or slowed would accumulate onto others, adding up to hours to my finish.
Even so, sloshy guts forced me to take a bathroom break near the Little River Trail. I felt my intensity start to slack as I began trail running. The Little River trail starts, wide and well-graded, but evolves into a twisting, rocky beast, with steady elevation gain.
The Little River was a welcome companion, feeding my spirits with its bubbly cascades gushing between mossy boulders down to pools of cold clear water. Behemoth Douglas firs climbed high along wet black cliffs, pressed up against the edge of the trail. Filtered sunlight seeped through the Lothlorien canopy to glint on the big-leafed maples and stalks of devils club.
I got a little shot of adrenaline each time the trail cut the river. The bridges were made from fallen trees with railings added on and the top sides planed down into flat walking surfaces.
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| The Little River |
Eventually, that river water would find its way down to the Elwha, and hours later I would get to paddle over it.
The trail veered off from the river to began a series of switchbacks, putting the elevation on. Forty minutes later, it flattened out and I was looking at a bog land covered in devils club and stinging nettle, wondering where the hell the trail went.
I wandered for a while, scraping with the thorns and stings until I finally re-found the trace. The trail had narrowed now and there were several fallen trees to scramble over and around. I hit my first patch of snow about thirty minutes above the bog. The snow began to coalesce around the trail as I continued upward. A couple times I put my foot through in places where melt had hollowed it out. More than once, I lost sight of where I was supposed to go and wandered here and there until I found found the trail again.
I was now a couple hours behind schedule, but still in the green zone as far as where I felt I could be. When I finally lost all trace of the trail in the snow, I was still a hundred feet or so below ridge line.
It was easier to forget it and go strait up.
I topped out to a spectacular southern view of the Olympic Mountains lined up along the Elwha Valley, sharp white peaks and glaciers above the deep green and gentle lowlands. My heart surged with the pure rightness of it all. How was it that I equivocated or ever doubted that this was what life required?
The south-facing side of the ridge had was far less snow. The environment was a combination of scrub trees and alpine meadow — which was lately coming into spectacular bloom with purple lupin and harebell flower.
I wish I could say that Hurricane Hill was some remote and seldom-seen promontory tucked into an obscure corner of creation. It is, in fact, one of the most visited attractions in Olympic National Park, a reality that may or may not be tied to the access road that you can use to drive up the first 5,000 feet of the 5,700-foot climb.
Soon, I was weaving around the phone-looking hordes (who probably assumed that I was had started from the parking lot like the rest of them.) They walked with water bottles in hand, trampled the alpine vegetation to put a better image of tame deer on their screens.
Despite all the company, I was no less moved by the view from the top. Distant Mount Baker glinted in the distance. I could see over the south corner of Vancouver Island and mentally retrace the kayak trip that I had taken there a few weeks before.
Port Angeles Harbor, over a mile below, looked small and distant, but that was where I would be paddling. Eventually.
I ran back down the way I came, then turned onto the west section of the trail, which goes down to the Elwha River. This was the only part of the trip I hadn’t travelled before.
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| Mount Angeles, as seen from near the top of the Little River Trail |
“You can’t go this way,” one of them told me.
“Why, what’s going on?” I asked.
“There’s snow on the trail,” she said.
Indeed, there was snow on the trail. That was the fun part. I let myself pick up speed and slide downhill on my running shoes, leaving long skid tracks behind me. I admit that if I had brought skis on this doorstep adventure, it would have really been the trifecta. Lacking those, shoe sliding would have to do.
I took lunch in the high meadow, cutting up avocado onto tortilla bread. There were flowers all around and views south to glaciated Mount Olympus and remote valleys. It was so beautiful that I started laughing.
A half-mile away, the hordes were marching from the parking lot to the top of the hill. If it was the snow that scared them away from this peaceful place, let there be snow, I thought.
The trail continued down through meadow switchbacks. The route was so seldom travelled, I had to stop once or twice to re-find the tread in the grass. I noted the many, many strawberry plants on the path, not yet in bloom but sure to yield sweet fruit in the sunny exposure.
The Elwha River rushed far below. I traced the cut of blue water through the empty reservoir behind the former Glines Canyon Dam, saw where Boulder Creek came down from the hot springs that I had visited back in April.
It had been a while since I’d run down a mountain and my legs felt it. I would have to lose a mile of elevation to reach the river at 300 feet above sea level. It was exhilarating all the same, being able to dance with the landscape in that zone where nothing mattered except staying on my feet
I crossed a cascade and drank the fresh mountain water with a LifeStraw my mom had sent me for my birthday. The device looks like an oversized vape-pen and made me feel as though I were toking up from the mountain itself. Healthy alternatives, kids!
After a couple more quad-pounding miles, I finally popped out on Whiskey Bend Road, then jogged a short ways onto the Olympic Hot Springs Road. It was around 2 p.m.. A trail detour took me past the river washout. Before I got back on the road, I spied a patch of baby blue above the riverbank on the other side. That was my kayak.
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| Alpine flowers |
On The River
Despite the poor job I had done of hiding everything, I found all my gear present and accounted for inside the kayak. I dragged everything over to the launch spot I’d picked out the day before.
Now, it was time for the boring part of changing all my gear around as I transitioned from mountain runner into river paddler. I worked beneath a broiling sun, putting things in dry bags and using carabiners to hold gear in place behind my seat. It didn’t just need to be waterproof, it needed to be flip proof, and not entangle me if I needed to get out of the boat fast.
The gear left no room for flotation bags. If I flipped, the boat was going to get very full. I belatedly realized that I had left my helmet behind. There was another reason to be careful.
I was finalizing preparations when nature called again, forcing me to climb up through a steep, brushy hillside so I wouldn’t be right next to the river.
I stumbled back to the boat and put my drysuit on. In the hot weather, I was steaming myself in no time. Yet I soon cooled by wading out into the eddy and crouching down in the icy water. I took a hit of river through my straw and rejuvenated myself. It had been almost an hour since I’d gotten here, but was ready now.
Well, probably ready.
A set of Class II+ rapids with large standing waves waited just downstream of my put-in with dangerous branches waiting on river right. This was the first time I had done any proper river kayaking in a year. Time to knock the rust off.
I swung out of the eddy and the current whirled me around. I dodged the branches by paddling over a cobble bar, then I hit another wave train, gouts of water crashing onto my chest, into my face.
I spun into another eddy, heart pounding, involuntarily grinning and laughing. Man. I had forgotten how much fun you can have on a river.
The Elwha was a meltwater stampede, charging full power out of the mountains. It ran reckless, crashing into the sides, thrashing out new channels where roads got wiped out sometimes.
In the next 10 miles, I would drop 300 feet to the sea through a series of rapids. Fortunately, there weren’t so many dangerous hydraulics or keeper waves, that would flip a kayak — at least if you didn’t count That Dam Rapid which I planned to portage.
I also kept my eye out for wood jutting out to grab a kayaker. It’s always a concern paddling on the Olympic Peninsula.
I surged down past the park entrance where people cheered me on from the river’s edge. From there, it was a series of fun twists and turns down to Highway 101. I paddled carefully beneath the bridge, mindful of wood hung up around the supports.
Beyond this place, the river enters the former Lake Aldwell upstream of the recently demolished Lower Elwha Dam. Stumps the size of tiny houses flanked the gravel river banks. They were the remnants of the ancient forest that lumberjacks had cleared before the land was flooded. Notches cut into stumps’ sides showed where they had made footholds to stand and cut at the narrower part of the trunk above. Those stumps had sat underwater for a century.
Now I saw bright green shoots (alder, or maybe black cottonwood) growing out of the old wood to regrow the forest and make shade for the returning salmon.
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| Paddling the river, down past the 112 bridge and the hatchery rapids |
A couple miles later, the river narrowed into a deep canyon, picked up speed. There were sections where I suspected that the soft rock had been undercut. The current moved straight into a wall, but no water splashed up and I saw no other sign of resistance. It was running right through. These were the places you needed to try like hell to avoid.
My heart started pounding when I heard the roar of a rapid from the river up ahead.
The name That Dam Rapid is cute, but my memories of it are not.
Two years ago, stupid and overconfident, I decided to try and run that rapid — a decision that led to me being flipped over and pushed underwater, only to resurface through a series of terrifying drops, narrowly avoiding getting hung up on an outstretched log waiting at the bottom. The rapid, at the former dam site, reportedly still harbors dangerous metal debris that could snag a swimmer like a fish on a hook. I had escaped that outcome last time, but I wasn’t eager to tempt fate again.
The portage took me over an uphill grunt over loose rock, followed by a downhill slide over the same. I ended up sliding my boat down with the help of a rope to avoid toppling over and breaking myself (It would have been ironic to have hurt myself going the “safe” way.)
The river continued swift through a dark canyon, with the Highway 112 bridge far above. Not far beyond this, the river compressed for the rapids at the salmon hatchery. The boat bucked over a sharp series of standing waves. I saw a couple people who were tubing on the easier waves downstream, said hello.
The river was starting to mellow as it neared the Strait and the land became graded more gently. I took a side channel for the hell of it, and ended up having to get out of my boat to carry it over logs.
A bald eagle rested in the tree overhead. On the next bend in the current, three merganser ducks with feathered mohawks swam with the current and took off at my approach.
Suddenly, a brown bolt flung down from above — the bald eagle with talons outstretched made a dive and missed — barely — one of the ducks, which flapped away. The bigger bird flapped over to the next tree and settled back into its roost, unperturbed
Tall bluffs of cobble and clay lay in front of me, indicating the sea was near.
Now, I could see the mountains of Vancouver Island in front of me, hear the shush of surf pounding onto sand. I adjusted my posture in the seat, preparing for combat. The place where the current meets the oncoming sea is often fun, often tricky.
I paddled through fast and shallow water as the first waves pushed up the current to meet my bow.
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| Portaging over a fallen cottonwood |
The Strait and Port Angeles
Waves were curling, breaking off the nearby sandbar. Acres of fresh blue water pushed their way out into the salt. You could see a clean break where the brighter, glacial colored river water met the darker, brooding water of the Strait. The region was troubled by swirls and popping little waves.
Two black eyes emerged from the water as a harbor seal came up to take a look at me.
The waves coming in weren’t particularly big, so I decided to look for trouble and point right for the agitated water. I got in a few exhilarating rides, surfing waves up the river current, leaning in as the water broke over my head.
“Whoooo!”
I wanted to surf there for a longer time, but it was hard to stay in place without the river and the tide pushing me out of the fun zone. Fine, I needed to go east anyway.
The Elwha River silt creates an enormous bulge in the shoreline known as Angeles Point. The point creates an extremely long break which had been a favorite of surfers for years, though shoreline access from the reservation there is off limits now. I am always wary of the spot because the break comes on quickly and drops so fast it can throw you on dry beach before the water gets there.
I made the mistake of fooling with my camera for a minute, then noticed a near-vertical wall of water rising up over my head. I feebly sank my paddle in and tried leaning left, but it was breaking too fast and it rolled me over. I rag-dolled in the foaming water until I hit the beach, pushed myself off the sand and righted myself. There was barely time to breath before the next wave came crashing in. The broken water freight-trained into my chest, almost sending me backwards with it. I had to fight three more breakers until I got past.
I was quite pleased to see my camera and my glasses were still with me, but my hat…Dammit, where was my hat?
I caught one glimpse of it in the break-zone before another wave crashed over it and that was it. I paddled up and down the beach, and there was no sight.
I felt bad because it was a new hat that I liked, and also for contributing to the plastic pollution in the sea. All I can say is I hope someone finds it out there and wears it, and that it doesn’t end up in the guts of a whale.
I took a break on a beach to make a Father’s Day call to the east coast as the sun got lower in the sky. I explained that I was still out on my journey, but I was getting close to home and things were looking good.
The sun laid a golden path over the Strait as it lowered over Vancouver Island.
I cruised for another three miles across open water with waves and tide pushing my little boat east to Ediz Hook, which I would portage to the harbor in order to save a couple miles. The waves were breaking here too, which made it tricky to time a landing, but I managed to hop out and get the boat pulled up the riprap. It was way easier than it had been taking a sea kayak over those boulders last year.
The harbor was easier paddling, protected from the ocean swells from Ediz Hook. I heard a sea lion barking from a log raft. The last light on the mountains above dimmed, then flickered out. I paddled under the city dock at around 9 p.m. and landed my boat on Hollywood Beach.
Not done yet.
I propped the boat up on a seawall, and lifted it up on my shoulder straps.
No way to avoid attention now. I passed people eating their dinner on outside patios, enviously eyeing the cold beers on the table. I waited for someone to ask me what the hell I thought I was doing walking through town with a kayak on my back.
“Whoa man, that’s awesome!”
“That’s how you do it.”
I stepped a little prouder. I was really pulling this thing off. The chill I felt during my last mile of paddling left me as I climbed the steps to the top of the bluff above downtown. I felt the shoulder straps cutting off blood to my hands. They were both going asleep. I didn’t want to take the kayak off though, so I counted the streets: 5th street, 8th, 14th. Finally, at Lauridsen Boulevard, I threw the burden down so I could drag it along the grass by the new supermarket. Half a mile to go now.
I lifted the thing back up to make the final push up the hill. I walked into the yard as the courthouse chimed 10 p.m.
There was the doorstep, axis of my life. Grateful, I threw my burden down a final time that day and set it by the fence. The sky was dark magenta over the waters of the Strait. The mountains above were dark with cold blue snow. I walked inside and went to my room. Now that it was complete, I had bought myself a small respite from the unending restlessness. It was another box I could check off the long list of Olympic Peninsula adventures. Tomorrow morning, I’d start the great clean up.
Struggle never ends.
