Lone Wolf Island: Part I

I spent three days and 79 miles of kayaking out of Victoria, British Columbia, including two nights on Discovery Island, home to a solitary wolf. On Day One of the Adventure I make it through customs and ninja launch my kayak in Victoria, then paddle through chop water and tide rips to get to camp for some exploring around the island archipelago. Total Mileage: 17 miles of kayaking.

I’m not sure if the customs guy liked me very much. 

That whole “I am pissed that you are here, and you are wasting our time,” shtick must come standard in the training.

In fairness, though, I was taking up some time and resources at this port of entry. I had already cut to the front of the line of arrivals, while one of his fellow agents carried the back half of my kayak.

“You know you can get wheels for these,” he told me.

“Yeah, I’m going to look into it.” I said. It was probably the third time someone made this suggestion this morning.

I was the only passenger to carry a kayak on board the ferry from Port Angeles to Victoria, Canada — an extra $6.50 fee on top of of the standard passenger fare.

The goal was to paddle east out of Victoria’s harbor out to a campsite on Discovery Island, nine miles to the east. The island had been closed to residents until only recently because of the island’s latest resident: a solitary coastal wolf, which had somehow crossed through the Victoria suburbs and swum through some nasty currents to end up on Discovery Island alone. The wolf was still there, but the camping ban on the island had lifted recently and I’d decided to spend Memorial Day weekend out there for some lone wolf time.

Before I got to all that lovely paddling and full-moon howling, however, I needed to get my boat to water.

I almost slammed the door-jam with the paddles jutting out of my pack walking into the customs building. I went through the door with a halting squat-shuffle, that didn’t look at all suspicious or draw attention.

My fears of getting turned back, or shipped off to an interrogation room turned out to be unfounded, however.

No one checked to make sure that the hatches weren’t stuffed with weed or severed rhino horns. I couldn’t blame them if they weren’t in the mood to sink their limited staff resources into going through my dry soup mix and fleece clothing. I was out on the street in minutes.

Vendors and tourists mingled on the concrete walk above the harbor. There was no more help carrying the kayak now. It sure was heavy with all the gear. I just needed some water underneath me, and everything could float. Unfortunately, there was also an-eight foot seawall and a chain fence separating me from that bliss. The docks were all marked private. Well…at least there were no signs saying anything against going over the chain and launching off the sea wall.

Fifteen minutes out of customs and it was possible I was already a criminal.

Going over the sea wall with my kayak

It was shallow water below the seawall so I wasn’t brave enough to just shove the boat. I used a couple ropes to lower it down, and got help from a Seattle couple. 

With the boat halfway down toward the water, I heard a pshhht sound inside my cockpit. What the hell?

I saw that the beer that I’d stashed there (I was going to bribe someone into helping me carry my boat) had popped a hole for some reason. Timing!

I could have shotgunned my beer right there in the shadow of the British Columbia parliament. Yet I didn’t want to add to the trouble I was making with my sketchy kayak launch, and opted to pour the beer into a plastic jug.

I lowered the boat the rest of the way, then climbed down the ladder and put myself on board.

I paddled off, into the harbor, (or should I say harbour, now that I was in Canada?) The spelling was one of many ways that the city was twee and Britished out. Charming little yellow water taxis with checkered stripes ferried passengers around the harbor under electric motors. Above it all, the buildings broadcast a complicated Victorian (what else) architecture with all the fussy peaks and balustrades.  Sea planes rumbled over to the west side of the harbor, gained speed and ascended into the blue, cloud-streaked skies.

I drank beer out of the jug than got out of the boat to use a water fountain to fill up my stores for the rest of the trip.

Back on the water, I came upon an elegant wood schooner with high masts and green trim: Blarney Pilgrim. A man I took to be the captain was standing topsides.

“You wouldn’t happen to be from Ireland,” I asked.

“No, the ship’s named after an Irish reel.”

I told him I played mandolin and would have to look that one up, and he invited me to come to the local jam that he played in.

Perhaps I will make it out one of these days.

One of my favorite Victoria Harbour attractions are the house boats. They are grouped together in a colorful neighborhood moored off a series of peers. As a kayaker, I got to voyeur my way around, paddling beneath window frames, while the tourists were confined to the boards.

I was enjoying paddling the harbor so much that I didn’t want to leave. And look, here was a for sale sign. I just needed some money and some citizenship and I’d be good to go.

The twee Victorian sights began to industrialize as I paddled away from the city center toward the open water.

Here, diesel pilot boats waited to help guide the big ships into the harbor. One of these big ships was roped up in a berth near the harbor mouth. Celebrity X Cruises, it read on the side of the towering box of glass and plastic. It looked like a piece of Atlantic City that, for some awful reason, was afloat on the sea. Nothing in the design spoke to the grace of wind or water. 

Were their celebrities aboard now? If so, I was sure they were loathsome and insufferable.

Oh, Christ, there was another one of the damn boats coming into the harbor now — seven stories tall, coming in hot.

No way I was waiting for the next shiny piece of sea trash to park. I began paddling like hell to get across to the sea wall.

Sharp waves slapped across my bow. A flood tide brought checked my progress with an opposing current. The water turned to washing machine chop as waves from the strait bounced off the seawall, crisscrossing each other. 

Finally, I got out of the path of the oncoming ship, but the waves were goofier than ever. 

I stayed within a paddle length of the wall, staying in the wildest water, but where I would be least likely to be surprised by a speedboat cutting the corner. A couple spectators watched me from above.

“Now comes the fun part,” I called to them.

As I prepared to round the corner I braced my knees hard up into the cockpit so that I could react to big slammer waves that were waiting for me there,

Suddenly, I heard the roar of an outboard going full throttle.

“Oh shit.”

THUD —- THUD —- THUD — THUD —- THUD —- THUD

The oncoming boat slammed off the waves.

The driver came within 20 feet, throwing foam in its wake. I concentrated on moving forward and maintaining stability. Finally, the wake hit me, a second later, I was taking rebound waves coming from the opposite direction.

Now that I was outside the harbor, the flood tide was moving in my favor, carrying me Northeast toward the vast Strait of Georgia, which lies between Vancouver Island and the North American continent.

Speaking of flooding, I needed to pee very badly. The beer had run its course. The beaches, alas, were crowded, and I felt badly about offending Victorian sensibilities with public urination. 

My best hope was to pee out from my kayak, which was going to be extra challenging in the waves. I opted to steer behind some rocks where the water was slightly calmer. I pulled the sprayskirt, tugged the relief zipper on the drysuit and aimed the stream outside the boat. The kayak lurched as the diffracted waves buffeted me from either side. This operation required me to have hands off the paddle, so the only stability was in the hips. 

I emptied about half my bladder,  and almost capsized as an extra large wave set smashed past the rocks. Half relief was better than no relief, so I would leave it there.

I paddled back into the current, and worked at catching waves to make fast time.

Up ahead of me stood Trial Island, a windblown place of grass and rock, adorned with skeletal radio towers.

 The island created a bottleneck in the current, so that the water took on a riverlike appearance. The waves compressed into something smaller, but hard. It was lean, dark, muscular water, rippling with strength. Little whirligigs whipped off of the eddy line. Circular boils blossomed out from unseen depths.

The kayak sped like a over it easily; life was good as long as I didn’t defy the forces around me. Yet, my curiosity was stoked, so I flipped the kayak around and tried paddling. Even giving 100 percent of my effort, I saw that I barely made any progress. I had to focus to keep the boat from bucking out of line. Finally, I bent to the current’s wishes and let my boat swing back downstream. As far as I knew, I was getting close to the end of flood tide when the water should have been slacking off.  In other words, this beast was not going anywhere near full strength. Trial Island indeed.

After the tide rip, I paddled another mile to a golf course, which was at the southwest corner of Vancouver Island. Here, the shoreline bent northwest toward the Strait of Georgia and Port Hardy at the top of the island, 275 miles north of there and halfway to Alaska.

I was leaving that shore to paddle two miles out through the chain islands to Discovery Island. A friend who had been out this way before, told me to watch out here, because those islands channeled strong rips between the Juan De Fuca and Georgia straits. 

I hoped that the catching the tides near slack would ease the bumpiest parts of the ride.

I poked from rock island to rock island, going between kelp stands. I accidentally surprised a large colony of seals, and watched as they heaved their speckled gray bodies to the water to much commotion and splashing.

The rips produced a couple of six inch standing waves to slap through, but it was nothing too challenging. Nonetheless, I found the currents taking me further north than I planned, so I decided to just go around the north side of Discovery through the channel below the Chatham Islands to the north.*

The water here was calm, private. The islands felt a world removed from the bustle of Victoria, marked by solemn pines and beautiful madrona trees meeting hanging out above their reflections. I spotted bald eagles up in the branches, monitoring my progress. This land all belonged to the Songhees First Nation, so there would be no landing there.

And as for the wolf? There was no sign.

When I rounded the south side of the island, I was back in the teeth of the wind. Fortunately, camp was not much further. A small sandy bay offered a protected place to land my kayak.

There was a small, windblown meadow above the beach with picnic tables and camp spots.  No one else had set up shelter, yet. And here I had been worried that I would get shut out of a site, being so close to a major city. I savored the wisdom of my taking my Memorial Day weekend in Canada, where there wouldn’t be so many crowds.

I decided to get camp set up early and do some more kayaking after. I set the tarp up and reinforced it with driftwood, set damp clothes on a sunny picnic table, weighting them down with rocks so they wouldn’t blow away.

As the clothes dried, I decided to jog the short trail nearby. The path followed the coastline to an overlook where I could look back to the USA and see the full sweep of the Olympic Mountains going east to west. Port Angeles was lost in the haze below Klahhane Ridge. Beyond, the snows of the Bailey Range shown above the distinct notch carved where the Elwha flowed out from the heart of the mountains.

Closer range, that was — yes it was! — a big ol' wolf shit! Lying right in the path!

It was a log pile with lots of hair, same as I’d seen in Minnesota. A spray of tiny asters grew around it.

I pumped my fist. It was already worth it coming out here.

Wolf sign

Another wolf sign

The wolf shit was going to be hard to top, but I decided to continue exploring. I got back to my kayak for a couple more hours paddling aimlessly through the Discovery Island, Chatham Islands archipelago. The couple of square miles held innumerable tiny islands to explore and mess around. The currents were delightfully unpredictable. I could paddle hard against the flow for five minutes only to have it reverse as I rounded a corner.  I made plenty of time to look down at starfish and up at eagles. Meanwhile, the stronger tide rips between Discovery and Vancouver Islands had picked up, and I could watch as the foam atop the churn caught the sinking sunlight.

It was whimsically pleasing to be able to poke in and out of channels and explore islands, a nice break from the aggressive point-to-point paddling that I often do around Port Angeles, where there aren’t so many islands.

I got back to the camp beach to find another kayak pulled up on the driftwood above tideline, while a man set his dinner at a picnic table.

The polite thing to do would have been to have introduced myself immediately and struck up a conversation. I was getting chilled in the steady wind though, and decided I needed to get into warm clothes before I started talking and got even colder.

Fifteen minutes later, I walked over and introduced myself.

His name was Sandy. He was a cheerful Canadian living in Victoria, who garnished his sentences with generous helpings of “Eh?” and “Dope.”

“This campsite is so dope. It doesn’t get much better than this, eh? I paddle out here all the time and there’s hardly every anyone around. People don’t know what they’re missing.”

Sandy was keen to have a fire, though the signs said this was off limits. The fact that there were cords of flammable driftwood on the beach just waiting was very tempting.

He set up a small blaze below the tideline, and I decided I wasn’t going to miss out. 

I brought my cook-pot over and we swapped stories about paddling adventure as the sun sunk below Vancouver Island.

He had a wife who was going through medical school, two kids and a third on the way. “I’m a stay at home dad.” 

“God bless, Canada.”

Life in Victoria was definitely dope. There was kayaking and biking around town and skiing in the mountains to the north. His kids were still young, but were already taking to Dad’s outdoor ways. 

In a couple weeks, however, they would all be moving three hours up the island to the smaller town of Duncan. They would be closer to the skiing here, and the cost of living would be much lower than Victoria’s. It shouldn’t have been a surprise that people of modest means were getting priced out of there — it was just like any other nice city. Tech workers and fund managers got to kick it on the houseboats,; everyone else packed their bags.

View of Olympic Mountains from Discovery Island

As I slurped down my potato/spit pea soup, Sandy showed my his Coastal Pilot book, which illustrated the network of currents between all the nearby islands and how those currents changed at different tide levels. It reminded me of the circulatory system in its complexity and interconnectedness. 

One thing the book told me, was that I could tide ride north the next morning and back south to camp by afternoon. It would be a long paddle, but I could probably even reach the Gulf Islands if I wanted to. I had explored a small part of that large chain of islands last summer, and had a great time. To get there and back, it would be at least a 30-mile commitment, however, maybe more.

 I’d figure out what I wanted to do in the morning.

Gratitude for the navigation help and the company compelled me to offer Sandy some of the apple/banana bread I’d prepared in the microwave the day before. A full moon blazed a white trail over the water. I waited for a howl to rise out of the hinterlands behind me, but there was nothing.

Legal or not, there are few pleasures like a driftwood fire. It put warmth in my bones. I felt we had a small civilization on the cobbles, complete with trade, fire, and education —  although we didn’t have a customs house, declaration forms or any celebrities to call out bingo numbers. In a few hours, the rising tide would wash right over the spot, erasing the brief history of our culture. 

I was fine with that. 

There's nothing like a driftwood fire.

*Discovery Island is named after the ship commanded by George Vancouver, the British explorer. who ventured into the Strait in the 1700s, searching for the Northwest Passage.  The Chatham Islands are named after Discovery’s companion ship, the Chatham.

A Sojourn in Valhalla: A Doorstep Adventure to Obstruction Point

Transitioning from skis to sneakers to cross a large bare spot

Link to Obstruction Point Bike/Ski Video: https://vimeo.com/270742955

The Hurricane Ridge Road is the antithesis of blissful mountain solitude.

At least it’s that way when you are crawling up the mountain on a heavily-loaded bike as a never-ending stream of automobiles flies past: the cars, the motorcycles, the RV’s all blowing out exhaust. Up they went like mechanical salmon, jockeying for a patch of view to fill their screens, a moment of release from their car-clogged, screen-lit existence. The hills vibrated beneath the engines.

The sun beat down full power out of the blue sky, with few opportunities for shade. It seemed like I couldn’t stop sucking water out of the hydration tube in my backpack. I had over 5,000 feet of climbing to look forward to from my Port Angeles home before I got to camp along the Obstruction Point Road. The bike was loaded with camp gear, and a pair of telemark skis laid across the frame.

Somehow, it was going to be worth it, once I got out of the traffic onto the closed road. It would be worth it once I was laying the first tracks atop a ridge surrounded by miles of mountains, snow and stone.

First I had to pedal through several sections of construction below Heart of the Hills. I kept my eyes down so I wouldn’t fixate on the long sections of road above me.

At the park entrance, 2,000 feet above sea level, I waited in the long line of vehicles as heat shimmered off their roofs. Eventually a park ranger walked out to see who already had park passes, and I showed her the wilderness permit on my backpack.

“Have fun,” she said.

“I’ll try.”

I found myself looking up more once the Douglass fir began to close in around the road. The snows on Klahhane Ridge made me feel cooler. I looked past the stopped cars and saw Baker and Glacier Peak resplendent against the blue of the Salish Sea. 

The big broad leaves on trees began to shrink back toward their twigs as I gained elevation. 

The onslaught of autos continued unabated. 

There were a couple of road bikers on the pavement as well. I envied how quickly they moved up the pavement. I’d see them for maybe two bends in the road, and then gone, leaving me to chug along with my payload of skis.

I kept pulling from my tube until there was nothing left and I stopped to refill the bladder at a stream coming out of the pines. I filled up an empty Arizona ice tea jug as well. That was eight more pounds to haul up the hill, but there would be no water readily available on Obstruction Point and I didn’t know how much I could count on snowmelt. 

I stopped at another stream below the Switchback Trail where I didn’t fill up any water (more humans, more likely contamination.) I wanted to go soak my head, but a kid was having the time of his life throwing rocks in the water, while his parents waited in the car.

He should enjoy the freedom while it lasts, I thought.

Dad tapped the horn while the kid made like he didn’t hear, and continued his barrage.

There was a big patch of snow in the shade, and I filled my hat with it.

Refill spot

I hit Obstruction Point Road at about 4:30 p.m. — five and a half hours after I started my pedal.

The view south gave me a perspective of ridge upon ridge upon ridge, decked with snow, crowned by the white throne of Olympus. After two and a half months of springtime weather in Port Angeles it was jarring to see this snow kingdom, think that it was there the whole time, right over my head. The warm existence I inhabited, amidst broadleaves and cut grass only existed on a narrow band between this mountain world and the ocean below it.

A stout metal gate ensured that the parade of motors wouldn’t get past here for now. My route would continue on the eight-mile dirt road, following the ridge-line. The winding, dirt road was the process of being plowed. Last I’d heard, the plows had made it to the PJ Lake trail, which is about halfway to the end.

I tightened my brakes and I started the descent — slowly. The load on the bike rattled along the washboard as I reluctantly checked my speed. I rolled past a couple hikers — though there were few who had abandoned their cars to explore this empty road. 

The downhill was only a short respite however, and I was soon climbing again. I cruised the flats beneath the point of Steeple Rock, and the next drop over to PJ Lake. 

The open road continued. Apparently, the plows had made progress in the days since I got a road status report, I observed. I wondered if they had already plowed to the end.

Now the road was cut out of huge drifts of snow. The white walls rose 10, 15, 20 feet on either side. Yet in other places, the sun had beat the snow down to nothing, and the ground was bone dry and dusty. My nose felt itchy and desiccated in the low humidity.

It was getting closer to 6 pm, and I knew I should start thinking about campsites. Still, I was halfway tempted to keep pedaling. There was a pretty big outhouse at the end of the road where it would be easy to lay a sleeping mat with minimal camp set up to worry about.

I relented from this course when I found a nice flat area in some scrub pine where the snow had melted out.

I set up a large over-tarp, and tied the corner grommets to the shrubs and to my ski boots. Now the fun part. I had brought an old Norwegian snow cutting tool that I’d inherited from my ski-guiding season in Colorado. I used the saw blade to cut blocks out of the hard firn snow nearby and built up a couple of walls to reinforce the shelter.

With that part done, I moved on to dinner. 

Uh oh. Where the hell had I put my cotton balls that I used for firestarter? Oh, that’s right, I’d taken them out of the med kit two weeks ago, when I decided that I wasn’t using them for anything. Idiot.

Fortunately there was some dry grass nearby, that I could appropriate and smear with vaseline. After many, many tries I managed to ignite them and transfer the flames to the solid fuel tablets I’d brought. The flames licked up as the last beams of sun danced over the snow slopes around me. I propped my tiny stove on rocks to boil water.

The main course was a pot of rehydrated mashed potatoes mixed with rehydrated split pea soup, then garnished with some olive oil I’d brought in a tube. Bon appétit! 

A second pot of the stuff, was necessary to stifle the tremendous hunger I’d built up from the day’s exertions.

I lay out on rocks with warmth in my guts as stars — dozens, hundreds, thousands — apparated onto the dark tapestry above. A meteor streaked above the mountains.

No one should live too long with their head down. Everyone should hit the refresh button now and then.

I counted a dozen satellites too. They moved so quickly! I thought about how there were still tribes of people out there who had avoided contact with the rest of the world. Yet, they too must have seen these strange little messengers, unprecedented throughout millennia of star watching, delivering news, surveying the troubled globe below. What did they make of them. They would be an indicator to them as much as they were a reminder to me.

Don’t forget what you are a part of, even if forgetting is what makes you feel free.

Obstruction Point Road beneath my campsite, evening

Dinner rocks, looking out above the Lillian River Valley toward the Elwha 

Evening entertainment

Supper

Tarp camp

Snow blocks reinforce my shelter

Breakfast

I was awake for much of the night wrestling with thoughts and concepts I could hardly remember in the morning. The treacherous wind picked up and worked its icy fingers through the shelter I’d built. 

At breakfast, I dug out the grass I had saved in my pocket (where it would stay dry against the morning dew) and began another fire.

I moved leisurely, through breakfast, photographs, hauling gear back to the bike. Before I left camp, I emptied the Arizona jug into my hydration bladder, then filled the jug with snow and tied it to a south-facing rock where the sun would melt it. I let myself start by walking the bike, which really was not much slower than pedaling uphill and more relaxing. 

The cleared road ended within a quarter mile. I took the skis off and put climbing skins on the bottom. I settled into the slide and glide shuffle through the corn mush snow. Already, it was so warm that I was down to my tank top. Resplendent views of peaks reared up in all directions.

I ended up having to take my skis off, at the top of a rise because the snow was completely gone. My telemark bindings are a complete bear to get in and out of, so I kept the boots clipped in and took my feet out and into my running shoes. Within a hundred yards of walking, I got back to a line of snow next to a tall cornice. Fracture lines ran through the snow on my left — go over there and there was a possibility that the whole thang would break away in a house-sized collapse, sending me down a couple hundred feet down with it.

I stayed well to the right, though the bare rock on the other side meant that I could only make it so far.

Beyond this little hazard zone, the snow opened up into a broader area. I met two ladies who were skiing from the other direction after a night at the end of the road.

It was an easy climb with skins from here, they reported, and I wouldn’t have to take the skis off again. 

“It was windy last night,” one of them remarked.

I told them that I’d thought about going out sleeping in the outhouse at the end of the road that evening.

“You would have had to have dug the house out,” the other woman said, “It’s completely buried.”

Well, that was good to know, I said. I’d much rather spend a day like this skiing than digging.

They continued back toward the pavement, and I proceeded up the hill.

I reached the outhouse, and sure enough it was buried, almost to the roof. There’d been no morning movement yet, but if I had one, it wasn’t going to be here. I was grateful that I’d camped where I did. The outhouse also marked the last part of my route where I had travelled before.

On my doorstep adventure up the Deer Park Road, last year I’d approached this point from the east, and I’d also biked up here to run on Elk Mountain back in the fall. On both trips, I had looked at the ridge going southeast from here, and decided that it would be an amazing place to ski. 

Today, I would do that ski.

And the plowing ends...

Looking out at the Strait and Mount Baker

Buried outhouse at the end of Obstruction Point Road

Amazing is just an abstract word that I could employ to describe the sense of being there, a feeling that is difficult to recreate with words or pictures. Skiing on the 6,000-foot ridge was a feeling of euphoria. It was the involuntary whoop that left my lips when I saw the beautiful, perfect world around me. There was no one else, no other tracks. The Olympic Mountains were stacked up on all sides. 

The south face of Elk Mountain was almost completely melted, a talus slope dropping down a couple thousand feet into Badger Valley. My route took me along the ridge leading up toward the 6,700 foot summit of Moose Mountain, with several smaller sub-peaks waiting in front of it. My eyes followed the Grand Creek valley toward the Gray Wolf River and Dungeness to the blue line of the Salish Sea.  The cornices were even more massive than the one I had encountered earlier. Snowballs the size of SUVs had broken off into the valley below.

Again, I encountered sections where I had to maneuver near the deadly fracture lines, with bare ground on my other side of the skis.

I was still going through my water at an incredible rate. I drank and drank and felt no need to pee. My nostrils felt parched. I put a long-sleeve shirt on, even though it was sweltering, because I had already developed a mean burn on my shoulder and lower arm.

The tiny alpine ponds below me had begun to thaw at last, the water creating turquoise rings around white centers. I was particularly taken by the improbable island of snow on one south-slope. The desert colors of the broken rock surrounding it, made the trees and white look like a window to another world.

I mixed with snow into my granola for the extra water.

I skied another mile to the summit of one of the sub-peaks, which had a view of a slab avalanche. Almost half a mile of snow had been cut off in a clean line along a steep slope. Below, lay a massive pile of snowy rubble. 

I skied down off the sub-peak and into the next dip in ridge. The extra distance gave me a great view into the valley and Mount Baker. Going beyond this, the way was much steeper, and I’d need to take the skis off to make any headway. The temptation was there, yet, I also realized that doing so would add an element of fear, hardship and uncertainty to what was shaping up to be a perfect day.

I decided it was O.K. to turn around.

Snowfall

Strange blue water

The window in the wall

A fracture to watch out for

View over Badger Valley

Glaciers, ridges, snow

The way back was far more downhill than up. I left my skins on for the initial descents, which allowed me to be slow and controlled where the cornice overhangs didn’t leave much room for maneuvers. 

I stopped a couple times to put snow into my diminishing supply. I hung the bladder outside my pack so that the sun would melt everything sooner.

When the outhouse was back in sight, I finally took the skins off so I could cruise downhill fast. I made a couple of telemark turns in the corn mush. My right binding popped twice and I ended up using a cam strap to hold the sucker down.

Going up the final hill, I skied as far as I could without skins, then took my skis off to march up the dry part of the hill.

I was getting near the bike, when I heard the trickle of water. Oh, thank God!

It was dripping off the 15-foot cut above the road. I hastily refilled the bladder and then tilted my head back to catch even more water for myself.

I got my bike together below camp where I found a quart of warm water inside the Arizona jug. I mixed some snow in and then drank all of that too.

The bike ride along Obstruction Point road was more fun as a net downhill, though I still had to take it carefully along the washboard and with my loaded bike. 

There were more people walking the road today.

“You brought everything but the house!” a man remarked.

I came to the steep half-mile uphill back to the Hurricane Ridge Road, where I guessed that I’d have to walk my bike, but I found myself feeling stronger than I’d thought.

“Hup! Hup! Hyah!!” I cried as I clambered to the top.

Finally, I got back to the pavement. There was still time to make a Mother’s Day call to the east coast. The gravity that I’d struggled against the day before tugged pleasantly at my bike. Down I went.

These late spring days, it was strange to see how far to the north the setting sun had wandered. I was grateful that it kept the road illuminated and warm. I flew past a ruffed grouse with beautiful neck feathers puffed out. It was too narrow on this section of road to pull over. Keep going.

No more snow now. Here are the beautiful fir trees again. So tranquil. Moisture returned to the atmosphere and my nostrils felt normal again. I took a detour down the Mount Angeles road where the light was heartbreaking gold amidst succulent leaves of maples, the emerging devil’s club, the nubs that would become salmonberries over the next weeks. Cut grass of farm fields. Grazing animals, suburban houses, people walking on the sidewalk by the high school, the neighborhood where I live.

I swung up over the curve and swooped through the opening in the fence to the edge of the doorstep.

I looked ruefully at the skis strapped to my bike frame. I had struggled with whether I should take them back down with me or if I should leave them for a future doorstep adventure. How nice it would be to bike up there without the ski and boot weight to deal with. Maybe I would take on Moose Mountain. Yet I also knew that the snow was diminishing fast. I also knew that I had other adventure and life ambitions in the weeks ahead.

Perhaps it was better to bring it all back down and not try to recreate an experience that, really, couldn’t have been more perfect.

The skis go where the snow goes

The snowball of damocles. I skied a little faster past here.

The way down

The Hurt-y Thirty: Adventures in Birthday Mileage

Sunrise near Hollywood Beach, my base of operations
for my 90-mile birthday adventure

The idea to turn my birthday into a solo 90-mile relay event came to me randomly while I was out running. 

Running birthday miles was nothing new to me — or for my Dad who is responsible for starting the tradition. I’d already planned to run 30 miles that day to mark my 30th — much as I’d run my 29th, my 28th, my 27th. But now I had a whole new decade moving in with all its heavy psychological baggage weighing down.

I needed some stronger juju to pull myself up to this next level. 

OK, so what if I ran 30 miles and then kayaked 30? That sounded better. But, ending with two events seemed off-balance somehow, unfinished. Right, so I had to throw in a bike event too. Thirty miles of pedaling would be the last segment. of the day. I would call it the Hurt-y 30. If I finished downtown, I would follow up with an immediate beer and pizza.

I laughed aloud, as I occasionally do when I run alone. What a stupid plan! It sucked that I had to do it now.

Watch Video:

The Hurt-y Thirty

Running

I started running down the street outside my apartment at midnight.

I was starting with an easy 1.4 mile loop, with the hopes that I could trigger my morning bowel movement early. Alas, no luck.

I ran in the cool of a plump moon — below moon-washed snow on the mountains. The short warm-up ended with me getting into my car and droving to the base of operations I had chosen for myself at Hollywood Beach, downtown Port Angeles. I ran beneath the streetlights along the deserted waterfront, then up Hill Street onto the bluffs toward the Olympic Discovery Trail, a corridor beneath dark pines. I flicked my headlamp on. The pavement glimmered in front of me in a ghostly pool. This would be my world for many miles. 

Night running takes its toll in monotony. I’ve found that I consistently run much slower than I think I am going, even when it feels like I am pushing myself, somehow I find myself running below average.

So I shuffled slow through the miles along the Discovery Trail, until I jogged over the bridge over the Elwha River. 

I took heart at the sight of moonlight dancing over the dark current. This was my turnaround. I chewed mechanically on a Clif bar and began the slog back to Hollywood. By the time I got downtown, I was 16 miles into the 30. Another man with a headlamp was going through the gas station Dumpster. The courthouse bell rang three times. Damn. I was falling behind the goal.

I found myself stopping at my car to drink water and eat granola. Then I ran out to the Elwha a second time, resolved to pick up speed. Yet, bathroom stops, food and goofing with the camera ate into this time.

When I returned to Port Angeles it was 6 a.m. This timing meant that, since midnight, I’d been averaging slower than 12-minute miles, a pace that would have put me near the back of the pack of elementary schoolers doing the mile run.

If there was any consolation prize for being slow, it was the opportunity to watch the sun come up through the beams of the Japanese Peace Bridge over Valley Creek. The bright orb left a fiery trail on the harbor water — the setting for my next test.

Kayaking

Eating, drinking, changing clothes are all real things that take time. Because they are mundane, however, it is easy to underestimate just how much time they take out of an event. In this case, the time to get from running to kayaking was about an hour. 

My slow run had already put me an hour behind my predictions, but I couldn’t just make up that time by jumping into the kayak immediately. I had to deal with the usual body-temp plunge that follows exercise. I wrapped myself in my orange puffy and drank hot tea from my thermos, took another bathroom break and crammed handfuls of granola into my overstuffed  gob. Carrying my boat to the water beneath 30-mile legs was no joy.

Now it was 7 a.m.. My arms felt weak, my legs were cramped. I was in a lightheaded, out of body feeling. My dilated pupils suffered in the bright light off the water.

A solitary loon floated beneath Klahhane Ridge.

At least the harbor views were beautiful. The scenery wasn’t going to change much for a while. 

The kayak course I had mapped out was a monotonous four laps around Port Angeles Harbor. While boredom was bound to be a disadvantage for this course, some positives included the fact that the waves couldn’t get huge here like they could in the open strait. I was comfortable going without my drysuit and could therefore paddle faster without overheating.

When I finished the first, lap however, it was clear that I was still lagging. 2 hours and 15 minutes per lap would put me on pace for a 9 hour paddle. Then, I had to get out of the boat to stretch legs, drop a layer and get more food out of the car. OK, that was another 15 minutes gone. At this rate, it would be a 10 hour paddle.

Once I’d stuffed down more granola, I felt strength return. I switched direction so that I did this lap clockwise around the harbor. This allowed me to fight the wind and ebbing tide at the beginning of the loop where there were many piers and anchored ships that I could draft behind. When I turned around to go east, I had a long straightaway down Ediz Hook, where I could rip down open water with the elements at my back.

I made this lap in two hours, even accounting for the break that I took beneath Rayonier Pier to admire enormous colonies of tube worms, mussels and sea stars on the pilings. 

The third lap included a lunch stop at the west end of the harbor. I stopped here because the elements would be carrying me in the direction that I wanted while I took my break. 

As I noshed on a peanut butter sandwich, several shiny heads with coal dark yes bobbed in the water around me. I counted a dozen seals who had been following me the last 20 minutes. Several of the bolder ones would pop up about a kayak length behind me then go back down with a terrific splash when I looked at them.

By the time I’d finished this third lap, it had taken me 2 hours and 15 minutes. I stayed in my boat and flung myself into the last loop with renewed purpose. 

I went back to paddling counterclockwise so that I could take advantage of the gathering flood tide — but of course now the wind was picking up again. I paddled hard past the Coast Guard base and the net pens where Atlantic salmon thrashed in their rope cages.

I turned around to go east a final time. The wind started whipping up the water, lashing it into small angry white caps. 

I managed to surf the hotheaded little waves, bounced through the chop from fishing boats and reflector waves ricocheting off tugs. I had to make a series of paddle braces and move my hips to keep the boat upright. 

When I got back to Hollywood, it was 4pm. My legs were a joke. I pulled my boat on shore, heavy with the slosh of water that had infiltrated its way in. I turned it upside-down with a half-hearted shake to empty it. There was surely plenty of water left, but I didn’t want to deal. I lifted the beast up onto my shoulder and staggered drunkenly up the steps to my car. 

The wind had stolen my warmth again — so I got back in my puffy and sat in the solar-heated car. I stuffed more food into my mouth, and Gatorade. I just needed one more rally.

Biking

I emerged from the car, pulled my bike from the back, put the front tire on, and took a seat. I started pedaling for the Elwha River. It was 5 pm.

Given how flimsy my legs had felt when I got out of the kayak, I was pleasantly surprised to find myself feeling strong now. I got up out of the saddle and pumped my way up Hill Street and onto the Discovery Trail.

The wind was far mellower away from the water. Earlier, I had planned to do some of my bike miles on Ediz Hook, where the wind would be blasting. Now, I decided to just go back over my running route. 

I thoroughly enjoyed being able to cruise the flats and cover ground with minimal effort. Did I say enjoy? Yes. The sun was still out, and the sun shone like a thousand paper lanterns through the new green leaves. Walkers and bikers wore smiles and waved eagerly.

I emerged at the Elwha in about 45 minutes. I was holding down about a 10 mile an hour pace, which still seemed slow, but I’d also lost time city biking earlier on. I went east a short ways past Hollywood to make an even 15 miles, then I began my final bike lap. 

My front derailleur got fouled up, so I couldn’t get the chain to stay in high gear. While this slowed me down, it also meant thatI had an excuse to pedal easier. My final lap felt fine and my energy stores were stable. I had a final sandwich on the Elwha Bridge and cruised into Port Angeles at 8 pm, right as the sun was going down.

My good friend Vanessa gave me a shout out as I pedaled along the waterfront. 

“How’re you doing.”

“Not so bad,” I remarked. Legs, arms, back, everything felt pretty good, not smashed up the way it would be it I’d, say, run a marathon all out. I definitely felt tired though.

“I pizza and beer sound pretty good right about now,” I said.

Video: Doorstep Spaliday

I go on one of my Doorstep Adventures — biking from home in Port Angeles, Washington over to the Elwha River valley where I go past the road washout, cut some downed trees, visit the hot springs, camp and go snowshoeing below Appleton Pass. Because of the restricted access, there were few people in the valley. There was ample opportunity to appreciate early spring scenery like skunk cabbage blossoms, deer and warm sun on the pine branches.

https://vimeo.com/263770668

The fight for water hits the street: At the Trans Mountain Pipeline protest in British Columbia

Protestors at the pipeline gates

It wasn’t where you’d expect to see a salmon run, here in an asphalt parking lot beneath the sleek monorail station in Burnaby — just outside Vancouver.

Yet salmon had come to this place; so had a sea otter, a great blue heron. 

The whales were strong here too.

Black and white orcas were painted on protest signs, including those of my group, Olympic Climate Action. Six of us had carpooled from Port Angeles, Washington across the border to Canada the night before to attend an international march against a tar sands oil pipeline project that would threaten orcas and humans alike. Two of our members walked in orca costumes. Overshadowing everything, someone had built enormous three dimensional orcas out of fabric. These were easily the size of the real deal. While orcas and salmon might not get to cast votes in elections or weigh in on opinion polls, here on the streets, they made their presence known.

The humans would do the same. The march had managed to gather 10,000 demonstrators. A group beat tribal drums; their song and chant rising above the beat.

“We won’t stop until we win!” they cried.

“We won’t stop until we win!” we answered.

“Kinder Morgan’s got to go!”

“Kinder Morgan’s got to go!”

Kinder Morgan is the Texas oil company pushing for the Trans Mountain Expansion Project— over 7 billion dollars of new pipeline infrastructure to link the tar sands of northern Alberta to port in Burnaby, near our protest site. The capacity would be 890,000 barrels of oil. For comparison, that is 30,000 more barrels than the proposed Keystone XL pipeline would carry. 

Some may wonder why, as a US Citizen with plenty of other outrages to worry about at home, that I was bothering to protest on Canadian soil. Unfortunately, if the pipeline does go through, it will have an enormous impact at home.

All that oil will jackknife the number of oil tankers going through the Strait of Juan de Fuca by as much as 700 percent according to the Sierra Club.

That number means danger for places like Freshwater Bay near Port Angeles, where I saw my first (and only) pair of wild orcas surface unexpectedly within a stone’s throw of my kayak. If one of the tankers spills, the shoreline there will be clustered with tar balls, dead fish floating in oily water. The noise alone from all these ships promises to devastate the critically endangered population of Southern Resident orcas that rely on sound to communicate at sea. With only 76 of these whales left, it is likely that there were more whales at the protest than there are in the Salish Sea.

And then there’s climate change. Enough carbon sits locked up in Alberta’s tar sands that burning this oil would be “game over for climate,” according to James Hansen, the scientist who first brought global warming to national attention in the ’80s.

On the streets of Burnaby however, it was game on.

Thousands of marching bodies formed a pipeline of humanity as far as I could see forward and back. We filed past the gates of a rich neighborhood where a Range Rover and a sports car stopped dead to a halt as the protestors streamed past.

“Looks like they chose the wrong day to try to go anywhere,” one man remarked. 

Amidst all these people, young and old, there was a surprising number of baby carriages in the crowd. Older kids marched and held signs. Only a few days later, high school kids in Port Angeles would have a walk-out to protest school shootings.

If the Parkland protests were on the mind of many in the march, so was the #MeToo movement.

“No consent? Your pipe doesn’t get laid,” was one of the more clever signs.

I reserve my favorite spot, however — for concept and execution — for the sign that read “Justin’s in Bed with Kinder + Morgan.” The painting features Prime Minister of Canada is dressed in PJs holding the covers with an expression of sleepy wonderment. On the other side of the bed, two porcine execs in suites gaze back at him, smugness writ large across their bloated faces.

The hip, compassionate, progressive image that Justin Trudeau projects didn’t carry much water with the crowd in Burnaby. No amount of rousing words or woke selfies will change the fact that He has tied his political legacy to tar sands oil. He has pushed hard for the Kinder Morgan pipeline, even as British Columbia’s government opposes it along with 17 First Nations and 20 cities and towns.

My favorite sign

The show of people on the streets was only one component of a fight waged in courts, including lawsuits levied by the British Columbian government and by tribes.

Another show of resistance came from “Camp Cloud,” a trailer that activists had illegally parked in front of the Kinder Morgan pipeline station months ago. The protestors danced on the rooftop and solicited cheers from the marchers. Several of the protest coordinators were on the ground to tell people to keep moving. Kinder Morgan had won an injunction making it illegal for demonstrators to get within five meters of Kinder Morgan property. Still, the threat wasn’t enough to deter many from getting their pictures taken at the gate with defiant signs. More recently, protestors did get arrested while blocking the entrance there.

After the gate, the protest, moved on to the “Watch House” that tribal activists were building where they could set up a lasting encampment against the pipeline. This was the end of the march and the beginning of a series of speakers that included several from Canadian First Nations and US tribes who were united against pipeline.

My group lingered near the sidelines of all the speeches where people were bustling and striking up conversations with each other. As our group chatted with the various attendees, a small blond-haired girl came up to my friend Ed (he was in an orca costume) for a hug. Without prompting, she pointed at our orca signs showing that she wanted to carry one around around. 

We gave her the one that said "Our Children's Future Over Profit," and she made her way around the crowd, gathering little clusters of people who would stop to admire and chat. This turned out to be some awesome marketing, because everyone wanted to pay attention to the the cute kid holding the sign.

Her mom and dad watched their daughter work the crowd with charisma and élan. Later, Ed gave her the orca costume for some more networking. Meanwhile, 13-year-old Autumn Peltier from Ontario, spoke about how important it was for her to protect water. Famously, she told Trudeau to his face, “I am very unhappy with the choices you’ve made.”

I thought about the many parents in the crowd that day who had decided it was important to show their young ones what they believed through action. When you love something, you fight to protect it.

The tragedy was that for seeing all this beauty, energy and defiance in people, I still doubted whether it would be enough to meet the darkness. The shear amount of money that the people are up against boggles the mind. We are seeing now, how unrestricted money has allowed countless dirty tricks in the U.S. election amongst other places. This monetary effluent tries to submerge all other voices and pollute democracy. Yet, the dissidents continue to say “me too” and demand a hearing.

The generations lean together, shoulders against the wheels of injustice and push back for a future that holds compassion and life. 

Hopefully, that future will have whales in it too.