For the love of water

Posted by Ken Campbell September 24, 2011 0 Comment 1067 views

Although I’ve spent hundreds of hours at the Nisqually Delta over the past 20 years, precious few of them have actually been on land. Most of the time I’ve been kayaking, either on my own or with groups of paying clients, exploring the intricate waterways and the ever-changing shorelines of one of western Washington’s greatest marine treasures.
As the years progressed, I began to think that maybe we paddlers were loving the area to death. Every commercial outfitter does trips there (I did, for more than a decade). Every club runs several outings a year through the marshes, and individual paddlers and private groups are thick on the water most of the time. I don’t know that there’s a problem with this: it just seemed to me that there might be negative effects of so much popularity. I stopped offering guided trips in the waters of the Nisqually Reach a few years back and I haven’t gone there more than once or twice on my own since then either.
But I think I’m going today. And, just to make it even more different, I’m not taking a boat or a board with me. I’ll be taking Micah, however, and we’ll be doing all of our exploring on land. The Nisqually Watershed Festival is today – booths, displays, live music and food – but I am most excited to see the Delta again, from a decidedly different perspective. There have been some big changes there in the past couple of years, with more of the area returned to its natural state and a variety of new viewing platforms. I expect it will be a wonderful land-locked afternoon.

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