Ken Campbell, Author at The Last Wilderness

Slip-sliding away

Posted by Ken Campbell September 1, 2008 0 Comment 732 views

I’m not sure if it because it’s September, and it is perhaps a bit early in the year, but I have been thinking about the coming snow. More specifically, I’ve been thinking of skiing. This is odd, for a number of reasons. Mainly it’s odd because I don’t ski. It’s been years since I strapped […]

Wheel in the sky

Posted by Ken Campbell August 31, 2008 0 Comment 758 views

As I write this, Hurricane Gustav is taking a bead on the gulf coast. It has been downgraded to a Category 3 hurricane at the moment, but it’s expected to gain strength once it gets north of Cuba. Where it’s going to make landfall in the US is still guesswork, but it’s not looking good […]

An Olympic expedition, done

Posted by Ken Campbell August 30, 2008 0 Comment 1143 views

The row is done. The O.A.R. Northwest crew that started their row around the Olympic Peninsula on August 4th wrapped it up the other day in Gig Harbor, where they began. The trip went well overall, a little hardship in the swamps near Black Lake, but ultimately they proved that the peninsula is, in reality, […]

Coasting, Part IV

Posted by Ken Campbell August 27, 2008 0 Comment 885 views

When a stream or a river enters the sea, it forms a series of sand bars at the confluence. Because the flow of the river varies, and because it brings gravel, wood and silt with it as it makes its way to sea level, river mouths are of a type, really. Some are larger than […]

Coasting, Part III

Posted by Ken Campbell August 26, 2008 0 Comment 874 views

When we got back to the beach, the fog that we thought had gone slowly returned. We stayed just outside the surf zone and continued paddling south, toward the next point. According to the chart, just around the corner was Goodman Creek, and we figured we’d give it a look. We weren’t ready to camp […]

Coasting, Part II

Posted by Ken Campbell August 25, 2008 0 Comment 1293 views

It was a foggy morning in La Push. The marine layer had been thick for the past couple of days, but it was supposed to move offshore later in the afternoon. John and I hauled the kayaks across the wide swath of drift logs and down to the sand. We packed them as the tide […]

Coasting, Part I

Posted by Ken Campbell August 24, 2008 0 Comment 778 views

I have sea kayaked the inside coast of Vancouver Island in winter. I have paddled all the way around the island of Newfoundland, a 13-week epic that is still one of my fondest memories, and proof to me that this is a big, magnificent world. I did a 10-day trip in 2001 with Andy Bridge, […]

Seasons

Posted by Ken Campbell August 22, 2008 0 Comment 773 views

“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under the trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.” John Lubbock Strange, really, to think that summer is almost over. It seems like it […]

Get up, stand up

Posted by Ken Campbell August 19, 2008 0 Comment 773 views

I had the chance this past week to spend a few days on the SUP (stand up paddleboard). I’m still on the steep part of the learning curve and any errors in technique get instant feedback, but I’m certainly getting more comfortable. Speed is increasing and balance gets easier as the momentum improves. I am […]

Three days on the Dosewallips

Posted by Ken Campbell August 16, 2008 0 Comment 1637 views

The idea for the Summit to the Sea series came about because I have always been interested in following the Hoh River from its source, high on Mount Olympus, to the point that it empties into the Pacific. I wanted to watch as the river developed from trickles of melting snow to a cascading torrent […]