Ken Campbell, Author at The Last Wilderness

A Catalog of woes

Posted by Ken Campbell March 22, 2012 0 Comment 1282 views

Plantar fasciitis. Know what that is? I do. I have it and I can assure you that it doesn’t feel good. I could wax on and on about the what and the wherefore, or you can just look it up on the Wiki (here)… but the salient point is that it hurts. Some days more […]

Take one

Posted by Ken Campbell March 21, 2012 2 Comments 1201 views

When I have gone on long trips or expeditions in the past, I’ve always taken photos. They weren’t always great photos, but every now and then there would be a nice one. I always carried my camera with me in the event that something picture-worthy might show itself. It was like a long game of […]

Getting the van back

Posted by Ken Campbell March 20, 2012 0 Comment 1156 views

I think the only one who’s more excited than me is the boy. Today is the day we get the Westy back, and I will never have to sleep in a Subaru again. I hope. Seriously. The van blew up outside of Yreka back in August, on my birthday, and it’s been a long, cold […]

Vashon Island on the right

Posted by Ken Campbell March 19, 2012 3 Comments 1374 views

I wanted to believe. I really did. I wanted to believe that our tents were above the level that the high tide would reach sometime in the middle of the night. Looking at the wrack lines from the previous high water marks, it seemed possible that the coming high tide wouldn’t get all the way […]

32 miles

Posted by Ken Campbell March 16, 2012 1 Comment 1287 views

To travel 32 nautical miles in a touring sea kayak is no great feat, especially when given the better part of three days to get it done. That’s the trip for this weekend around Vashon Island – about 7 miles this afternoon, 17 tomorrow and 8 on Sunday, back to where we started. The weather […]

Kayaking underground

Posted by Ken Campbell March 15, 2012 1 Comment 1248 views

There is nothing, and I mean nothing, like cave paddling. Just wanted to get that out there.

Against quiet desperation

Posted by Ken Campbell March 14, 2012 2 Comments 1093 views

“A man can stand almost anything except a succession of ordinary days.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said that, and it sounds about right to me. Too many ordinary days, and you’ve got yourself an ordinary life. And who wants that? I’m looking forward to this weekend’s shakedown paddle around Vashon Island. The premise is that […]

Hammersley

Posted by Ken Campbell March 13, 2012 0 Comment 2087 views

Near the southern end of Puget Sound, down near the western tip of Squaxin Island, you’ll find Hammersley Inlet. But you’ll have to look closely. Peter Puget, on his longboat voyage back in 1792, didn’t find it. Sailed right past it, actually. It was another 50 years before American explorer Charles Wilkes finally inked the […]

The "S-word"

Posted by Ken Campbell March 12, 2012 2 Comments 1152 views

I heard the weatherman calling for snow again. We actually did get some yesterday, mixed with a little sleet and hail, but nothing stuck. Personally, I’m done with winter; it just doesn’t seem like it’s quite done with me. The three of us paddlers who make up this summer’s Ikkatsu Expedition will be doing a […]

Remembering Sendai

Posted by Ken Campbell March 11, 2012 0 Comment 1332 views

It was a year ago today that the powerful Tohoku earthquake and the devastating tsunami hit Japan. The quake was the most powerful to ever hit the Japanese archipelago and the combination of disasters claimed as many as 20,000 lives. Entire towns were leveled, homes and businesses destroyed and lives were changed in an instant. […]