Ken Campbell, Author at The Last Wilderness

This year’s edition

Posted by Ken Campbell April 16, 2010 0 Comment 1068 views

After a few quick days of surfing and hiking, I rolled down the mountain and into Port Angeles this morning. Had breakfast at Shirley’s, the kind of place where the rusty pickups in the parking lot have bumper stickers like “What would Scooby Do?” and “Screw Tibet – Free the Elwha.” Breakfast was delicious. Continued […]

Here and there

Posted by Ken Campbell April 13, 2010 0 Comment 1145 views

Going to Taholah on Wednesday. In order for non tribal members to access the beach on the Quinault reservation, they have to get a permit from tribal authorities in Taholah. I figured it might be smart to advise them of my trip this July, and find out exactly what the access limitations are and how […]

PA state of mind

Posted by Ken Campbell April 12, 2010 0 Comment 1118 views

I don’t know exactly why I look forward to the Port Angeles Sea Kayak Symposium each year. It has its down sides, after all. It’s small, out of the way, and weather-dependent in a way that other events, offered later in the summer, are not. Even when the weather is perfect, as it was last […]

That modern glow

Posted by Ken Campbell April 10, 2010 0 Comment 1058 views

I had no idea that today was the last day of International Dark Sky Week. (I don’t think Hallmark even has a card for that.) Light pollution is a major issue here in the first part of the 21st century, although it rarely gets the attention and effort that is regularly put into combating other […]

The Sappho story

Posted by Ken Campbell April 9, 2010 0 Comment 1141 views

In 1889, a man named Martin Van Buren Lamoreux left his home in St. John, Kansas, along with 8 of his children, his second wife, and 3 of her kids as well. Quite a cross-country trek it would have been before he ended up in the Pacific Northwest. When he got to Seattle, Lamoreux briefly […]

Pressure drop

Posted by Ken Campbell April 9, 2010 0 Comment 1049 views

Thirty knot winds all day, and gusts even higher than that. I could hear the wind in the trees before I got out of bed and it’s been in my ears all day. I have a long-running uneasiness with the wind, I guess. I first felt it in Newfoundland, ten years ago. I wrote about […]

Mount Rose, and other tales of naming rights

Posted by Ken Campbell April 7, 2010 0 Comment 1610 views

Mount Rose, at 4301 feet, must have had a name before this one. It’s not a major peak, even for the diminutive Olympics, but I would expect the Squaxin, the S’Klallam and others would have hung some name or another on it before Lt. George Davidson, in 1857, anchored near what is now Seattle, put […]

A Brief return to winter

Posted by Ken Campbell April 6, 2010 0 Comment 987 views

The fire wood we brought burned up pretty damn quick. At least, I thought so. It was a cold evening following a wet afternoon. We made it to the washout at the end of the Dosewallips River Road, about 10 miles in from Highway 101, by 3:00 PM. The sun that had warmed our backs […]

Dancing class at the end of the road

Posted by Ken Campbell April 5, 2010 0 Comment 943 views

We’re heading out to the Dosewallips today on a family camping trip. A few months back, I mentioned to the boy that the Dosewallips road had been washed out by the river at one point and ever since then, he’s wanted to see it. I don’t know what he thinks it will look like and […]

Here comes the wind

Posted by Ken Campbell April 2, 2010 0 Comment 1123 views

The weatherman, that crazy soul, is calling for winds upward of 50 mph this afternoon. I got the morning paddle in before it really started kicking up, but I can hear it out there now, slapping the tall trees about, along with the sideways-falling rain that clacks and pings at my window. The wind was […]