Ken Campbell, Author at The Last Wilderness

It begins

Posted by Ken Campbell July 22, 2009 0 Comment 971 views

I started the process today, putting the pack together for the Press Party hike coming up this weekend. I’m planning on heading out to the Elwha on Saturday evening, then spending the next week following the route that the Press Expedition took on their Olympic crossing of 1889-1890. Up the Elwha River to Low Divide […]

Dreams in the night sky

Posted by Ken Campbell July 21, 2009 0 Comment 954 views

On July 16, 1969, three men shuffled off the boring constraints of gravity and rode a giant candle to their date with destiny. Luna. The moon. Just nine years earlier, President John F. Kennedy had promised that by the end of the decade the country would put a man on the moon and return him […]

Mary’s flowers

Posted by Ken Campbell July 16, 2009 0 Comment 1029 views

The day after my hike on Klahane Ridge, Mary took time to do a solo of her own down the Hurricane Hill trail, from Hurricane Ridge down to the Elwha River. The top part of the trail is a ramble through the high country meadows and the wildflowers were out in force. She took a […]

Foiled again

Posted by Ken Campbell July 14, 2009 0 Comment 1095 views

Mount Angeles is not a difficult mountain to climb. It’s a scramble really, rather than a true climbing experience, steep but nontechnical. It’s one of the most frequently climbed peaks in the entire range; it seems most anybody can get up it except me. I tried it once in winter. Sleet and driving snow kept […]

Win some, lose some

Posted by Ken Campbell July 14, 2009 1 Comment 1128 views

There’s a new Marine Trail site on Indian Island. According to the WWTA web site, the new Cascadia Marine Trail campsite at Portage Beach on Indian Island is “located on the dynamic waters of the Portage Canal… an ideal stop for boaters circumnavigating Indian and Marrowstone Islands. Visitors can stretch out their sea legs on […]

The long way back down the mountain

Posted by Ken Campbell July 13, 2009 2 Comments 1306 views

It’s 6 AM on a Saturday morning. The sun is already high in the eastern sky but the tall fir and cedar trees block the direct rays; the light that reaches me here at the Heart o’ the Hills Campground has been filtered through their branches, and the air is still cool. It is a […]

Hurricane Hill

Posted by Ken Campbell July 12, 2009 1 Comment 1116 views

Above 5000 feet, it is still spring. At Hurricane Ridge, the wildflowers are blooming in little explosions of color all over the meadows and along the sides of the trail, where just a few weeks ago the ground was covered in the last of the winter’s snow. Penstemon, lupine and paintbrush abound, along with lanky […]

Names

Posted by Ken Campbell July 8, 2009 0 Comment 1005 views

There’s a movement afoot that is getting some press time, to change the name of Mount Rainier. Native American tribes in the area referred to the iconic Cascade peak as Tahoma, or Takhoma, and there are those who say that these earlier names are more appropriate and more authentic than its current moniker, a tribute […]

The Elusive season

Posted by Ken Campbell July 7, 2009 0 Comment 933 views

After a month of steady sun and blue skies, western Washington has pulled the covers over her head once more. Clouds have moved in and the sky is gray and lumpy, what author Tom Robbins would call a “hemorrhoid sky,” gray and threatening. It’s not really cold, but after temperatures in the 70’s and 80’s […]

Hurricane Ridge

Posted by Ken Campbell July 6, 2009 0 Comment 1063 views

The year is 1889. Port Angeles is little more than a wide spot on the Straits, population: 40. A sawmill and a couple of other stores make up the entire business district and the whole affair is still very much in the process of being carved away from the surrounding forest. The interior of the […]