Posts filed under "Talking Story"
Hot flashes and Kleenex
I remember one February, in the middle of a blowy, rainy afternoon, when I was dropped off in Neah Bay to begin what I hoped would be a solo winter kayak trip down the Olympic peninsula’s roadless coast. I packed the boat and headed out into the gale, eventually making it as far as Cape […]
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Uphill
I’ve got a date with Mount Rainier. Well, I actually don’t have a date yet, but late June is looking likely for the attempt. I have an assignment to write a series of articles, not only on the climb, but also on the preparations, equipment and training that are all parts of any successful summit […]
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A Winter coat
Yesterday morning dawned clear and cold. I could see the Olympics from the deck, for the first time in a while. The last time, maybe a week or ten days ago, they were dark in color, late summer alpine rock. On this day, a fresh coat of white covered all the peaks that I could […]
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Blake Island – An introduction
Blake Island sits at the top of Colvos Passage, between Southworth and the northern tip of Vashon Island. It is a State Park, about 475 acres, with excellent camping and kayaking opportunities. The island was used by the Suquamish tribe as a fishing camp. It is widely held that Chief Sealth, the great native leader […]
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Anemomania, just a touch
For the last three days, I have listened to the wind and willed it to stop. Forced it, by the power of my psychic imperative, to back down, to subside. All that focus, all that resolve, for nothing. The wind still blows. And then, for no more than ten minutes, I look elsewhere, am occupied […]
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Opacity
A couple of days ago, at about 3 in the afternoon, the Coast Guard got a report of an overturned sailboat in the Tacoma Narrows. A driver called in as he crossed the bridge, describing a blue-and-white boat, inverted, being swept along by the wind and current. Rescuers were on the scene quickly and searched […]
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Scenes from a Viking funeral
Totally off the subject, if indeed there is a subject: I had the chance to attend a Viking funeral here at the beach the other day. Ib Christiansen, long-time Salmon Beacher, died some time back. One of his old friends made a longboat replica out of some of his possessions – lead pipe keel from […]
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Shore day
They said it was going to get windy. They were right. A winter-style storm is in the process of working its way across western Washington, huge swells out at the coast, snow in the Cascades and Olympics and high wind and rain all over the rest of us. I didn’t get out there this morning. […]
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Sidekick
Little Tahoma Peak is a bump on the eastern side of Mount Rainier. Composed of chossy rock that is notoriously unstable, it rises thousands of feet above the Emmons Glacier like a sentinel of stone. In 1963, a series of huge rockfalls off shed about 14 million cubic yards off its north side and scattered […]
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The blue bins are for recycling
I was climbing the stairs yesterday with the boy, the morning hike up from the beach to the parking lot, when he looked over the railing and saw a pair of beer cups on the slope below. Somebody up the beach had a party last weekend and apparently there were a few guests that chucked […]
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A story of sea kayaking and science on the rugged coast of Alaska. Coming – Spring 2014.
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