Sammamish River Paddle

21 February 2009

I'd been pretty-well convinced that Facebook was worthless despite all the "friend requests" lately, but then on Saturday I got two responses that were worthwhile. First, I heard from my niece Lauren who is attending college in Indiana, responding to a note I sent her via Facebook. Second, I noted that Chris Amondson had posted that he was going kayaking "10 min ago". The sun was out, the temperatures were heading for the 50's and the route was sheltered, so why not?

We met Chris and Patricia around 1245 behind the Ben Franklin in Redmond because the Luke McRedmond Park was closed, at least the parking lot, for condo construction. After discussion and walking around to look at alternative put-ins, we drove a bit closer and parked in a private lot just north of the park. Chris went to pick up his brother-in-law Tom and set up a shuttle near Bothel Landing while we waited with the boats. After a bit of lunch and some paddling upstream and back, Chris and Tom showed up with his inflatable tandem which went together pretty fast.

It was easy paddling in the one-knot current and there weren't too many shallow spots and only one rapid that gave us any concern - mostly because of the overhanging tree. There were plenty of skaters, bikers and walkers on the adjacent trail. But there was not much in the way of other mammals except for possible burrows in the muddy banks. We saw several bald eagles and even one hawk attack on a baldy who did a barrel roll to present his talons to the attacker.

We paddled through Redmond, then Woodinville and made a bathroom break at a sports field. After that the height of the banks increased and the sun got low in the sky dropping the temperature. Approaching Bothel, the river assumed a more winding course and, after passing under I-405 we paddled through a residential area - mostly mobile homes - with docks and boats.

Out in front with Patricia we went right by the take-out spot and paddled another 0.2 miles to Bothel Landing itself before Chris caught up to us and led us back to a small park on the south bank of the river. Patricia and C.J. stayed with the boats while Chris, Tom and I returned to Redmond to pickup our cars. It was full dark by then and we wasted no time getting the boats loaded and ourselves into the heated cars.

Surprisingly good kayaking for the middle of February!

Saddle? Nope, Kiona

Presidents Day 2009

Dave Norwood had reported good flying at Saddle on Saturday and, as Monday approached, predicted another good, if lighter day. Ernie Friesen emailed with thoughts of ride sharing but lost interest as Beth was not able to go. C.J. called Rich Hass who hadn't flown Saddle for five years or so and convinced him to sign on. We had a quorum!

It was foggy in north Bend when we left before 1000 but we broke out of it just beyond the pass. Unfortunately as we got closer to Eburg it got more and more overcast. Crossing the Columbia, the wind looked just about right but a call from Dave reported that it was socked in on the top. Later, as we pulled off the road at Beverly he reported that the cloud had lifted just above launch and that he was going to gear up, winds at 12-14.


Rich, C.J. and I got as far as Road R on the way up Saddle when we met Rick Shalman coming down. We could clearly see the long roll-cloud along the Saddle Mountains ridge and, with the report from a ready-to-fly Dave on top and the prospect of lighter winds and clearer skies to the south, we chose to head for Kiona. Conditions when we arrived were good, and improved as the sky cleared. We launched into the straight-in winds and climbed above launch in what felt surprisingly like thermals, not expected for the day. Doc and C.J. headed down to the end of the ridge while Rich and I worked the area around launch. Later Rich and Doc made it west around Dead Dog but not as far as the hang launch where Mark and Jim had been flying earlier. Aptly-named Obiwan (Master Rick) made it back to the LZ while Rich practiced his downwind, downhill technique on the road; C.J. worked on her reverse-landing skills on the ridgetop, and I toplanded in the snowmelt on launch to drive out to C.J. and then down. Although Rick offered to squeeze in another flight before sunset at Temple View, we opted to head out for the 3-hour drive home.


Was it worth the extra 45 minutes of driving to get to Kiona when we could have flown Saddle? Hard to tell, but it's always fun to fly a new site, with good company, and the sunshine made it a lot more pleasant. Nevertheless, I'll keep an ear out for Dave's prognostications and head for Saddle when it sounds good again.

Later emails from Dave, Chris Culler and James Bender indicated that the cloud above launch never lifted above 300 ft and that the hang gliders had to land and de-ice at least once. Two paragliders flew, two did not and one of the two flyers (according to secondhand info) spun-in to the low point between launch and the microwave towers.

Umpteenth Annual Get-Together at Bend

6 February 2009 - We got out pretty much on time, shortly after10:00, amazingly enough after an evening meeting with the newly-named Mountain and Sky Access Coalition (McDonald Group) at Starbucks in Issaquah. Six-plus hours later we were checking into our condo at Eagle Crest in Redmond, OR. This time we got the one unit that has a view of the Deschutes River and canyon to the east.

7 Feb 2009 – By 10:00 or so we were sorted out enough to head up Century Drive to the Meissner Sno-Park where there appeared to be enough snow to make it worthwhile skiing the groomed trails towards the new Meissner Hut. From there we headed off-trail across a valley to the north to hit the “Wednesdays” trail, then on the Paintbrush trail. The route took us through forested, rolling terrain to a view to the S and W at an old cinder pit. From there we backtracked, then turned off on a little-used loop to the Shooting Star hut. We had lunch on the hillside facing into the Tumalo canyon with a view of Brokentop in the distance. We had already been disappointed that we had both forgotten our cameras since the inch-and-a-half of new snow was sparkling white against the brilliant blue sky, now we were missing out on the view to the distant mountains. The encroaching shadows and dropping temperatures got us moving but the rest of the loop was harder to find and we ended up returning to the same route we had come in on. When we reached the turnoff for the rest of the Wednesday trail we debated about breaking trail but found new tracks and decided to give it a try. Unfortunately, the tracks stopped within a hundred feet; fortunately, a lone skier was coming toward us and had done the hard work of putting in the first track. So we headed along the mostly downhill trail, made the sharp turn in a mile on to the continuation of Wednesdays at a sign indicating 2.5 miles back to the Sno-Park. After another mile or so we noticed that the sun was still behind us and we were still going downhill (we were more than 350 ft below Meissner). Somehow we had missed the unmarked and untracked trail back to the Sno-Park. The GPS showed that the trail we were on, which was not on our map, would eventually intersect Century Drive at least a couple of miles east of Meissner. Instead of continuing, we cut x-c to the south and in a quarter-mile we reached the main road. I took my poles and pack and started hitching. Luckily I got a ride with a Nordic skier heading up since there wasn’t much traffic at all going my way since Bachelor has no night skiing program. Back at the Sno-Park I quickly drove back down to where C.J. was waiting. It had been one of our longer days – and a good bit of it had been in untracked or barely-tracked snow. We were glad to have the Jacuzzi tub to work out some of the muscle aches. Ginny and Wally showed up around 1800 and we had pozole for dinner with cheesecake for late dessert. Ginny decided to pay for signing us up with the wireless available from Eagle Crest for $20 for the week.

8 Feb 09 – After a big breakfast/brunch of sausage and veggie omelet with biscuits, C.J. and I got a late (1100) start for a hike at Smith Rock while the good weather held. By noon we were on the Chute trail down to the Crooked River. Crossing the footbridge, we switchbacked up the Misery Ridge trail to a scramble to the summit. After returning to the trail we continued on to a view of the famous Monkey Face where two climbers were nearing the summit. The trail headed down more switchbacks and we ended up taking the right, longer, fork on the Mesa Verde trail to the River trail. We had lunch on a riverside rock beneath Asterisk Pass. Returning to the south side of Smith Rock we could see lots of climbers on the Dihedrals and Morning Glory Wall. Back to the bridge we took the longer trail back to the parking lot, bypassing the Chute. We beat Ginny and Wally back to the condo, but they returned with the fruits of a day of shopping and gave us Thermarest “sit-upons” for Christmas presents. C.J. had already given them our presents earlier this morning. C.J. cooked up a big pork roast with carrots, onions and potatoes for dinner.

09 Feb 09 - When Wally and ginny got back from breakfast at Birdies, we drove up to Bachelor to increasingly cold temps and a nice covering of new, fluffy snow. C.J., Wally and I skied from the Nordic Center along the common corridor to the Todd Lake Trail. After descending a whole lot more than I remembered, we crossed a meadow and ascended a quarter-mile to the snow-covered Todd Lake. It was cold and the wind was whistling down the lake so it was definitely not the place for a lunch break. We skied back down to FS 370 and followed it uphill a short distance to the Water Tower Trail. Then we climbed quite steeply to another meadow (and the actual water tower), and then climbed again through the forest. There wasn't much downhill at all and we were soon back near Dutchman Flats and completing the loop at the Todd Lake Trail. Then it was only another .25 mi to the Nordic Center and the cars. The temperature seemed to be going down all day (from 23 F at 1030 to 19 F at 1425 when we got back) and the sunshine we had started out in became intermittent and then gave way to overcast and snow flurries. C.J. and I drove into Bend and hit the Columbia factory outlet and Joes before returning to the condo for a Ginny-prepared corned beef.

10 Feb 09 - After Ginny and Wally packed up and headed back to the Bay Area, we joined Steve and Tina at Toomies, a great Thai restaurant in downtown Bend for lunch. Later we had dessert, and shared scrapbooks and photo albums at Steve and Tina's. On the way back to the condo we stopped to get some artisan bread at Trader Joes for dinner tomorrow, and I noticed we had a burned out headlight so I got a replacement bulb at Joes. I haven't been able to wiggle the connector loose from the burned-out bulb in the Trooper yet. Maybe in the morning when it is light and I have some tools available. It snowed lightly all day in Bend (but not at Eagle Crest apparently) and Steve and Tina said it had been snowing steadily up at Meissner where they had skate-skied out to the cinder pit on fluffy snow.

11 Feb 09 - C.J. used some of the veggies and mushrooms to make a delicious omelet for breakfast - Ginny was right; we have way too much food for the rest of the trip, especially if the weather continues rainy in Santa Barbara and Southern California in general. By 1030 we were on our way to recon the x-c skiing in the Ochoco Mountains east of Prineville. It continued snowing lightly most of the way and, as the road began to rise outside of Prineville, the road surface became packed snow. We reached Bandit Springs around noon having decided to skip Walton Lake which was higher but accessed by an unplowed, unsanded Forest Service road. Bandit Springs (and the SnoPark just a quarter mile west) had no maps andno information about trails. We geared up anyway and followed blue diamond trail markers up an abandoned road on about 4-6 inches of new snow over a shallow, icy base. A trail sign a few hundred feet up the road pointed ahead for the Ponderosa Loop and left for Easy Trail. We followed the Ponderosa for a mile or two until we reached the junction labeled "O" which had a weathered map which did not show the loop clearly. At that point we turned back getting a pretty good downhill run on the way. It was close to 1400 when we started driving down snow-covered road SR 26 and about 1545 when we got back to Eagle Crest after a stop at Fred Meyer in Redmond. Then I got the tool kit out and finally managed to get the old headlight removed and installed the new one so we've got both low beams working again. C.J. put the finishing touches on the pork soup and at 1730 Steve and Nona arrived for dinner with two (!) layer cakes, followed shortly by Steve, Tina and Elizabeth. Great dinner - the bread and Black Toad beer from Trader Joes were excellent, as was Tina's salad (and we finished off most of both cakes). Nona brought her scrapbook from the Ecuador trip and we all enjoyed sharing and comparing with C.J.'s Slovenia scrapbook. We're hoping for clearing weather tomorrow and may be able to meet Tina for a shuttle-trip from Dutchmans to Swampy along the Flagline Trail.

Tina Pavelik on the Flagline Access Trail, Brokentop in the distance

12 Feb 09 - C.J. and I met Tina at 1000 at Swampy Lakes Sno-Park, left a car there and shuttled to Dutchman Flats. Tina led us up the Flagline Access Trail which skirted the edge of Dutchman Flats and then climbed continuously to hit the Flagline Trail. Fortunately someone had already skied the same route so we did not have to break trail. We saw only two other skiers the whole day and those were right near Dutchman. From the saddle NW of Tumalo Mtn it was mostly downhill to the intersection with the Flagline Tie leading uphill toward Vista up to a meadow in a saddle then down to Butte. We took the Butte trail down to the Ridge Loop which went down again to the Beginner Loop. The last quarter mile we were able to coast along slightly down and ended up at the Swampy Lakes Sno-Park and Tina's car. It was probably our longest ski tour at just over 11 miles but snow and sky conditions were about perfect. On the way home we stopped to buy a Wii (but not the fitness software that C.J. wanted) at Best Buy - decent price and no state tax. Tonight, after a soak in the Jacuzzi and a dinner from last night's leftovers, we're packing up for the trip home. The weather in California, even SoCal, is wet enough that we don't feel like making the long drive. The rain is good for the drought-stricken Californians but not so great for us. Maybe someone will be flying at Cliffside.

13 Feb 09 - Packed up in lightly falling snow and we were on the road by 0910. When we stopped to get gas at the Towne Pump in Redmond, the price had gone up 21 cents per gallon since earlier in the week. [What's with that? Is it the Presidents Day Weekend or a bump in the price of crude?] The roads were bare but we still had snow and flurries through most of the drive with the heaviest fall as we crossed the pass north of Goldendale. There was actually a bit of sun in the Yakima valley and we probably missed seeing some pilots getting short flights at "Mickey's" just east of Union Gap (Saddle was reported blown out for PG in the afternoon). We did make a couple of stops on the way to see if we could find a store that had the Wii Fit in stock - no luck in Redmond or Yakima. We were in North Bend by 1615 and picked up our mail before reaching home.