Kayak Trip Oct. 13, 2007

I'm ever so lucky in that I get to do some pretty awesome things. I did a kayak trip that is a rare thing here in this area. A lot of folks kayak around here, but because of the tides. winds and weather, it's unusual to do exactly what we did. I got an invitation to kayak from the Willapa National Wildlife Refuge center to a place called Smoky Hollow. Smoky Hollow is located on a island (Long Island) in Willapa Bay. It took about 1 and 1/2 hours to paddled to our pull out point and about an hour for the return trip. There were 9 kayaks. Some singles, some tandem. It was a really nice group. I didn't know any of these folks prior to the trip. I have seen this island many times from the Long Beach Peninsula and have always wanted to go there. The only way to get there is by personal boat. There are no roads or any other way to get there. We started the trip leaving the dock at the refuge center under the most glass like water conditions. The sun was shining brightly after a very foggy start to the monring. I thought it might be iffy for the kayak trip. The kayak gods were in good spirits. Yeah! We paddled around the south end on the island, paddling past places like High Point, Pinnacle Point, and landing at Smoky Hollow. We saw Great Blue Heron, Pintail Ducks, Canadian Geese flying in formation. We also saw a Red Tail Hawk and some Surf Scroters. I saw one seal and some bay porpoise. The island is part of the Pacific Flyway and there are a phenominal amount of birds that come through the area. In the forest there were lots of birds chirping and plenty of tree squirrel. Only a few of us hiked to Cedar Grove. This is an old growth cedar grove. They logged this island up until the 1980's, but luckily it was stopped. There are some really amazing trees. The forest is full of newt small and quite large. Plenty of wild mushroom too. I should have taken more photos. I took a couple of falls on the island and I'm quite sore from it, but man oh man, what a wonderful experience. I'm very very lucky to get to do something as amazing as this was. The photos aren't great, but kind of give you an idea.

BubbleShare: Share photos - Here comes Halloween!