BC or Bust Part 2

We were a few hours out of Tofino when the wind picked up.  The mellow waters of the fjord lost their shine, developing half a foot high waves that rattled the small aluminum boat and all of our supplies. Sitting on a cooler with enough food, water and beer for two nights,  I bounced along as Jeremy piloted the seventeen foot aluminum boat towards the mouth of the fjord. The cold air and increasing waves kept small talk to a minimum.

"How long till we get out of here?" I yelled to Jeremy.

"The fjord?"

"Yah,"  I replied nodding towards the mountains on the right.

"15 minutes.  It's going to get rough for an hour or so."

I smiled in acknowledgment.

Twenty minutes later, our boat was cutting through five to eight foot ground swell a mile off the coast of Vancouver Island.  Dressed head to toe in Gortex,  frigid water covered me each time we bounced off the the top of a wave.  Keeping my head down, I avoided the bulk of the spray, but this left me blind from anticipating the jolt of larger waves.  Every few minutes, a wave shook the boat like a screen door, jaring me from my perch on top of a Coleman cooler.  One such wave sent my Wayferes flying, eventually shattering against the gunnel.

After that, I went quite and focused on nothing, the way you do on a long run.  Time stands still and speeds ahead at the same time.

Campvibes.

A trail to hot springs.

Displacement hull.

The BC Ferries.

Jeremy and Trevor kickstarting a fire.

Seasonal housing.

A grey whale off the coast of Vancouver.

Jeremy checking the weather forecast.

Equipped to rip.

Coffee time.

Light house.

Trevor at the Harbor.

Bald eagle.

#vanlife.

Heater.

Hidden Kitchen.

Sea lion Bonanza.

Boatlife!

With a descending whine, Jeremy eased off the throttle and the boat coasted.   Looking up from my stopper,  Jeremy motioned towards a stretch of ocean just off of a point.  Shifting the throttle handel back into reverse, he anounced, "Thats the wave.  The tide is still way to high."

"So we made it?" I asked, signaling my relief.

"Yah we are going to camp over in the bay."

"Awesome.  I want to get the fuck off this boat.  That was brutal."

"Ahh come on" Jeremy said in his Vancouver accent.  "Last winter Pete, (Peter Devries a pro surfer from Tofino) and I made the same trip in three times the swell and howling 30 knots."

"I don't doubt that shit, but I'm a land lover. I feel 3 inches shorter."

"Cry about it pro blogger (Jeremy's nickname for me).  The winds nice,  lets get our camp set up.  We'll be able to surf before sunset."

Standing up, I stretched and looked down at cooler.  One larger circular dent in the green aluminium correlated with the placement and subsequent jarring of my ass during the ride.

Here are some more links,

BC or Bust Part 1 (ART),

BC or Bust (Cleanest Line).

West Wind

A statue honoring the Veterans of the Korean War stood watch over a lone Dodge at the county park.  Across from the empty jungle gym, unidentifiable country music from a Central Oregon radio station hummed through the 'lowered windows.  The west wind bent the top of the pine trees and wafted over-heated coolant from the front grill of the truck.   A girl's legs  hung from the passenger window and a shirtless teenager slouched in the bench seat.  It was late summer 2012 in The Dalles.

"Should we tell them their engine overheated?" My mom said,  leading her Irish Terrier, Lucy, down the sidewalk.

"No, Mom...  let them be," I said, taking the leash from my mom's hand and continuing along.

It's hard to predict which moments come to identify a specific place or time,  often it's the most seemingly trivial ones that capture my imagination and spark my sense of nostalgia.

Here are some more links,

West Wind (Facebook).

Just off the Jet

"I gotta see what vanlife is all about." "Yes you do man,  you'll love it."  

Our plans came together last minute.  With three days notice, Phil bought a round trip ticket from Newark to Portland.  Escaping from the confines of a late spring in New York, the idea was to show him what the Northwest had to offer in a vanlife crash course.  I picked up Phil a little after noon on a Tuesday, and we headed east into the Columbia River Gorge.

An ode to Lewis and Clark on the Columbia River.

Whatcha liken?

Glass off.

Shred sticks of yesteryear.

Blaze is a Ford Ranger.

Cascade Lakes.

Burned out snag.

Bench seats.

Frigid.

Beaver.

Burned out.

After three days of relitively pleasant weather for early spring,  the weather turned south.  Rainstorms that felt more like November than June marched in one after another.  The temperature dropped.

"Do you want to fly out of San Francisco?  I need to head that way anyway, and it would be easy to drop you off at SFO."

"I'd be into that.  Cali calls."

"Plus we can get out of this rain.  It will be nice down there."

"Sounds good to me."

Just like that our plans changed.  Instead of hanging around Oregon for another four days,  we headed south over the Cascades towards Cave Junction and the 101 in Northern California.

Here are some more links,

South With Phil (Facebook),

Award Tour.

River Otters

The sound of overflowing whitewater cut through the densely wooded forest  long before the single track trail led down to the stream.  Walking in our wetsuits,  we moved quickly,  hoping to avoid unnecessary conversations with hikers about our clothing choices and plans to scramble up a high flow stream.

Sliding down the steep banks, we rested on the narrow shore.  Staring at the clear flowing water in anticipation, I pulled the hood flap over my head and secured the zipper of my 4/3 wetsuit on my chest.  Tim and Spencer followed suit,  tightening their hoods around their faces.  Stepping into my knees,  the cold water rushed through a slit in my left bootie.

"Ohhh yahh, it's cold,"  I said moving further towards the base of a small waterfall.  "You guys ready?"

Reluctantly,  Spencer and Tim followed suit,  wading into surging stream.

"Bro..this is frio," Spencer said in exaggerated, Socal surfing fashion. "What do you think the temp is?"

"Ughh maybe mid 40's,  It's always warmer than you actually think it is."

"It's pretty fucking cold," Tim added.

Taking the plunge,  I dove forward in the chest deep water.  The cold attacked my sinuses and forced me to surface and gasp.

 "Shit.  Maybe it's low forties."

Keeping our heads above water,  we moved upstream towards the first set of rapids.  Taking turns,  we tried to climb the small waterfalls.  Taking others failures and success as examples we slowly made our way up the stream.

Taking a break from shooting with film,  I took these on my 5d Mark II and an underwater housing.

Wet feet.

As kids, Tim and I hiked the trails by this stream and watched its changing flows.

Cairn Culture.

My brother and I accessing the next obstacle.

Spencer making his way across a shallow section.

"There's no way we are getting up that," I said, pointing towards a 12 foot raging waterfall.

"Not happening," Tim agreed.

Looking up the narrow canyon towards a log jam,  my mind immediately raced, imagining a catastrophic failure of the make shift damn.  A wall of water the height of a refrigerator would charge down the canyon.  Accelerated by the occasional log,  I imagined bouncing down the canyon like a pinball before being deposited on the bank.  That wouldn't end well.  Looking up and down the walls, I eyed an escape route from the hypothetical flood.  There were none.  Sheer cliffs covered in moss,  extended some 20 feet up towards the canope of the various evergreens.  The only way out of the canyon was back the way we came.

"You guys ready to head back?"

"Yah I'm over it," Tim said in a tone that could have been explained by a similar conclusion about the surging pile of logs at the mouth of the canyon.

"Lets go."

Here are some more links,

River Otter (Facebook).