What's New In Water Trails

December 2004-January 2005

This is an article from WaveLength Magazine, available in print in North America and globally on the web.
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by Reed Waite

The cool waters of the US Pacific Northwest were boiling with water trail activity in 2004. The number of campsites increased 25% on Puget Sound’s Cascadia Marine Trail, a new water trail on the Columbia River opened, and work heated up on a number of new paddling projects in the states of Washington, Idaho, and Oregon. This means there will be more opportunities for paddlers to explore the rich waterscapes near the populous Pacific coast in the 2005 season.

Let’s start with the Cascadia Marine Trail, Washington State’s gemstone water trail, where new and old Washington Water Trails Association (WWTA) partnerships added fresh camping locations for kayakers and other non- motorized boaters. Some longer sections of the Trail were filled in with the establishment of strategic public overnight stops at The Narrows Park near Gig Harbor, and at Possession Point on the southern tip of Whidbey Island. San Juan County Parks opened three non-motorized sites on San Juan, Lopez and Shaw Islands.

Weekend or three-day Puget Sound island circumnavigations were made easier this year with new sites. Point Robinson on Maury Island, located just off southwest Seattle, makes the third campsite for trips around Vashon. The lighthouse there boasts a foghorn, so the weather-wise should plan accordingly. The Kinney Point Cascadia Marine Trail campsite is the only development on Washington State Park’s 68 acre Marrowstone Island property, consisting of a few tent sites and a vault toilet, helicoptered in last year. It’s a short hop from Port Townsend to Marrowstone Island’s Fort Flagler State Park, then around the island either way to Kinney depending on conditions.

There are presently a few sections of the Trail that require 20+ miles of paddling between campsites, including stretches on the fjord like Hood Canal, but the goal for the Cascadia Marine Trail is a campsite every five to eight miles. Today, the Trail is about 15% complete with over 50 campsites, and good progress is being made to add more sites each year.

Heading further south, the Columbia River defines the boundary between Washington and Oregon states. This is where, 199 years ago, the American Lewis and Clark expedition ‘discovered’ a water route from the foot of the Rockies to the Pacific, although the river had been used by European traders for many years prior, as well as by the native tribes for millennia. The Lower Columbia from the Bonneville Dam (146 miles of tidally affected water) opened as a modern-day water trail for non-motorized boats in June 2004. A consortium of local, state and national groups, agencies and businesses on both sides of the river, led by the Lower Columbia River Estuary Partnership, worked for three years to open the trail and are working now to bring up a website, place signs and establish camping sites. From the bustling maritime centers of Portland and Astoria to the serene backwater of Skamokawa, there’s a bit of rough and tumble or lazy delight for those paddling “The Great River of the West”.

Mixed Teams are common in adventure racing.

Also hoping to cash in on the national Lewis and Clark Bicentennial cachet is a proposed Northwest Discovery Water Trail that will offer “ribbons of discovery” along the same route as the outbound journey from Canoe Camp, on the Clearwater in Idaho State, down the Snake and Columbia Rivers to the Bonneville Dam. The impetus for this trail was a simple question one person had: “Why are most of the Lewis and Clark Expedition tour routes on modern maps shown as paved highways, when their travels were on Pacific Northwest rivers?” Three state park departments, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the National Park Service have joined with water trail advocates to remedy this perplexing situation and return modern day explorers to the canyons and vast vistas appreciated for millennia.

Further down the Oregon coast, active groups in Coos Bay and on the Siuslaw River have realized the benefits that water trails can bring to their communities.

Why all the efforts by so many local groups, state, and even national agencies to work with water trails? Let’s look at some of the demographics. The latest non- motorized boating numbers for Oregon state show a 138% increase from 1987 to 2002. The 2003-2007 Oregon Statewide Comprehensive Outdoor Recreation Plan (SCORP) predicts from .9 to 2.2 million annual user occasions. Oregon has gone an extra step in its efforts; the Oregon State Parks statewide trails plan, due out in early 2005, includes three components: non- motorized trails, motorized trails and water trails. Oregon is the first state in the United States to give water trails equal billing as it looks to its future. It helps when your top official, the elected governor, is seen paddling on the Willamette River past the state capitol!

The gain in popularity in paddlesports, combined with desire for healthy waters, makes it easy for alert government leaders to grab a paddle. Water trails make great public relations opportunities, use existing state-owned corridors, and require small amounts of funding compared to those needed by other transportation modes and recreation facilities. Most water trail campsites are primitive, do not require a paved road to get to and often don’t have piped-in fresh water. Others may share the showers, telephones and concessions of more developed camping areas.

For more information on water trails in the state of Washington, the Washington Water Trails Association website, www. wwta.org, is a great place to start your trip research.

© Reed Waite is Executive Director of Washington Water Trails Association.
Photo and map courtesy WWTA. www.wwta.org.