On the last day of a planned three-day trip to Oregon’s headlands, the ocean swells rose and the wind increased to the point where I was uncomfortable pitting my meager surf skills against the multiple lines of breakers crashing against the beaches.
I abandoned my plan to visit Cape Falcon in favor of a visit to the protected waters of the Lewis and Clark National Wildlife Refuge along the lower Columbia River.
Route map. What the topo map doesn’t show—and this would prove to be a consequential omission—is the enormous mudflats that form at low tide.
The Lewis and Clark National Wildlife Refuge was established, in part, to protect the endangered Columbia white-tailed deer, although the bulk of the deer’s population lives farther east in the Julia Butler NWR. I had high hopes of seeing this rare creature—the only subspecies of white-tailed deer regularly found in western Washington—but the only deer I encountered was a mule deer, wading between two islands.
The other main purpose of Lewis and Clark NWR is to protect migratory waterfowl habitat. In this department, I had more luck. I encountered several dozen of one of my favorite bird species of all time: the American white pelican.
At first, I spotted a lone pelican, floating far out in the main stem of the Columbia River. That was exciting enough, but soon I encountered more pelicans, then whole flocks of them.
White pelicans are even more majestic and exotic-looking than brown pelicans, and they are also more exciting to me, because I encounter white pelicans far less often than brown pelicans.
Launch at John Day boat ramp. The Columbia River and its tributaries are tidally influenced even many miles from the ocean.
Confluence of John Day River and Columbia River. This old rail bridge looked so decrepit I hope it is no longer in use.
Main stem, Columbia River. Even against the river’s current and an adverse, ebbing tide, I was able to make 3.5 mph (5.6 kph) to the good.
Mule deer wading in lower Columbia River. Most locals refer to this mule deer subspecies as the black-tailed deer. Some even argue it is an entirely separate species from the mule deer.
American white pelican flyby. This species loves brackish estuaries, and brackish estuaries don’t come much bigger than that of the lower Columbia.
When I tried to meander between the many mud islands in the lower Columbia, the water became so shallow my paddle began scraping the bottom. Even when I retreated hundreds of yards from shore, the water became only slightly deeper.
The tide was falling, and I realized, with a sinking feeling, that most if not all of the estuary would soon dry out. Not only would I not reach my destination at Green Island, I would be lucky to make it back to the boat ramp.
Even backtracking would not save me from the falling tide. The water behind was just as shallow as the water ahead and getting shallower fast. All I could do was guess where the deepest channel might be and paddle as quickly as I could to cover ground before ground came uncovered.
Sometimes, I could infer where deeper channels might lie by the color of the water, the movement of the waves, or the presence or absence of vegetation. But each of these indicators was wrong as often as it was right. In such a dynamic environment, there were simply too many variables for any one indicator to speak decisively about water depth.
The flocks of white pelicans served as unwitting guides to my escape. I figured they needed at least a few feet of water to forage effectively. They wouldn’t likely congregate in places where the water was mere inches deep. Whenever I saw pelicans, I paddled in their direction, careful not to approach so closely as to flush them.
My plan worked for a while, but eventually, the boat ran hard aground. I was miles from the mainland. I had no idea where the nearest deep channel might lie. I could either wait four hours for the tide to return, or I could clamber out of the kayak and begin what promised to be the wade from hell.
Flock of American white pelicans, Lewis and Clark NWR. If the water is deep enough to float a pelican, it’s deep enough to float a kayak.
Wading across the Columbia River. Mercifully, the bottom was firm sand instead of sucking mud or quicksand.
In a stroke of good luck, I stumbled into an eight-inch-deep channel (20 cm) after only a few hundred yards of slogging. Not knowing how much longer the tide would spare me, I jumped into the boat and paddled like crazy. In only a minute, my paddle stopped scraping the bottom. I had found a main channel.
Once burned, twice shy. I confined myself to the largest, most obvious channels and did not explore the twisty passages between the mud islands. In a few hours, I was back at the John Day boat ramp, having enjoyed a lovely summer’s day in one of the prettiest parts of the Pacific Northwest.
View of the Lewis and Clark NWR. A GPS was invaluable for navigating between islands, because the channels were all but invisible from a kayak.
South Channel, Lewis and Clark NWR. This was one of the few parts of the refuge where motorboats could penetrate at low tide.
The Columbia River is the vena cava of the Pacific Northwest, carrying the majority of our rainwater out to sea. The last time I was on the great river was with my wife, Rachel, when we paddled from the Bonneville Dam to Kalama in 2014. It was a tremendous pleasure to return after so many years—even if I had to wade part of the way.
—Alex Sidles