It’s been almost eight months since I last wrote here. Time keeps slipping by – below is a quick recap of some adventures since then. New resolutions are to write things up right after the fact and not let too much water flow under the bridge.  I hope everyone, their families and loved ones are healthy in these trying times. -Seth

Puyallup Baby Jogger/Pack Raft: June 13th.  This was our second effort pushing pack rafting gear in baby joggers with a return trip being a float back down the river.  We ran with baby joggers about ~7 miles along the Puyallup River, north east of Tacoma and then tried to float back but the river was incredibly fast with a lot of  downed trees lining the banks and sometimes the river.  After we were both pushed by the current into the same over hanging tree we decided to call it a day. We were only on the river for a mile or so and disappointed not to have the full experience but happy knowing that we had the capacity to know when we were over our heads. Below is a ~3 minute poorly edited video from the trip.

Anacortes to Tacoma Sail: June 6-7. It’s been a long road but I’m now the proud owner of a sailboat!  ‘Cimaise’  which loosely translates into ‘Picture Frame’ in French, is a 34 foot 1977 Jeanneau Melody. She has had three prior owners, with the original owners sailing her from France to the US in the late 70’s.  The next owners were both mechanical engineers and lived on her in the Caribbean.  Mike, the third owner is a naval architect and knew the prior owners. I’m very grateful to Mike for being so patient with the slow purchase process, orienting us to the boat, helping us get the boat to Tacoma and teaching us a lot along the way.  Lot’s more to learn and hopefully lots of good adventures ahead!

Tolt River Pack Raft: May 21. At the encouragement of Michael – we went and rafted the lower part of the Tolt River which is almost in his back yard near Carnation, Washington. We ran with baby joggers about ~5 miles up to the Tolt River road and then floated back down. Lots of fun. Mostly class I with a little class II. One long portage. I’d like to think this was the first baby-jogger/pack-raft combo done ever. Maybe!

Olympic Coast Hike: March ~10-15.  We decided at the last possible minute to not go to Nepal. The idea of potentially being carriers and bringing the virus into remote communities was not appealing. It was a good decision on many levels; the border was sealed up the next day and we would have been stuck in quarantine in Thailand and who knows what. So we  went to the Olympic coast and completed the northern section. We hiked in via Ozette and crossed the river on a pack raft – throwing a line back across the river so the next person could pull it back across and cross on their own. Over the course of ~5 slow days we tagged Shi Shi and returned to the trail head. I hadn’t been on that part of the park in over 10 years. We tried to visit the Makah Reservation after but it was closed to outsiders due to the pandemic. The world had changed quite a bit in our absence and it would (and will) change much more.

Orcas 100m. Feb 7th-8th.  I ran this two years ago and should have learned my lesson.   This year it was very rainy and windy with trails covered in mud, snow and water.  I was not in shape for this challenge and stumbled and shuffled my way through it, finishing 4th from last, about 15 minutes under the 36 hour cutoff. I lost my two big toe nails and almost five months later, they are still growing back.

Hiking/Pack-rafting the Yakima River. December 25-27.  This was our first true pack-rafting trip in that we actually crammed rafting and camping gear into our back packs (versus using car shuttles) and then spent two days hiking along the Yakima canyon rim before floating back to the car.  Camping/rafting along the Yakima in mid-winter is a cold but beautiful experience. The float back to the car was only 2-3 hours and spectacular.

We tried to go an do another section of the river, closer to Ellensberg with the idea of running on a bike trail and pushing the rafting gear in my old baby jogger. As it would have it, we encountered too much snow on the bike trail. Instead we had fun linking up with my old friend Mike Horner who lives nearby and going for a hike.