“Even though it’s been a trail for thousands of years, people don’t think of it that way,” Hathaway said. “We’ve been trying to get people to think of it that way and see it as a recreational resource and to get people to go out there.”
The river itself is part of the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail, but the lower Columbia River Trail was created with paddlers and non-motorized recreationalists in mind. It runs for 146 miles starting at Beacon Rock State Park and ending at Cape Disappointment.
Last Monday, Hathaway and I took advantage of the sunshine and paddled a short stretch of river from Steamboat Landing Park in Washougal to the Port of Camas-Washougal marina. It was a warm, sunny mid-morning, but wind whipped the water into rolling whitecaps. The breeze pushed us quickly downstream, but we had to fight to keep our kayak pointed straight.
“One thing about the Columbia, it’s kind of like being up on a mountain. It can go from clear and calm to stormy pretty quickly,” Hathaway said.
“That was a particularly memorable trip, because you’re right there in your own backyard — a couple hundred miles as the crow flies from my own bed,” she said. “One day, my mom came down and we parked our kayaks and went to Red Lobster.”