Summer Fine And Pure, Paddling The Black River

It was a day without watches, a hot, bright day where the smells of Coppertone, cow dung, cut sweet grass and still water lulled us into a timeless adventure that somehow stretched to 16 hours door to door.

A trip by kayak down the Black River in Rochester, south of Olympia, doesn't have to take nearly so long. You could, for example, paddle in the places where we decided to float silently, turning broadside to the current, watching the world go by as if we were behind a panning movie camera. You could skip the naps and the long chat with the fisherman and the canoeist at lunch. And you could take two cars, to avoid walking six of the nine miles (in little kayak slippers) back to the put-in place, when hitchhiking proves fruitless.

It's lazy, empty river for most of the 15 miles we traveled, past the Black River Wildlife Area, farmland and a few houses. Without other distractions, my friend Paul and I focused on the wildlife, which as we headed downstream grew from territorial, bright-red dragonflies to a steady string of kingfishers, to a slew of green-backed herons and a couple great blues, to the magnificent family of four ospreys making tiny peeps disproportionate to their size. They left their prominent nest behind and soared near a bald eagle as we gaped from below.

Perhaps most exotic in terms of wildlife was the human family floating down the river, complete with a chocolate Labrador retriever who paddled along with his owners. Sometimes he stuck with them for up to three hours in the water. One of his people, in street clothes and a hat shaped like an umbrella, lay on a floating chair that looked more like a La-Z-Boy recliner than an inner tube. She had just finished a latte that fit snugly in her armrest.

Clearly it was a day for nurturing your inner hedonist.

We watched water bugs pulse along on the river's surface tension, and felt how sensitive the scenery was to human sounds - the water beneath the boats vibrated with each passing plane. But in between such interruptions we went for minutes without hearing any machines, just the whistles and squeaks of the passing brigades of cedar waxwings and the drip of water off the paddles.

We stopped for lunch at the first major lagoon on the east bank, and were soon joined by a man in a canoe equipped with oars and oarlocks. He introduced himself as "the Thurston County Weed Guy" and explained his job patrolling for noxious, invasive weeds. We heard how bits of unwelcome flora can travel for miles thanks to jet skis, which retain about a quart of water (and plant bits and seeds) from one trip to the next. He drew us pictures of coontail and Brazilian Elodea, a plant that can reproduce itself from tiny pieces of leaves. He fights some patches by burying them under burlap weighed down with rocks. And he told us the fishing menu around here includes silver and dog salmon, trout, bluegill, crappie andsmall-mouthed bass. The river was once used by Native Americans and the Hudson's Bay Company as a shortcut between the Columbia River and Puget Sound.

We passed under the trestle bridge, then under a wide highway bridge, and watched how the water got cleaner downstream from the meadows of native underwater plants. If you looked at your shadow in the water, the rays of light around it flickered like the aurora borealis. It was the only scrap of winter to survive into such a pure summer day.

Tina Kelley's column runs Fridays in Northwest Weekend. She can be reached at Northwest Weekend, The Seattle Times, P.O. Box 70, Seattle, WA 98111 or via e-mail at weekend@seatimes.com.

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If you go:

Take Exit 88 from Interstate 5 to Tenino, and head west for four miles to Rochester on Highway 12. At the traffic light in Rochester take a right on Albany Street, and bear right at the fork towards Little Rock. The put-in spot is 5.3 miles from Rochester.

The last leg gets a little shallow, so be prepared to get out and help your boat along. The pull-out is just past the third bridge; note the signs for public fishing and Elma Gate Road East.

If you take two cars, leave the downstream vehicle at the public fishing area by the bridge just east of Elma Gate Road East on Highway 12, 4.3 miles west of Rochester.

Black River Canoe Trips, a local outfitter, rents canoes for $35 a day. The canoes hold two to three people. Canoeists can travel as far as Montesano. For more information, call 360-273-6369. The outfitter's Web site is at www.ool.com/blackriver