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Throwback Thursday Photos

My third trip down the Hanford Reach of the Columbia River in Washington, twenty-five years ago. I should do a trip report with additional photos but here's a shot of us headed down river below the Vernita Bridge and first night supper. You can see a couple of the reactors that produced plutonium for bombs. This is one of the more unusual canoe routes I've paddled. You're not supposed to camp along the river down through this stretch anymore now that it's a national monument so I feel lucky to have done this trip before it got "discovered". This area has some of the most pristine high desert shrub-steppe in the northwest because of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation and the surrounding area being off limits for so long.

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This trip has been on my radar for awhile. I have been on a lot of this stretch of river in a jet boat.
 
Harry Roberts in a Lotus Caper….mid 80s
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Is that an "internal sponson" for floatation under the gunwales of the Lotus?
Not a sponson per se…a way to attach a moveable seat and thwarts without interruption of gunnels. Also has contoured end tanks of the same material which had a leather grain effect. Beautiful canoe. Miss mine.
You could also wedge your knees under them as they are contoured for it, but it is NOT a rough water boat.

What @stevet says but, yes, they are also flotation pods. In conjunction with holding the tracks for the sliding seat perfectly parallel, they cause the gunwales in the center of the canoe to be parallel. With those parallel and "tucked in" gunwales, you can execute a very vertical stroke close to and continuously parallel to the keel line.

The Lotus caper is the favorite of my flat water solo canoes. Here are two pictures of mine in Florida in April 2006, the first on the Ocklawaha River (with the sliding seat removed to sit on three stacked cushions) and the second on Juniper Springs.

Lotus Caper Ocklawaha River 4-16-06.JPG

Mike Galt Lotus Caper in Juniper Springs.JPG
 
This trip has been on my radar for awhile. I have been on a lot of this stretch of river in a jet boat.
It's a unique stretch of the Columbia. The reminders of our development and use of nuclear warfare give it an almost surreal backdrop. I recommend stopping along the way and climbing to vista points to better see what's out there on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.

I feel fortunate to have canoed the Hanford Reach before it got discovered by speed boaters. We were the only paddle craft and there were very few fishing boats. Nice and quiet. :)
 
The “Button Club”….owners of the exquisite work by Tom MacKenzie (R). Left to right: Jim Mandle, Mrs. ? Nicholls, Arweyn Nicholls, Carol Tunnicliffe, Mary Lou Green.
Mid 80s I believe.
The Button was an 11 foot, 24 pound, DY designed, wood/dacron solo built as only Tom could.
Personally love this thread…wish we could get more participation.
Tom MacKenzie 2.jpeg
 
Me, in March of 1982, on some reservoir lake in northern California in my 17' Old Town OTCA, which was the second canoe of the 18 I've bought, using a 57" Old Town Beavertail and Old Town life jacket. I have no idea who took the picture, although it may have been my father who visited us once when we lived in San Jose and we did go canoeing one day. I'm kneeling centrally on three stacked, rectangular PFD cushions, which I still use to this day in tandem canoes.

GJM March 82 OTCA 17 edt.jpg
 
Me, in August 1985 or 1986, paddling and rolling my Perception Gyramax C-1 at our family lake cottage on North Pond, Woodstock, Maine, which is about five miles from the Maine Canoe Symposium in Bryant Pond.

I had just learned to roll from Clarke Outdoors in Cornwall, Connecticut, and committed myself to 300 rolls in the lake that summer. I did that in a week, and then led a trip down the class 3-4 Rapid River in Maine the following week with a group that came up from the Connecticut AMC. We put-in (Lake Richardson) and took-out (Lake Umbagog) of the Rapid River by seaplane.

The next summer, I practiced and completed 300 rolls in the lake in my Whitesell Piranha open canoe. No pictures of that.

GJM North Pond Gyramax 2.jpg

GJM North Pond Gyramax.jpg

GJM North Pond Rolling Gyramax.jpg
 
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