“We’re diggin’ our Gorge Booties!  We were out on the Columbia River near Warrior Rock Lighthouse. Spring rains and snow melt have pushed an enormous amount of water into the Columbia river recently. All of this water makes for fun features to play on in sea kayaks, but also pushes a large amount of trash and debris into the river.

As we were playing on the eddy line near the light house, a half submerge barn appeared up river and was pushed by the current right into the eddy before river patrol arrived to tow it to shore. We paddled inches from the shoreline on the way back up-river in order to avoid pushing directly against the river and spotted a TV floating in the flooded bushes. It was quite a surreal sight, but not really that surprising. Securing the TV to Chris’s back deck proved to be a bit challenging. None of us had planned to have to secure such a heavy item on deck. The small bits of cord we had were just barely sufficient.

After dumping the TV three times and re-tying during a hail storm, we made it back to our vehicles and were able to dispose the TV properly and recycle several plastic bottles pulled from the river. We made a commitment as a team that day to retrieve and recycle at least one piece of plastic & foam every time we kayak.”

- Jason Self, Team Out of Sight, Out of Mind