Trip Report
Sea Kayak - Hammersley Inlet
Two things to know one be sure and ask if anybody’s carrying additional water in there, Kayak it could be an issue should you need to do a rescue. We were at Cape Horn and a gentleman went over in his kayak when I attempted to pull him up on a T rescue the bow was so heavy I suspected there was a flooded hatch compartment. It was a son of a gun anyway I turned the kayak over before pulling it up my deck because it was more than I could manage. After got him back in the kayak, he informed me that he was carrying 6 L of water in the front compartment. Do you realize that’s like 27 pounds when people carry additional water, it normally goes behind the seat of the Kayaker in that first compartment right behind the seat. In the future I’m gonna ask this question. This man was a brand new. Kayaker just graduated his basic badge this year. He just didn’t know any better. Number two when posting a paddle be sure to make a reservation at Walker County Park in Shelton you should call the park department and reserve the picnic area the picnic shelter for the day. There’s a parking lot next to that shelter that is part of the reservation and you can fit in approximately 12 cars if you do it correctly the parking lot for Walker County Park only has approximately maybe nine maybe 10 parking stalls in the other side of the parking Area. This was news to me. I’ve paddled here several times and never known this. I’ve been on their website. It Doesn’t say this, so this is kind of new to me I’ve been leading trips for eight years did not know this. Gounds keeper the man who runs the park his name is Scott, informed us of the need to reserve the shelter and the lot. Fortunately, there wasn’t a reservation so we were able to use the parking lot. It said if you’d had some kind of a reservation it wouldn’t have allowed us to park there. But making the reservation at the parks department is a good idea and reserving that Schelter allows The Mountaineers to go there take up all the parking stalls and that extra lot and then all the locals and anybody else who comes to the park, has a place to park. A good thing. we try to not impact local users when we go to these destinations. The only thing the county request is donations, and Leader can set up. The donation thing in the paddle notes are in the template of the pattern so if there is a donation that donation can be picked up by the Leader, and deposited into the parks donation box, or the participants can do it individually. I think. It would Be a good idea to do that.
Bruce Durham
- Sat, Jun 28, 2025
- Sea Kayak - Hammersley Inlet
- Hammersley Inlet
- Sea Kayaking
- Successful
- Road suitable for all vehicles
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It was a sunny day very little wind maybe 4kt wind we had current assist all the way out to Cape Horn and with the change in topography couple years ago Cape Horn lost a portion of the horn and in certain tide, heights and current it is very dynamic there or can be dynamic there. It wasn’t too bad today. Even so we still had two paddlers get swamped in the current and tipped them over and did two T- rescues. The other thing that happened was because the guy had so much weight in the front of the Kayak. He had a tough time getting out of it. I was really nervous never hardly ever have somebody get stuck in the cockpit head down. He had a tough time getting his loop because I don’t think he burped his suit of all the air which is really important when you’re kayaking, especially if your dry suit is full of air. I couldn’t lift that kayak up out of the water, and there was no reason that I could see why that was that way. Other than maybe a flooded compartment. Anyway beyond that we all paddled over and spent an hour at Hope Island waiting for flood to begin. We got back in the Kayaks we had time to do Rolls and static braces and taught people how to do bow dips. paddlers that were new to the sport and hadn’t performed our Bow dips yet so we taught several of them how to do it. They were able to keep cool in the hot dry suits. It was warm late in the afternoon, it was about 5:30 PM had no wind, but the current was building from Cape Horn all the way back in and we made efforts to just follow the area that had the most current in the inlet and it was lotta fun didn’t take us that long. We got back right at a little after 6 PM. We did our D-Brief on the beach and helped one another with getting the kayaks up the hill and onto our cars.
When we returned, there was about half a dozen people with chairs on the beach, and their poles for Sam, and Fishing were stuck on the crutches and from the evidence on the beach of fish cleaning I think they were catching salmon good size ones. So there was additional parking in the lot and us having that reserved. Parking lot really benefited everyone. Walker Park has really nice well-kept clean restrooms, which is always a plus when you are a Kayaker. I don’t know that they allow camping here Scott the guy that I spoke to who runs the part that lives in the house there says that he cleans the park out at and closes at about 8:00 PM. He says because then the thieves show up and he says it’s always better to close it early. So it’s a day use Park only but it’s really a smart thing to reserve that picnic shelter to get the parking that he’ll shut the gate. There’s a chain that goes there. He’ll shut that during the day while you’re out and when you return he’ll lower it. It keeps you from getting stuck or blocked in by additional Parkers. All in all everyone had a wonderful time I know I did and I was told that they also felt that way so we had 10 paddlers in this trip. I had two assistance of the other nine people, one who’s working on getting his leader ship badge the other one just likes to help people.