26-May-2011 -- I stayed in Vancouver BC to attend the IARS annual meeting and report results of our team on the Sunday, 22 May session. I allowed me a few days more to visit both British Columbia and Washington state with my wife Antonella. This was a perfect occasion to make some tries on CP in the Northwestern area. The story begins at 48°N 122°W, then goes through 50°N 123°W and 49°N 124°W and ends at 48°N 123°W.

After our second failed try on 49°N 124°W our last day in the Nothwestern area had to be a success day with our planned visit on this point on Thursday, 26 May. We choose this CP because it was on our way back to Seattle to catch our return flight. After crossing the Juan de Fuca straight on the motor boat COHO, we drove from Port Angeles to Sequim and had lunch in a Mexican restaurant downtown.

At 1 pm we started our try and headed to the CP. We found easily the woods road in Blyn and were soon after ready to walk on the service track of the electrical line that previous visitors had reported. That track crosses the 123°W meridian at 410 meters north of the CP. Although very short this distance proved to be challenging because most of the progression is made in a dense forest along a slope running SE – NW. The pictures we took don’t really tell the difficulty we had in making our way in that forest. The ground is completely covered with rotten logs, fallen branches, and moss. At some points, we had to get over 2 meters deep gullies. Moreover, GPS reception was very poor and direction to the CP was inaccurate most of the time. We needed 30 minutes of harassing forth and back walk to approach the CP and were then caught under a heavy shower that further impaired our GPS reception. Soaked, we decided to stop at 55 meters of the point, took the pictures and found our way back to the track. We were frustrated that the weather conditions couldn’t allow us to zero the point and ended the afternoon with a comforting coffee break in charming Port Townsend.

This ended our serie of tries in Washington state and British Columbia; CPs are definitively of the tricky kind in this area !