the attached pic facing wsw out the mouth of the columbia river from
stringtown washington combines fairly credible class d tries at both the
wet absolute orn point & the much more difficult dry orn point

you can follow all this at topozone by dialing up stringtown & keeping your
fingers crossed because they have been serving a bit weirdly lately

the height of land at right is north head at fort canby
& on the left horizon is fort stevens
while the river slips invisibly out to sea behind the sand island

orn is interesting enough imo to report by itself before the rest of my
oregonian news tour try is completed because it presents a rare reversal of
the general rule that wet absolute extremities are harder to reach than
their more moderate dry variants

for in this case the truly extreme point wet orn is the statutory orwa
turnpoint number 6 counting upstream
& whose exact coords i dont have handy
but which is clearly shown on the topo at very roughly n46d17m30s &
w124d01m15s & can be easily visualized in the attached photo just a
fraction of an inch to the near side of the north or right tip of the long
seemingly linear sandbar or rather sand island that streaks most of the way
across center frame

since the pic was taken at moderately low tide the right tip of the sandbar
itself marks the approximate position of dry orn at that moment
or perhaps it would also be more accurate to say that the fully exposed bar
slightly overreaches dry orn at that moment
but anyone with decent gps & flotation could easily bag both of these
points class b & without much extra effort since they lie within about 1000
feet of each other

however what makes this particular extremity so interesting & contrary is
that at high tide the orwa line between turnpoints 6 & 5 misses the sandbar
entirely & would leave one scratching ones ass as it were for any sign of a
drypoint

in fact where is moderate sensible dry orn at high tide anyway

the answer is it is nowhere in sight but probably about 15 miles to the
east on a different sandbar off harrington point

so you may wonder then as i did whether dry orn is reliable & unique or
variable & multiple
& i would answer that it is as reliable as lowest low tide
& as reliable as the statutory coords of orwa turnpoints 6 & 5
& as real as aiming to beach on the first dry sand between them
of course at the right time on the right day
& that dry orn does definitely show in the pic even if it is slightly
submerged at the moment

m