August 12, 2018 Flowers and Outdoors Post a Comment

Manistee, MI 2018

Manistee, MI 2018

My sister’s neighbor’s friend invited us to join them at Insta Launch campground/marina in Manistee, MI. Most of the campsites are right on the marina which is at the end of the Big Manistee River. The Big Manistee River feeds into Manistee Lake. At the south end of the lake you can access the Little Manistee River.

We have taken Ana kayaking once before and we have been kayaing without her a few times with our new-ish tandem kayak. After talking to one of the owners (they also operate a canoe and kayak rental service), I was convinced that it would be OK to bring Ana kayaking on the Big Manistee River using our Old Town tandem. She had already been canoeing on the Platte River which is nearby.

We drove to my sister’s place in Michigan last Thursday evening to cut a couple of hours off the drive north. We got there at 2 AM due to the time difference and a protest that shut down Lake Shore Drive near work (so I couldn’t leave early). We got up at 6 AM so that we could kayak after setting up camp. We wanted to maximize our time there because it was basically just a long weekend. We quickly set up and met with the rest of the group who had gone up on Wednesday. We decided to do the Platte River first, which is nice and easy.

Riverside Rental in Honor Michigan are really cool about letting people use their launch site even if you aren’t renting from them (we rented canoes from them before, with Ana). Our group was really disorganized. In fact we accidentally drove about 10 miles past the launch site because you have to be careful when typing “riverside rental” into your navigation system. There’s too many.

Anyway, we bought sandwiches and had lunch in the shade on the river. Ana couldn’t wait and licked my wife’s sandwich a few times. Don’t worry, it was wrapped in wax paper and we did share some with her. It was a nice ~3 hour paddle. The Platte River ends at Sleeping Bear Dunes which is really pretty. There were a lot of people floating in tubes on the route too. Ana got people’s attention a along the route. Kind of strange because there were a few other dogs too. We should have taken a swim at the sandbar in the lake we crossed but the wind was a bit strong and we didn’t want to get cold. The French bread pizza foil dinners were yummy that night. I have to figure out how to keep them from burning when the sauce leaks out.

The next day we planned on a 4 hour float on the Big Manistee River. We were trying to find Rainbow Bend access point in the Manistee National Forest. I didn’t have good cell reception so I couldn’t help. No surprise, it was chaos trying to figure out how to get there. With 9 people and 8 kayaks, it’s takes some time getting everything unloaded and ready. It was about 90 °F so people were naturally getting cranky. Once we got going, it was really nice. Ana was a bit fidgetty. We probably have to make a cushion for her. For most of the paddle, my wife mainly didn’t paddle and just kept Ana from fidgeting too much. Because the rest of the group was paddling really slow, we decided two people had to paddle so that we could finish before dark and also feed Ana. With two people paddling and Ana behaving, we ended up about 45 minutes ahead of the rest of the group and maybe 20 minutes ahead of my sister.

As far as new camping gear goes, we got Ana a portable crate from Duluth Trading Co. She likes being in her crate at home. She was very content in her portable crate. It’s light and folds up nicely. The craftsmanship is a bit poor (it’s already starting to develop a hole) but we like it so far. As best I can tell, the mosquitoes didn’t bother her. They got me pretty good on my knees and calves even wearing pants. We got a couple of small LED lanterns from Black Diamond that worked well.

When we were driving home, both my kayak and my sister’s kayak were pushed to one side by a gust of wind. You can see in the last photo that the front rack is shorter on the driver’s side. We drove 10 mph below the limit for about half of the drive because it was too windy. I’m probably going to switch from the J-hook style cradle to a flat four foot mount set up.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/vt149yNdW2N5q8S56

July 22, 2018 Flowers and Outdoors Post a Comment

Yellowjacket Lake: Garbage and Bugs, Still a Lot of Fun

Yellowjacket Lake: Garbage and Bugs, Still a Lot of Fun

Here’s the 2018 edition of me getting off the grid, in the mountains in Idaho. This year in particular, I was looking forward to no Internet, no news, essentially no people.

There was the makings of a campfire story shortly after landing in Boise. I tossed my baggage claim ticket in the trash while I was waiting for my body bag, I mean army bag. You see, I put my backpack and hiking gear in a canvas army bag to protect the straps, etc. on my backpack. I also put my hiking boots in the bottom of the bag. This will be important later. After the last bag came off the conveyor belt, I realized I jinxed myself by tossing my baggage claim ticket. No body bag, I mean army bag. A Southwest agent starts collecting bags that haven’t been claimed yet. I ask if that’s all and she says yes. She asked if I have my claim ticket. I said, I had just tossed it as I thought I saw my bag on the conveyor belt.

As I’m carefully digging through the trash for my claim ticket, my buddy shows up and has the look of “dare I ask?”. He helps guard the trash from further additions while I explain to the agent that I can’t find my claim ticket even though it should be on the top of the trash heap. She said she could look it up so we stop digging. They file a lost-baggage claim and off we go. We decide that we could probably get by if we car-camp instead of backpack. The only problem is that I can’t even day-hike without my hiking boots. I need ankle support. So off we go to Sierra Trading Post for boots.

A lot of the cheaper boots weren’t in my size. BTW, I was looking forward to trying my new (but broken-in) La Sportiva Nucleo High GTX boots. They are super lightweight but still supportive (there’s a picture of them next to my new titanium Snowpeak mug). Anyway, we find a pair of Asolo GTX boots in my size. I forgot my Carhartt cargo pants so we needed to go to REI to get hiking pants. I needed to get more camping food and GU (energy gel) as well. The trip to REI was planned but I realized I needed boots after we left. However, about 30 minutes after buying replacement boots, Southwest calls and says my bag is at the airport. Most likely it got left on the plane (continuing on to Orange County, CA) and the bag was rerouted to Boise. The new tag on the bag showed a stopover in Denver.

Now we are relieved no gear was lost but we decide to stick with the car-camping plan. Yellowjacket Lake is about 5 hours northeast of Boise near the Bighorn Crags, in the Salmon National Forest. It’s about 8,000 ft (~2,400 m) above sea-level. I wasn’t the only one who forgot gear. One person forgot a sleeping bag. Car-camping meant he could sleep in the truck. Not very comfortable but at least it was warm. Another guy grabbed a second tent instead of his cot.

Critters

We saw two sheep, maybe they were goats, along the side of the road on the way to the campsite. Alas, no bighorn sheep were seen (well except for the stuffed one in the restaurant, after camping). We did run into (not literally) a bunch of cows blocking the road, complete with cowboys, a cowgirl, and border collies. When we first arrived, there were a ton of mosquitoes and horse flies. At least 3 of us got big welts from a horse fly bite. The mosquitoes were annoying even after putting on bug repellent. The second and third day weren’t as bad. Maybe we smelled too bad for the mosquitoes. On the last morning at Yellowjacket Lake, I heard heavy breathing not far away, like a big elk or something. Sorry no Big Foot. We did hear buzzing a lot in the mornings so maybe that’s why it’s called Yellowjacket Lake. On the third day, we had decided to move to Beaver Creek for the night. Sophie, a yellow lab from the neighboring site, came to visit us a few times. We also saw a bat but my photo isn’t that clear.

Traffic

On the way up to Yellowjacket Lake, there was a long section of dirt road that was very difficult to pass cars. An old guy, who looked like Santa Claus, was in a big yellow Dodge truck coming down the mountain. He was fishing and broke his reel. He said the mosquitoes were bad where he was at. We found that to be true where we were camping. We bumped into the same guy on our way down the mountain. We had ham radios (there were 3 cars in our group) so we could warn each other when another vehicle was approaching. There were a group of 3 motorcycles at one point. The first guy was a jerk because he made no effort to communicate or acknowledge that we knew he was going to pass us from behind. The other two guys with him were a lot better. On the way out, we came across ten 4-wheeler/ATVs (some were Polaris RZRs and some were just quads). The first guy slowed down and told us that there were 9 total. The 7th guy said there were two more but showed 3 fingers. The next guy said there were two more and showed 2 fingers. Math is hard.

We stopped by hot springs near Pine Flat on the way home. There were too many people so we just dipped our feet in the freezing river (south fork of the Payette River). Most of the photos are from my new Sony a5100 camera. The night-mode photos are from my buddy’s a6000. The slow motion videos are from my Sony Xperia cell phone. BTW, while deciding whether or not to keep the Asolo boots, I noticed they were wide. So we returned them.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/Peb2nFQ9RpsxXuG8A