Day One
The Prep Over the last year, Nate and I had looked forward to yet another spring season of creeking the North and South Shores of Lake Superior. Though my excitement was overwhelming, I was fighting some unfortunate injuries. A couple of weeks before the trip, I visited an Orthopedic Doctor for my shoulder. Over the last 3 months I had been struggling with the shoulder I had separated over 5 years earlier. After x-rays and strength tests, the doctor said he didn’t see any reason why I couldn’t paddle, but mentioned that I might have to just “live” with the pain. “Live with the pain, I said, . . .no problem.”
It always seems, at least in my case, whenever I see a doctor, whatever I see the doctor for, heals up soon after my visit. – doctors “magic touch” I guess. It always makes me think, “If only I waited a couple more days, I wouldn’t have this huge doctor bill.” In any case, I’m glad my shoulder was feeling stronger. However, I over-did a workout (as I tend to do a lot) and ended up severely tearing my chest and back muscles (the muscles most important to kayaking), unable to move my arms for a week, and really affecting my paddling performance in the Midwest.
The Drive Our 26 hour drive to Duluth, MN went pretty well, except that we blew our heater core out and had anti-freeze fumes blowing out all of the vents, straight into the car. The last couple of hours we both had our heads hanging out of the windows and t-shirts over our mouths.
Day #1 - The East Beaver Nate, myself and a huge group of others, paddled the East fork of the Beaver. This section of river has a few fun rapids, leading to the main part of the run . . . a double-drop waterfall. After this short section, Nate, Kiffy, Andy and Joerge continued down into the Main Beaver. With the higher flow that day, the group portaged the majority of the run, which consisted of huge drops.
~Heather~