The Drive
Nate and I were on the road by 6:00 pm on Thursday, April 7th, driving non-stop to Duluth - estimated drive time was 24 hours. We left with 2 boats and a full Thule box on the roof, a trailer with 5 more boats, and a full tank of gas. By the time we got to the Tri-Cities, which is about 2 ½ hours away from Hood River, we realized that we would be filling the gas in our car very frequently, since we were averaging about 10 miles/gallon. I have to say, it kept us on a pretty good schedule - fill up and switch drivers every 3 hours.
So far, Nate and I had the biggest smiles on our faces, as we sat in the car, thinking about the white water we were going to be hitting for three solid weeks. We were so excited to finally boat the creeks we had only read and talked about for years. Late that night, we noticed the temperatures had dropped drastically, and Nate drove through a lot of slick rain/ice mixtures through Montana. We complained a little bit about the temps, but kept driving. Finally, with our stomachs grumbling, we stopped 3/4 of our way through Montana for lunch and decided to make a few phone calls to some friends we would be boating with. “Doesn’t look good,” most of our friends said. “Especially for the rest of this week. Cold temperatures through Sunday, about 30 degrees. Don’t know if it’s really worth you guys coming out, but we should have some water the middle of next week.” Nate and I sat there, in the car, with blank stares. “What do we do? I asked. “Turn around or continue on our way?” After weighing our options, we decided to continue to Minnesota, where both of our families are from. Since this was supposed to be a “kayaking trip”, we had yet to tell our parents that we were going to be in the area (because we thought they would be mad if we didn’t spend the entire time with them). So, we made our phone calls. “Mom, Dad . . . Surprise! We will be home for Easter!” They were pleasantly surprised with our decision to visit for the week of 30 degree temperatures.
Our journey to Mankato, Minnesota didn’t end there! Both Nate and I had this little feeling deep down inside - that our Bravada wouldn’t make it all the way to Minnesota. Neither of us mentioned this feeling to each other, but once our vehicle started acting up, we both said, “I knew something was going to go wrong with this car!” So, we went putt, putt, down the Interstate for a while at about 30 mph, until we decided we had better stop, call a tow truck and get it looked at. It seems like a person always looks at those cars along side the road that brake down and just say, “That sucks!” and continue driving. Well, it DOES really suck when it is YOU! We waited on the side of the road, kayaks and all, while the tow truck came to get us. It was nearing the 6 o’clock hour, when most businesses were closing because it was Friday, and not just any Friday, but Good Friday. So, the tow truck brought us to a car repair place to await the next morning when we could get our car looked at. Nate and I were once again weighing our options on what to do. We decided to call some car rental places to see if we could rent a vehicle and just keep going and pick up our Bravada on our way back through. There were no cars available. By this time, we were feeling like the entire world was against us. Here we were trapped in Bismarck, North Dakota on Easter Friday with no car and no where to go.
Our luck changed . . . The last phone call that Nate made, gave us information to a car repair place that was open until midnight!!! Now, have you ever heard of a repair place open until midnight? Not only were we lucky with that, but the mechanic shop was located about two blocks from where the tow truck had dropped us off! So, we actually putt, putted our way and made it to this mechanic. After returning from a “eat to numb the pain” gorge session at the Bonanza restaurant, we walked in, very slowly, preparing ourselves for the bad news. “We have your car fixed and ready to go,” the repair man said. I ran up to him, smiled and gave him a big hug and we were well on our way.
Week One
We arrived in Minnesota, late Friday night. The next morning, we were updating ourselves on the weather situation - “35 degrees as a high, 20's as the low” the weatherman said. “Expect this weather pattern through Monday of next week.” Nate and I made the best of the situation, by catching up with our families. As we awaited warmer weather, we continued to do our research on possible creeks/waterfalls that we would be able to run.
Monday came along and with Monday brought the weather report of 10 inches of snow around the local area and cold temperatures. “Urghhh . . . how could we be so unlucky?” Our friends kept telling us how bad they felt for us having driven half-way across the states for such a horrible spring. This was the most unusual spring they have ever had, they kept saying. “It was 80 degrees two weeks ago, melted all the snow and now it’s 30 degrees.”
On Tuesday, it snowed, but the snow did not stay around! Wednesday morning, we noticed the temperature creep up, so we decided to make our trek up North to start scouting some drops and finally get in our boats.
We ended up making our way to Duluth. We scouted a couple of drops to run the next day - Lester Falls on the Lester and Gazebo Falls on the Amity. Both drops looked good to go, but were very low. Being that it was Thursday, the kayaking “group” consisted of only Nate and I. So, Friday morning, we headed back to the Lester and Amity and did laps on these drops. We had a good audience on both drops - it’s always fun when people are excited to watch you kayak over a drop. After the several laps, we packed up and headed for the South Shore.
“South Shore Drinking, (I mean Creeking)” Day 1
We arrived in the town of Ironwood, Wisconsin and Hurley, Michigan (these two towns are only a couple miles from each other). We scouted some drops, being that it was later in the day but still gorgeous weather. After some scouting missions, we gave our friends, Joerge and Kiffy, a call to see whereabouts they were on their expected arrival to the area. “Yeah, we’re probably going to hang out in Hurley, hit some bars and then crash in our car for the night,” they said. After hanging up, I thought, “Partying in Hurley? How could that be fun? Hurley is such a small town.” Nate and I decided to hang out near Hurley and await our friends arrival. The night got later and later and we had yet to meet up with Joerge and Kiffy, so Nate and I drove to the rest stop to car camp for the night. Right as we put our car in park, we saw our friends drive up. “Sweet, we can say hi to the guys, maybe a couple of drinks, but then I’m going to crash”, I said to Nate. To make a long story and night short, I’m just going to finish this segment of our trip report by saying, the couple of drinks we said we were going to have with them, multiplied throughout the evening and we all ended up having a great time and closing down the bars.
Day 2
We got up early Saturday morning to drive out to the Presque Isle for the Jim Rada’s Memorial Race that John Kiffmeyer organizes. This river is amazing. The river itself, combined with the campground was super intense. I don’t think I have ever camped at a more beautiful camp ground than the one located right at the take out of this run. The campground overlooks Lake Superior. The best thing about this camping spot were the sunsets - beautiful colors illuminated the sky every single night.
But, back to the river. We all decided to do a pre-race run on the lower mile of the Presque Isle - where the race was being held. The levels were a bit low, but the drops were still fun. The lower Presque is composed mainly of slides and a couple of waterfalls. The first significant drop has a couple of lines - a boof on river right and a slide on river left. I opted for the slide my first time down, because it looked absolutely beautiful, but I found out quickly that it didn’t have enough water in it, as I stalled out a couple of times going down. The next time I ran the section of river, I tried the right boof side, which is the recommended line at lower flows.
The next significant rapid is “Manido”, a ledge/slide combination, which is ran on the left. We all had similar lines going through this rapid. About 50 feet down river is “Manabezho” Falls, a 25 foot waterfall, so we all got out to scout. We saw many lines - left line with a boof (the ideal line), left line without a boof and a center line - which most people ended up plugging. Manabezho Falls is known for its’ shallow landing, so a boof is always recommended when running this falls. Later, on a separate lap down this section, we had our first carnage of the trip:
Carnage #1 A couple of pitons took place on Manabezho Falls that Saturday. The first was Jesse. What I witnessed on this one was somewhat hysterical. As I awaited the paddlers, by standing at the top of the falls taking photos, I hear him approach the falls, yelling, “Am I sinking? I think my boats cracked! I think I’m sinking.” After hearing that, I figured he would take out above the falls and check out his boat, but he continued right over the drop! After seeing him plug the drop, I cringed a little, but thought nothing of it. Later I saw that his plug resulted in a piton and completely destroyed the front of his boat, leaving his ankles just a bit sore - his boat took most of the impact.
I walked downstream to get a different angle for the photos, when I saw a green boat go over the falls, plugging it on the center line. I didn’t think much of this either, because throughout the day, I had seen a couple other lines exactly like this, however this paddler was not so lucky. This plug ended up in a bad piton, breaking his tibia/fibula and destroying his ankle. He had to be carried out of the canyon on a backboard by the ambulance team and the other kayakers. We wish him the best and a fast and full recovery.
~Heather~