Trying the "Ear Dip"

The Dog!

L'Anse was weekly this year!

First time on this really unique river

Baltimore River

2015 Kick Off

This spring was very different than I'm use to. Usually when the warmer temps come, I'm headed to L'Anse first thing in the morning. Really, first thing, like 4am. Its hard to sleep when you haven't paddled all winter and some of the coolest whitewater in the Midwest is running. But what happened this year was different, a slow warm up lead some of us paddlers to the Mellen area to check off some rare treats like the Potato and Bad River Canyon through Copper Falls State Park. Overall, I was stoked to have run some new whitewater this spring, and I got on the water several times, back to back. Its not over yet, still looking forward to more Wisconsin and U.P. action (maybe even Minnesota...) before the summertime puts most of the creeks back into hibernation.

Lucky shots

 

This was from a trip to Mellen, WI with a few friends to paddle the Potato and Tyler Forks River's. We rolled up in the dark, set up camp and enjoyed the clear sky and quiet night. I mosied around camp, taking photos and hoping a few would turn out. I try for quality, but sometimes quantity prevails. I took 30 or so shots of my tent, different settings and angles, trying to get one I liked on the small DSLR screen. After picking my favorite, I touched it up with Adobe Photoshop CS3 (my computer is old...) and posted it, with a lot of support. I guess I did good with this one. Once and awhile I get a great shot, hopefully my photography keeps improving and I can provide more quality shots of my adventures.

 I drove up to L'Anse, MI after work on Thursday, just in time for a few laps on the Falls River. As I waited for Steve, I put on the Falls at a fairly high level. Everything was clear, except the waterfall called "Asshole", it had a large ice chunk extending off the river left side of the drop blocking the usual line. It was the only portage of the run; I continued on, eddy hopping and boat scouting each drop. The run went great. I even startled some fisherman that I later met at the take-out who were both very surprised to see someone kayaking the snow-fed creek, alone, at 6:30 in the afternoon. I explained to them that I had done this several times before, and the river is only runnable this time of year (usually).

Steve showed up, after a long drive from the Milwaukee area ready to fire up the Falls before the sun set. The level was dropping fast, a whole 6" lower at the take-out after just an hour. We met a few locals who were stoked to hear we were about to run the "big one" at the start of the run, known as Powerhouse Falls. Even with less water, all the drops went just fine with a few scrapes in the boogie water sections. As we approached the end of the run, we shot through the narrow slot of the last rapid, an old concrete dam, and into the beautiful U.P. sunset under the pipes of the biomass fueled electric plant at the take-out.

Steve and I camped at Silver Falls after our run of the Falls River, which ended up being sketchier than anything we paddled that day. The road started out a little muddy, with some ice chucks left off to the sides. The further I drove, the worse it got. I ended up keeping my speed up in 2nd gear to slide over the large, uneven chucks of ice covering the road, being melted into sections by the flowing water in the road. I tried hard to stay on the ice to avoid getting stuck in the mud on either side. My exhaust leak from the rear of my car suddenly got louder as the rear of the car jolted into the air. The rough road jolted my exhaust pipe, ripped the rusted pipe away and pinning the muffler vertically under my bumper as it sent my car up and over. I didn't have time to stop as I needed to keep my momentum so I didn't get stuck. Shortly after my muffler incident, I noticed the road had been washed out completely on the left side, sloping off into the woods 20 feet or so down into the pool of water that collected below. I barely missed the trench and continued on hoping Steve would see the erosion as he followed close behind. The road gnar finally let up, and we both stopped. "did you run over something back there?" Steve said. "Ya I hit something pretty good" I replied. I didn't know he meant my muffler, not the gnarly ice shelve I slid over just minutes before. As I looked over my car, I noticed my muffler was gone. "so that's what I ran over, it took awhile to get out from underneath my car!" Steve said. We continued to camp not far down the road, hoping there was no more ruts or ice chucks to dodge and run over. We arrived at Silver Falls, glad to have made it all the way back. We shined our headlamps under our cars looking for leaking fuel lines, broken brake lines, ripped off components, and dented floor panels, but only some plastic shrouds took the heat on Steve's car from my muffler. It was definitely time to crack open a cold Hopslam, and take a walk under the clear night sky to enjoy the warm April evening. Walking back up the road, we talked about Steve's recent Grand Canyon trip as we looked for my muffler. After a short hike, my headlamp revealed a muddy, smashed up car muffler. It was in rough shape, but still salvageable.

Back at camp, we gathered firewood as the water of the Silver rushed past. Steve broke out his cooler and EcoZoom rocket stove while I piled wood onto the campfire. Some tasty egg rolls and a few beers later, it was midnight. We walked down by the river stoked to see the water level had risen since we arrive. We stuck a few sticks into the shoreline and monitored the water level here and there until almost 3 in the morning. Before I went to bed, it was still fairly warm outside and the water was still rising. 

The next morning, I awoke to the noise of a truck parking right by our campsite. It must be some fisherman I thought to myself, as I started rolling out of my sleeping bag. There was a layer of snow on the rain fly, insulating the tent which made for a pleasant morning. I packed my sleeping pad and bag away, and crawled out of the tent. Everything was covered in a layer of snow, and it was much colder out of the tent. We decided to pack up and check the Slate before heading into town for breakfast. Before we left we checked the river. It had dropped vertically about 4" as the temps froze stopping the influx of snow melt to feed the watershed. Luckily, the freezing temps made the road much easier to navigate, as we weren't worried about mud holes and rivers flowing over the road. Everything was frozen solid. The trip out went much better and we were off to the Slate. We checked the level of the Slate at the bridge, the waterline looked higher the day before, but too low for a run now.

Stopping at Java by the Bay for a delicious Andes mocha coffee and breakfast burrito, we waited for Will and Aaron to show up for a full run of the Silver River. Awhile later, we were off to the Upper Silver put-in. Aaron started airing up his raft, Will, Steve, and I put our dry suits on and took turns helping Aaron with inflating his Hyside.. It was a very cold start to a paddle of the Silver, I did jumping jacks and pushups to stay warm before we were all ready to hit the river. As we floated down my hands became more numb. My NRS gloves didn't provide much warmth with such a cold air/water temp ratio. We got out at the first pitch of Hail Mary looking for ice/wood buildup. It was fairly clear until the 3rd pitch, which was 90% covered in ice. We were all ok with portaging the stretch to keep our hands out of the water for a bit. There was enough snow to seal launch in below the ice sieve, and we continued on downstream without any other portages until the Cabin Section. The top stuff was good to go, even Aaron fired up the upper Cabin Section in his raft. The "Bullet" had an ice shelf on river left that a lot of current pushed into, seeing as it was pretty early to be running the Silver, we could come back and fire it up later ice-free. The second portage provided more time to warm up as the sun had come out and it seemed to be warming up. Heading downstream to the Lower Silver, I was excited to hear Aaron hadn't done the Lower before. Trying to boat scout the rapids, it became difficult at times to keep our "flow" down the river.

We reached the take-out below the last ledge drops of the Lower Silver, and continued to walk the riverbank back up to the road where our cars awaited us. Besides the bushwhacking, and occasional carnage on the Lower, it was a great run. Next time we'll have to bring a 4x4 for Lees Landing, so laps on the Lower will be possible. Overall, it was a great two days, with plenty of snow left to feed another whitewater weekend if the weather cooperates.

Short drive for this little section of whitewater, being so close to Point it makes for a great day run.