Canoe racing has a triple crown of races to sort out real racers from us geezers. One of them is the Au Sable Marathon that starts in Grayling Michigan (home town of Dapper Al, legendary figure on Suthrin Piddler Net). It starts on the last weekend of July, at 21:00. (For any civilians reading this, that's 9:00 pm. For any Marines, it's when Mickey's right hand is on 9 and his left hand is on 12 for the second time that day.)
Racers run the main stream of the river. This weekend I paddled on two tributaries, the North and South Branches of the Au Sable. Friday afternoon, we re-enacted the tradition of paddlers rendezvousing. About 4:30 the first one (Doug McDougal, of high speed portaging fame) rolled in and we started offloading his gear. Before we were done, the other two rolled in. Charlie Parmelee (paddler par excellante'), and Harry Hill arrived. We uploaded all four boats and gear to Charlie's van, and were gone by 5:15.
We went to the same location that gator and his Son had the week before, Paddle Brave in Roscommon Michigan (Tom Adams, 10610 Steckert Bridge Road, ) Our old log cabin was about 30 feet from river's edge.
Saturday morning at 05:30 an incessant alarm chime kept ringing. AARRGGHH!! "Up and at'em, voyageurs! It's daylight in the swamps; we're burning daylight!" A few more AARRGGHH'S and some other epithets too.
Breakfast at the Tin Fish restaurant in town. Living high on the hog here. No power bars for this crowd. This is in an old building that was either a restaurant or a sporting house in the 1800's when the robber barons were raping the timber of Michigan's northwoods. The building was rehabbed a few years ago, and the carpenter suggested that the western wall could be kept at its 80 degree slant. So, they did, one large window in front and the west wall are askew; the rest of the building appears to be square.
By 09:45 we had Charlie's van at our take out, and were in the water at Dam# 4 on the North Branch. "Water is up about a foot" several locals assured us. Damned good thing too. Lots of rocks in this river. I scraped off a few barnacles from the bottom of my boat that collected there on the run to Outhouse Key in the Everglades. (Hard to believe that the same boat goes to sea in the Gulf of Mexico - and runs a northwoods trout stream.)
Red pine, white pine, white oak, birch (yep, the same ones our forebears used to make their boats that plied these very waters), elm, ash, and willow crowd right down to the river. This is a small, personal river - the kind I prefer. At put in, the water was no more than 20' wide - and THIS with high water. Blue herons, blue jays (winged raccoon), rainbow trout all grace the area.
This country is at about 1,050' elevation, sloping down to maybe something over 1,000' where we took out. Fall is in late stages and most hardwoods are already semi-leafless. Gently rolling plains are interspersed with glacial moraines and eskers. Largely sand and gravel make do for topsoil here. Forest duff makes up the only tillable soil. No farms here; a few feeder operations raise calves up to market size.
We stopped for lunch at Sheep pasture public access. WX is in the fifties, bright sun (shining in our eyes most of the time, of course). Cold and brisk, the other paddlers wore gloves. After lunch, one of the paddlers got wet getting into his boat. Damned good thing I had some dry clothes along that were just his size.
Water here is so clear you can read the date of a dime at 10'. Absolutely crystal clear and cold. Beaver country, and we found a few beaver sticks (small limbs they have cut off of trees they felled. They eat the bark off the outside. Characteristic makes all along the stick, and teeth makes at the end. Fascinating engineer, him. These are holy waters to fly fishermen. Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, W.C. Durant, and other well known men used to fish here and in the South Branch. They're all gone now; all the great men are dead, and I don't feel too well myself.
We reached the take out at 2:00, loaded up. Back at the cabin we indulged in a practice nap before dinner. Time spent in a practice nap doesn't count off your lifetime. Dinner at the Tin Fish, a tall tale or two, and sack time. Down sleeping bags are a great invention.
Sunday morning the alarm went off at what Charlie thought was 06:00. Since DST had finally come after a delay or three, it was really 05:00. "That's One, charlie!" Funny, the restaurant isn't open??? OK, McDonald's is. The Tin Fish had awakened by the time we drove back past it in the dark, on the way back to Paddle Brave.
We spotted Charlie's van at the intersection of the South Branch and M-72 (South Down River Road, and went back to Paddle Brave. We slud the boats right into the water there by the cabin and paddled off into history. The South Branch has very few obstacles to navigation. Almost no rocks, and most downed trees have been cut back and cleared. The first couple of miles are lined with cottages. Then we hit the Mason Tract that Gator paddled last week.
Wilderness. River running free. Birds and animals free. Paddlers free. Life good.
Water here has my, personal four classes:
Clear, fast water 3 to 8 mph
Clear, slow water 1 to 3 mph
Clear, slack water 0 to 1 mph
Clear, eddy current 0 to -3 mph
Water in some places has three classes:
Dark and stained
Murky
Sludge
Racers run the main stream of the river. This weekend I paddled on two tributaries, the North and South Branches of the Au Sable. Friday afternoon, we re-enacted the tradition of paddlers rendezvousing. About 4:30 the first one (Doug McDougal, of high speed portaging fame) rolled in and we started offloading his gear. Before we were done, the other two rolled in. Charlie Parmelee (paddler par excellante'), and Harry Hill arrived. We uploaded all four boats and gear to Charlie's van, and were gone by 5:15.
We went to the same location that gator and his Son had the week before, Paddle Brave in Roscommon Michigan (Tom Adams, 10610 Steckert Bridge Road, ) Our old log cabin was about 30 feet from river's edge.
Saturday morning at 05:30 an incessant alarm chime kept ringing. AARRGGHH!! "Up and at'em, voyageurs! It's daylight in the swamps; we're burning daylight!" A few more AARRGGHH'S and some other epithets too.
Breakfast at the Tin Fish restaurant in town. Living high on the hog here. No power bars for this crowd. This is in an old building that was either a restaurant or a sporting house in the 1800's when the robber barons were raping the timber of Michigan's northwoods. The building was rehabbed a few years ago, and the carpenter suggested that the western wall could be kept at its 80 degree slant. So, they did, one large window in front and the west wall are askew; the rest of the building appears to be square.
By 09:45 we had Charlie's van at our take out, and were in the water at Dam# 4 on the North Branch. "Water is up about a foot" several locals assured us. Damned good thing too. Lots of rocks in this river. I scraped off a few barnacles from the bottom of my boat that collected there on the run to Outhouse Key in the Everglades. (Hard to believe that the same boat goes to sea in the Gulf of Mexico - and runs a northwoods trout stream.)
Red pine, white pine, white oak, birch (yep, the same ones our forebears used to make their boats that plied these very waters), elm, ash, and willow crowd right down to the river. This is a small, personal river - the kind I prefer. At put in, the water was no more than 20' wide - and THIS with high water. Blue herons, blue jays (winged raccoon), rainbow trout all grace the area.
This country is at about 1,050' elevation, sloping down to maybe something over 1,000' where we took out. Fall is in late stages and most hardwoods are already semi-leafless. Gently rolling plains are interspersed with glacial moraines and eskers. Largely sand and gravel make do for topsoil here. Forest duff makes up the only tillable soil. No farms here; a few feeder operations raise calves up to market size.
We stopped for lunch at Sheep pasture public access. WX is in the fifties, bright sun (shining in our eyes most of the time, of course). Cold and brisk, the other paddlers wore gloves. After lunch, one of the paddlers got wet getting into his boat. Damned good thing I had some dry clothes along that were just his size.
Water here is so clear you can read the date of a dime at 10'. Absolutely crystal clear and cold. Beaver country, and we found a few beaver sticks (small limbs they have cut off of trees they felled. They eat the bark off the outside. Characteristic makes all along the stick, and teeth makes at the end. Fascinating engineer, him. These are holy waters to fly fishermen. Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, W.C. Durant, and other well known men used to fish here and in the South Branch. They're all gone now; all the great men are dead, and I don't feel too well myself.
We reached the take out at 2:00, loaded up. Back at the cabin we indulged in a practice nap before dinner. Time spent in a practice nap doesn't count off your lifetime. Dinner at the Tin Fish, a tall tale or two, and sack time. Down sleeping bags are a great invention.
Sunday morning the alarm went off at what Charlie thought was 06:00. Since DST had finally come after a delay or three, it was really 05:00. "That's One, charlie!" Funny, the restaurant isn't open??? OK, McDonald's is. The Tin Fish had awakened by the time we drove back past it in the dark, on the way back to Paddle Brave.
We spotted Charlie's van at the intersection of the South Branch and M-72 (South Down River Road, and went back to Paddle Brave. We slud the boats right into the water there by the cabin and paddled off into history. The South Branch has very few obstacles to navigation. Almost no rocks, and most downed trees have been cut back and cleared. The first couple of miles are lined with cottages. Then we hit the Mason Tract that Gator paddled last week.
Wilderness. River running free. Birds and animals free. Paddlers free. Life good.
Water here has my, personal four classes:
Clear, fast water 3 to 8 mph
Clear, slow water 1 to 3 mph
Clear, slack water 0 to 1 mph
Clear, eddy current 0 to -3 mph
Water in some places has three classes:
Dark and stained
Murky
Sludge