Kayaking Here and There

Kayaking in Alaska: we were just behind the kayak in the photo.
An Alsaka brown bear (aka grizzly bear) is just visible at the left of the waterfall.
We didn't want to be the kayak closest to the bear.

On the Huron River this morning

We enjoyed kayaking so much in Alaska that we decided to try the Argo Cascades, an artificial rapids on the Huron River a few miles away from our house. After the cascades, which take around 10 minutes, it's smooth water down to Gallup Pond where one turns in the kayak and rides back to one's car in a van. Not like the inflatable zodiac-type boats that one rides from the ship to the shore off the National Geographic Sea Bird.

The kayaks are very different. Here they are just open, coated-styrofoam hulls that take on huge amounts of water but ride so high that it immediately drains out of holes in the bottom of the boat. The kayaks there are closed (though without a skirt), as the air temperature can be very cold and the water is always cold. Wet landings there require knee boots. Wet landings here require bare feet, keens, or tevas. No bears here either. Guaranteed.

New Canoe Channel in Huron River

The old spillway was in trouble, so they built this beautiful channel next to the river, eliminating the need to portage a canoe into the river below the dam. Some of the narrow places look a bit rough -- we'll wait and see how it is when canoe season really starts. This is going to also be a great path for bikes or walking: both wonderful sports in Ann Arbor.

-- Photos taken by Len, my husband.

Canoeing on the Huron River

Today we went canoeing on the Huron River, which runs through Ann Arbor in surprisingly wild-looking banks. If you lift your gaze, you can see tall buildings and city streets on bridges above, but still have the illusion that you are far from everything. Occasional helicopters and sky-writing planes overflying the Michigan Stadium during the hugely big game also reminded us that we had not escaped civilization (or maybe that we hadn't found civilization, depends on your perspective).

Our friend Abby joined us -- you can see her red-orange kayak in some of the photos. We started at Argo canoe livery, and went 2 miles upriver to Barton Dam:



On the way back down the river, we saw a heron:





We paddled past the livery, through the sluiceway around Argo Dam, and on down past Island Park and its classical pavillion:



As we went past the Arboretum, our canoe hung up on a very shallow part of the river, and we had to get out and push it into deeper water. Luckily, it was an unusually warm day, a remarkable October day with the characteristic bright blue sky.

We ended at the Gallup Park canoe rental building, where a van from the livery picked us up and drove us back to our parked cars.

Last Canoe Ride of the Year

The River is Higher

Elaine and Larry visited for the weekend. Sunday morning we repeated the canoe trip that we did a few weeks ago. We had two canoes this time.

Again, we started at Argo pond, went under the little tunnel into the canal that bypasses the Argo Dam, portaged at the end of the canal, and then began our trip on the Huron River. We've walked most of the route, past the Gandy Dancer restaurant, along the banks of Riverside Park and Island Park, around the big bend in the river from which you glimpse Fuller Pool, past the playing fields and hospital, along the edge of the Arb, and then into Gallup Park for pickup. Because we had walked along the river so often, we could always see exactly where we were. Elaine and Larry had not walked these paths, so we were constantly pointing out what we saw and recognized.

A week of incessant rain when we had just returned from Hawaii had raised the level of the river quite a bit, and had made the current much faster. It carried our canoes downstream at a pace that was startling in contrast to the previous trip.