We arrived at the put-in, unloaded, prepped and got on the water at about 8:15 AM.
Kent and Sam, ready to go
It was a clear and beautiful morning as we started paddling to our first point of interest (POI) on the paddling trail. We knew the lake was about two feet too low to make the passage across the ridge that changed the little island into a peninsula, so we were not surprised to find that we had to look at the black willow tree from a distance today.
Sam enjoying the view
Kent, on the way to the next stop on the itinerary – look at that wake.
So, we viewed it from a distance and paddled around the peninsula to get to the beaver dam (POI #2). This was easily viewable, along with the stripped bark and pointy spears of the smaller trees around the dam.
Kent, taking bearings – so green
The third POI was a wood duck box, which we had already seen on the way. The next POIs on the list were not that interesting, so we headed out to the last one, which was supposed to be a mark on a tree indicating the high point of the lake in 2018. We looked diligently, but we had to assume that it was far enough back in the foliage that we couldn’t see it from where we could paddle. We’ll save that for another day.
It should be right there . . . “
Still looking for it but getting a little distracted.
We saw egrets, great blue herons, deer, rabbits, turkey vultures and cardinals during the course of our paddle.
We were thinking about sailing with the predicted increasing wind out of the southwest on the way back from our furthest point, but the wind was actually blowing almost in our faces, so that didn’t work out as planned.
Going back across to the put-in / take-out
STATS: Damn, forgot to turn the GPS off when we pulled our boats out – estimated based on string theory
You wouldn’t think that 2 feet out of 400 would make so much difference, but then you’d be wrong, as usual.
Please see photo album here.