Diving Square Lake

Zach and I headed out to Square Lake to see if we still remembered how to dive. Since neither of us had been out since our Madiera wreck dive last year, we were both definitely in need of some downtime.

Neither of us had been to square lake before, and we were pleasantly surprised. Even though the visibility was only about 5 feet, there's plenty to see. There's the tail section of an airplane, 3 underwater platforms, a chainsaw, an underwater toilet (no kidding - someone mounted a toilet to one of the platforms), lots of fish, and more. The dive sites are all in about 20' of water, so it's a very safe and easy dive to do. The water's also nice and warm above the thermocline, so you don't need the extremely bulky 7mm double suits that we use in a lot of other lakes.

I got some pictures of one of the bass we encountered, the tail section of the plane (with a toy rake on top and guidelines leading away from it), and some other stuff. Unfortunately, my camera shut off about 1/2 way through the dive, so I didn't get pics of the best stuff, which we found later. This included a fish (Bluegill) that seemed to have fallen in love with me and kept "kissing" my mask and Zach sitting on the underwater toilet. I guess that gives me some pics to shoot for next time.

Update

Well, the dry season is upon us, so blog posts are becoming few and far between. Thankfully, there's some fun stuff coming up in the next couple weeks (diving, Wausau trips, a mud volleyball tournament), so hopefully things will liven up a bit on this site. To kick off the fun times, there were two noteworthy events this weekend.

First, there was a great party last night that was hosted wonderfully by Brie. It was for several occasions, all centered around Meaghan: her upcoming birthday, her engagement to Nick, and to send the two of them off to their new home in Massachusetts. Congrats to Meaghan (and Nick) - can't wait to come out and visit you guys!

Second, Caleb, Dennis, and I headed to Taylor's falls for the afternoon. As much as I normally loathe driving that far such mild water, we had a pretty good time. There was a decent wave for surfing up at that top that gave some fun rides, though you definitely still had to earn them on the paddle back up. There was also some good eddy play and Dennis got a chance to put his new boat through a few more paces. All in all, it was a pretty good way to spend a few hours.

As a testament to the recent changes to the paddling community, that was the first time this year that I'd been part of a paddling trip without any women paddlers. It was great to have some river time with the guys, but it's also great to see the number of ladies in the paddling community now. Good times all around.

Here's to some fun in the coming weeks!

Newbies on the Kettle

Today Dennis and I met up with Bryan, Sarah, Lynn, Pike, and Derek to head up to the Kettle River. It was low for playboating, about 570 cfs (2.2' on the bridge gauge), but a good level for beginners. When we got up there we also got the happy surprise of meeting up with Kate, who didn't get to paddle at all last year, and a bunch of open boaters from MN and WI. On a funny note, there were 4 Bryans (including the Brians) on the river at the same time, which made communicating a bit confusing. There were also three lawyers on the river at once (myself, Kate, and Derek), but fortunately there was no dam or flood gate that anyone could open up on us.

The group we were with did great. People were making their eddies, learning to surf, hitting their first combat rolls (way to go Derek and Pike!), and doing the seal launch. They even got some experience reading water and paddling without following anyone all the way through hell's gate. There were a few swims, but nothing too bad and I think everyone picked up some new skills.

The only major problem we had was the bugs. Anytime you were out of your boat you were instantly swarmed with hundreds of mosquitos. They were vicious enough to make scouting a rapid far more painful than running it blind could ever be. If you go, bring bug spray. Lots of it. And bring it down the river with you.

On the whole, it was a great day. Bryan K snapped some pics of people at Blueberry, so I'm anxious to check those out. Pike also was kind enough to get some footage of people running Hell's gate, though I'm not sure whose camera it was on. I got some video of the Seal Launch, but that's about it. I got a couple of them posted on my YouTube page, so hit the link on the right side of this page to check em out. Unfortunately, both the videos and the pics in this post were taken with my poor old point-and-shoot which got flooded last year and has kind of a haze thing going on with the lens. Just think of it as a diffuser and it's all good.

Congratulations!

This was quite the happy weekend. First and foremost, congratulations to Dennis for getting engaged! I never thought I'd see the day, but I couldn't be happier for him. Here's wishing him and his soon-to-be family the very best.

On a less momentous, but still very happy note, Dennis and I met a whole bunch of new Canoe U grads down at the Verm on Sunday. The river was at a good level for beginning paddlers (~120 cfs) and the newbies really ripped it up! I was completely impressed by both their skill level and enthusiasm. It's really great to see. We were also joined by Eric (a solid paddler who's a transplant from Wausau), Paul B, and Barney and his wife. It was a great group and a really fun day. Congrats to the new paddlers on their first Verm descent!

Unfortunately, I was too busy paddling and chatting to get the camera out, so there's no pics. Next time...

Ole's Photos from the Knife

A friend and co-worker of mine, Ole, came along up to the North Shore and took some pics of us on the knife. There's lots of great shots - here's a couple from his batch. Thanks tons for taking 'em Ole!

I also got one more video posted on YouTube (see link on the right) in addition to the ones in the post below.

Knife River

The North Shore of Lake Superior got slammed with as much as 5" of rain in 24 hours last week. This deluge sent the river levels soaring upwards and brought the North Shore Creeks back to life.

The Plan was to hit the Knife river in the morning, then hit either the French, the Stewart, or the very high Upper St. Louis in the afternoon. Unfortunately, other obligations limited us to paddling Sunday only and the creeks that had flooded so quickly had flushed most of that water down to the Lake by then. The French was too low to run, we were told the Stewart was too low (though later found out other people made the run and found it low, but passable), and the knife was low but runnable. We decided to try and hit the knife, then go and get some big wave action on the Upper.

The knife was a bit boney, but we made it down all right. The only carnage occurred when Brian J took a bit of a beating when he flipped in the lower section of the river and tried rolling repeatedly while getting bounced off the rocks on the river bottom. It looked like he took several good knocks, but no permanent damage. We were disappointed to find a small forest of trees wedged into the river right channel of Fish falls, making what would have been a really fun, 2-stage drop impassable. Nora has pics of it on her blog. The good news is that it forced us to check out the "fish ladder" that comprises the river left channel. It's a c-shaped groove in the rock that is a class IV- to IV drop, depending on the level. Yesterday it had a couple of small waves/holes at the top, followed by an 8-10' falls into a turbulent hole, then some more waves/holes and rocks to dodge on the way out. Aaron was kind enough to probe the run for us, dropping into the torrent at the bottom of the falls and punching cleanly through. Once we saw how easily he passed through, Graeme, myself, and Bill K lined up and headed through. It was a fun little run and definitely made the trip more memorable. The next couple hundred yards of Class III were boney, but fun, as was the drop below the Highway 61 bridge. We all made it to the takeout safe and sound, albeit a bit late.

When we got back to the cars it was already 3:45, so we didn't have time for the Upper. While this was dissappointing, we decided to head over to the Lester and just run the short stretch below Almost Always as a consolation run. It was fun, but I'm definitely wanting more. Hopefully we'll get another good rain so we can hit the French, the Stewart, or maybe take Mike and Melissa up on their offer to guide us down the Lester. Next time....

These are a couple pics (both of Graeme at the bridge drop) and videos (me on the Fish Ladder and Aaron on the bridge drop) I took with my little POS camera. Ole was kind enough to give me cd's of his shots from the day, but I didn't get a chance to download and post them yet. I also have a couple more videos that will make their way to my YouTube page in the next 48 hours or so. Stay tuned!

Sturgeon Pics 2

OK, here's the rest of the blog-bound Sturgeon Pics. I'll put more up on the "my web Albums" link on the right if people want to download them. Otherwise, if you want a CD with all 600 on there, email me and I'll make sure you get one.

Pics:
1) Bill K dropping in
2) Graeme in Chameleon
3) Evan running the waves
4) Brian J sending up a wave of his own
5) Evan catching Triple S full force
6) Tommy, Craig, myself, and Graeme on the Couch
7) Graeme and I chillin' on the couch
8) Craig throwing down a huge air blunt on Scary Wave
9) Tommy with the best seat in the house
10)Craig on Surfer's
11)Natalie catching Triple S

Sturgeon Pics 1

Here's the first batch of Sturgeon pics. I'll have the rest posted this weekend. I also got one more video up on YouTube.

Pics are:

1) Tommy working on blunts
2) Me, about as happy as I can be
3) Me getting a back bounce off Surfer's
4) Craig showing how deep the Trough on Surfer's is
5) Mike J picking his line
6) Tandem surf - notice how much lower I am
7) Graeme in the foam pile
8) Craig looping Chameleon
9) Nora and Mike chasing waves
10)Craig back-bouncing
11)Nora staring into the jaws of Big Mouth
12)The headless cartwheeler rides again

STURGEON!!!

Graeme, Nora, and I headed North to Sturgeon Falls in Eastern Manitoba. Once there, we met up with Craig E. and Tommy. We ran into Natalie and Mike J the next day, then Bill, Brian J, and Marie came up that night. Sturgeon (and nearby Whitemud) is known for huge waves, deep water, and safe wash outs. These factors make it one of the best playboating spots in the world. The water was relatively low this weekend (about 40,000 cfs), so the features were not as big as they could be, but were still really fun.

At Sturgeon, Chameleon was 4-5' tall and playing more like a wave than a hole. Craige was able to hit some loops, Graeme nailed an entry loop, I managed a few cartwheel ends, and just about everybody got some spins and bounces on it. Surfers was bigger (approx 7'), with an extremely steep foam pile. Despite it's thrashy and intimidating appearance, I found it to be a very smooth and controlled surf. It instantly became my favorite feature there. Huge bounces, fast water, and you had the added bonus of surfing in a trough that was about 4' below the surrounding water. It was quite a trip to be surfing the wave and watch someone drop into Chameleon above you. It did give Graeme a slight trashing on one ride, but otherwise proved to be pretty harmless. There were two other good surf spots (Triple S and Learners) that provided some great surfs and spins. All in all it was a very fun level.

Whitemud was slightly bigger and much faster. The water flowing into the rapids was as fast as any I've seen and made for some challenging ferries. The couch was great - just over head high, fairly retentive, and very bouncy. I nailed my first true blunt there, but then got a bit to excited about it and got flipped immediately after. At one point we had Craige, Tommy, Graeme, and myself on it at the same time with room for more. Craige and Tommy also spent lots of time on Scary Wave hitting huge air blunts and bounces. Scary was somewhere in the 8-10' tall range and when it glassed up the boys were going huge. Fun to watch.

The weather was warm and Sunny on Friday and Saturday, then we got an inch of rain Sat night and things turned cool and cloudy. Thunderstorms Sunday afternoon/evening and cold temps convinced us to forgoe the leaky tents and rent Yurts that night. The Yurts were amazing - electricity, heat, 2 beds, a futon, and a table and chairs inside sitting on nice hardwood floors. Beat the heck out of standing around in the rain.

We also got some cool Wildlife encounters. We saw fox pups playing, lots of eagles, watched an otter fishing, drove right past a black bear, and lots of others. Good times.

I'll need a couple days to get the pics up. I loaded them onto my computer last night but haven't even started sorting them. I did manage to get a couple of videos up on YouTube, so hit the link on the right side of this page. I'll get more vids up in the next couple of days too.

Pabst-a-Palooza!

Pabst-A-Palooza was an awesome time! Nora, Graeme, and I headed out to Pier's Gorge on the Menominee River to meet up with 20 or so other paddlers from WI, MI, IL, and IN. The water level was pretty sweet at about 2500cfs. There wasn't much play, but if you wanted Big, Fast, downriver fun, it was the place to be. Friday night included Paddling movies and socializing, Saturday had a boatercross downriver race and inflatable race followed by 2 live bands, and then Sunday Nora and I headed back, but Graeme joined some of the WI folks at Peminee (spelling?) Falls for some wave action.

The river was intimidating, but fun. Running Misicott Falls was like being on a roller coaster in a tornado - fast with huge rollers and spray all around you. Volkswagen was getting poured-over, but was reasonably easy to dodge. Chicken Ender was big and transitioned from wave to sticky hole. Nasty to play in, but you could punch it by running either hard river right or hard river left. First Sister was big and nasty. Those who didn't make the line on hard river right were punished heavily for their mistake. Second sister was big and dynamic, but not retentive. Terminal Surfer lived up to its name, recycling paddlers and boats alike.

The events were loads of fun. There were two different boatercross heats: The beginner/intermediate class and the expert class. The b/i class started in the pool below the falls and ran the rest of Piers Gorge down to Terminal Surfer. 3 of the 5 people in that race flipped and swam before Chicken Ender. The 4th swam in 1st Sister, and only one made it to the finish. It was great fun for those of us watching, but I'm sure the people that had to swim a big, meaty rapid would have a different opinion.

The Expert Class started above the falls and ran all the way down. There were many flips, but no swimmers. This is doubly impressive because one guy missed the tongue on the falls and wound up in surf-for-your-life kind of situation, but made it out eventually. I think Craig E. won it.

The inflatable race was probably the best part of the day. The only rules were that 1) your team didn't finish until all members reunited with your craft below Terminal (notice below terminal, not just in it) and 2) no boats allowed. There were blow up dolls, kiddy pools, air mattresses, and more going down. Nora, Graeme, and I crammed onto her air matress and headed down expecting a long and painful swim once we hit the big waves. As it turned out, our airmattress made quite the vehicle, somehow finding all the right lines through the river and keeping us (mostly) onboard. In the final stretch we were in 3rd place, but the team in front of us couldn't avoid Terminal Surfer and wound up in there recirculating for a couple of minutes. That gave us the chance to sneak by and take 2nd. Great time.

There were loads of people with both still and video cameras, so stay tuned because some of it's gonna be really funny. Huge thanks to Chevy and Andi for taking pics during the Expert race and the Inflatable race. Nora also has some great ones on her blog, so check those out.