MCR 2.2

It was sort of uneventful yesterday.
Let's see 

Dale, Tom T., John B., Jarret and Rick met for shuttle at 11am and set up a trip from Avon & Livernois to Ryan. Some other paddlers opted to start later and do the Paint Creek when it got warmer but we have not heard any details of that trip. The weather waffled between cloudy and cold to periods of sun with some warmth. The water was cold and moving good with a gage reading of 2.2 when we launched. Our first stop was just after the high banks where the house used to be, a tree was across the whole river. Dale made one critical cut to open the whole span up and we were on our way. Rochester Rapid

had some great surfing and now with the boat launch just after that there is a good opportunity to "park n play" by taking out there and carrying back to Diversion Street, will have to try that some time.

We quickly made our way down to Rock Island but opted not to stop, in fact we didn't stop until the mandatory portage at the Vortex of Death. We portaged on river left because the right side is muddy and you have to go up a hill and a lot further down river to put back in. The left side portage was "squishy" but there is a path of sorts that we cut through on our previous trips. This take out is a bit difficult because of the steep and deep bank, but the put in and path to it are a lot easier than river right. Shortly after that we had to portage around Yates falls, they didn't look too nice to run!

There were no other mandatory portages or woody debris management sites for the rest of the trip. We stopped at Camp Island and made a fire. Dale had a natural Swedish fire log - a hollow log that he saturated with wax and we doused with kerosene. This log was placed vertical on top of some kindling wood and we quickly had a nice warm fire. We were all impressed at how good this log worked and had a discussion on how to make logs like this from whole logs, we'll see what we come up with.

From the island we quickly arrived at Ryan road and ended our trip. Not too much excitement on this trip, but as usual it was a good trip and the fire was the highlight of the day.

 

Here are some pictures from yesterday's paddle trip.

 

At the "Ancient Ruins" by Kak rapid

A little in boat woody debris management

John B after the Falls

Vortex of Death as viewed from the river left portage

Camp Island with the Swedish Fire Log

Jarrett

Dale

Tom T.

 

 

 

 

April Showers

Well we've had a lot of rain this month.  Last weekend we paddled on Friday and Sunday.  Friday April 14th the river was "up", around 2.4 and a good ride.  We went from Avon & Livernois to Yates.  Dale in his canoe and Tom T. in his kayak joined me for a fast run.  We met a guy named Ken who was checking out our boats and we may see him on the river some time.  There were no portages, but only because the water was high enough to run over anything and we were able to pull over some logs at the Vortex of Death.  The Vortex will be needing some woody debris management, thought is to open up the left side where the river used to run and let everything collect in the Vortex.

We were busy on Saturday, not sure if anyone made it out, but we did have another trip on Sunday the 14th.  Dale, Richey, Tom T., John B, Jarret and I made the trip from A&L to Ryan.  We met Jeanee H. at the put in and she may join us on a future trip.  Several spots along the way were woody debris managed, including some around Area 13 and the stretch just before the high banks where the house used to be.  There was some good surfing in Rochester Rapid.  The new landing under Rochester road is nice but could have used some rocks to block upstream to give cover when trying to get in or out of your kayak!   The Falls at Yates were nasty looking, I had my creek boat and perhaps it "could" have made it over without incident, but I was not feeling up to finding out so I portaged around! 

Just around the bend after Avon road we ran into Ruth and chatted with her for a few. An Oakland County Sherriff asked Dale if he had a life jacket with him, he did.  The officer also asked if we could bring a canoe across from the other side that some canoeists decided to leave there as they hiked back around, all wet and cold!  We got the boat back across without incident. 

Further down the river we had a spot that is always a problem being a problem.  River right was managed with the Stihl chainsaw and then Dale also opened up the middle a little by cutting on a log that spanned to river left.  A short distance down from there we came around the corner where there was another canoe in trouble!  This one was up against a log jam and there was a tree jammed into the bow handle and the deck.  Dale had to cut the limb to free it up and it took all of us quite some time to get it free.  Two fishermen told us the owners had started hiking toward the end, but we never did find them.  We have the canoe and will see if we can get it back to them.  We stopped on the bank and made a fire to warm our hands and bodies up a bit.  It was actually getting pretty nice out, considering there was some snow like precipitation coming down earlier on the trip.  The rest of the trip to Ryan was pretty much open, one spot I recall required a little bit of speed to get over a log.

As I am composing this post tonight the TV20 news just showed the river at Heritage Park on Van Dyke, it was going over the canoe landing, all you could see were the rails!  The river is supposed to crest tonight and we have a trip planned for tomorrow, but it will be a cold one since the high will only be 46 degrees tomorrow!

So far it sounds like we will only have a few seasoned paddlers tomorrow, so it should be fun.  The plan is for an A&L to Ryan run.

Here are some pictures from the last couple of trips.

Ken checking out the boats at the put in behind the Dr. Offices at A&L

Bloomer Bridge with some new wood.

Dale pushing through the Vortex of Death, river left route.

Yates Falls at 2.4'!!!  We did not run it!

Tom, myself and Dale at the put in.

The crew on Sunday: John B, me, Richey, Jarret and Dale

An old log from 2005!

Richey at the high bank where the house used to be at the top

Richey

Jarret

Dale

The new launch under Rochester Road.  Nice but could have used some rocks upstream to block the current!  Kind of hard to take out in a kayak for sure.

At Diamond Splitter (you can see it between the kayak and Dale)  We cleared up the bank a little for future stops.

Kak Rapid, there was a tree going horizontal between the left bank and the tree in the river but we took it out.  Might be able to play here some.

Cutting the problem spot, middle channel.

Here we are getting the canoe off the jam.

Warming up by the fire!

 

See you on the river!

 

 

Spring Cleaning

Well it was supposed to be a cold weekend, while it was not warm, it wasn't too bad out!  Our friends from Indiana had to cancel a trip planned for last Saturday (3/23/2013) and with the prediction for cold conditions none of the Local paddlers wanted to go out.  The sun came out and it was a decent day out with levels around 1.65 feet, but we were not on the river.  A hike was planned for Sunday to go and cut out a log at the stinky pipe, just after the A&L Doctor's Office put-in. 

Prior to  meeting up with the group, I took an early hike at the Holland Ponds area off Ryan Road.  The great blue heron's are back and actively nesting!  A few times they all left the nest and a few seemed to be "fighting" and squawking, pretty cool to see.  On my way to Avon & Livernois I stopped off at Rochester Road bridge, off of Diversion, to see the rapid.  The rapid looked decent and a guy named Adam was testing out his Go Pro camera set up by running the rapid a few times.  Sounded like Adam runs the river on a regular basis and I'm sure we'll see him on the river some time.

At 11am Dale, Michelle, Jerry and I set out from the back parking lot and walked over to where the jam was.  It took 45 minutes of cutting and dragging to get it out, but we got it! 

After that we moved on down the road, down Diversion St to the East and parked in a new place where the road is now paved.  From there we walked across the road into the woods towards the river to seek out the 'bunkers'.  These bunkers were used back in WWII to test flash bombs and the land is supposed to be developed into a park, Bunker Park!  On the way to the first bunker, we stopped and entered the old sewer hole, sounds bad but it's not too bad, really!  We hiked around the bunkers then back along the river and out of the woods back across to our cars.  Not too exciting of a day, but we got a log jam cleared and got in a short hike.

Here are a few pictures from the day.

The heron rookery at Holland Ponds

Adam running Rochester Rapid

 

Michelle ready to go!

 

The jam before it was cleared

 

Dale and daughter Michelle after the jam was cleared

 

Michelle down in the sewer

 

Down in the psychadelic chamber

 

Michelle in the bunker.  Notice the hole used for viewing the flash bombs.

 

Second Street view of river, Kak rapid is up on the right side of this shot.

 

This is between the stinky pipe and the walking bridge on the bike trail

 

 

An older video but I don't think it has been posted yet!

Season Opener!

First trip of the season today!  The Weatherman predicted temp's in the 50's and rain, but the rain never came and the high was 65!  The water level was over 1.7 and rising the whole time we were on the river, I am thinking the gage got near 2.0 while we were on the river.  We launched around 11am at Avon & Livernois (A&L) and had cars shuttled at 2nd St and Ryan.  I took a friend from work, Doug, and he paddled my Dagger Zydeco rec boat, I was in my Pyranha Burn whitewater boat.  The surfing at Rochester was decent!  We stopped at Rock Island and took out there, Dale, John and Jarret continued down to Ryan.  There was one portage at the beginning after you go a few turns past the medical offices, just past the stinky pipe, not too hard.

Doug and I took out at Rock Island and carried our boats from Rock Island back to the 2nd Street parking lot.  The trail was icy and muddy, quie a mess!  I would not recommend this, but it does give you a little more on the trip to 2nd and you can relax at Rock Island if people are continuing on from there. 

 

Doug Palmer, Rick Kuhn, Dale Goolsby, Jarret Schmidt, & John Burak on the first trip of the season for 2013

 

 

The new Avon Road bridge.

 

Surfing at Rochester Road Rapid

 

Jarret, Doug and I. 

 

 

Low End of Season

Rainfall has been way below normal this year and I personally have not made many (if any) trips down the MCR since July!  When we did have water I was usually busy with something else or Up North riding my Polaris RZR 800 Electronic Fuel Injected High Output side by side 4x4!  (ok enough on that this is a "river" blog!) 

Clinton River Canoe and Kayak has been renting pretty steadily and as always doing a fine job manicuring the MCR.  They are talking about setting up some "haunted paddle trips" between now and Halloween, they close for the season after Halloween.  The tentative plan is for a short run between Utica and Heritage Park with some scary fun in between.  It will be a very short run but a lot of fun, check out my link to their site and contact them for info.

Dale and a few others have made a few runs over the past few months at low levels.  You can usually still get in a run from Yates to Ryan or Ryan to Van Dyke with a little scraping and grabbing here and there.  This next week or two between now (Oct. 14) and the end of the month should have some good color on the banks of the river.

I had the opportunity to join the "Friends of the Rouge River" group for a paddle on the Rouge river.  We put in near Wayne Michigan off Commerce Court (crosses Michigan Ave.)  behind some factories and paddled down to Venoy Road just North of Michigan Ave where there is a park with access to the river.  The Friends of the Rouge group has been working very hard for several months to get this section portage free.  This is a very easy section of river and according to a guy from Heavener's who was providing the rental boats for this trip, the river never gets any lower than what we paddled due to the discharge of water from the Ypsilanti Water Treatment Plant.  (btw, water from treatment plants is cleaner than the natural water draining into any river so don't let that scare you)  It took us 2 and a half hours to paddle this secton which is around 3+ miles by road.  There were a few tight spots but I never had to get out of my kayak.  We did scrape in a few spots but scooched past them.  The colors were nice, Fall paddling is one of my favorite times on the river.  We saw 3 deer cross the river but not much other wildlife, it was sprinkling most of the trip.  At the end just after we took out in the park where you see an old iron seawall that is all broken and leaning into the river, it started pouring rain as we took the boats out and got loaded up.  Dale and I found a quarter car wash to pull into and change into our dry clothes in a "shelter"!  We stopped at a bar on Wayne Rd. North of Ford Rd and had a decent burger and beer, then headed home.  I would probably not go out of my way to paddle this section of the Rouge again, but that is because I have the Clinton so close to home that it would only be for a special occasion like it was for this trip or if we were to try a different section like maybe through the industrial area and all the way to the Detroit river.

Here are a few pictures from the Rouge river trip.

Putting in off off 3600 Commerce Ct. in Wayne MI (you can get there with your GPS)

They are taking out an old dam here.  After this point the water got pretty cloudy but before that the river was pretty clear.

As you can see, they have some of the same issues we have on the MCR but they are working on it.

A few shots of Dale on the river.  He is paddling with the guy from Heavener's in the last one.

Some people were inspired to try the theraputic waters of the Rouge!  They said the water tasted funny!


I think I mentioned earlier this year that I had a crack in my Pyranha Burn.  I ended up getting some epoxy from Northwest River Supply made by West Marine that is made to repair plastic.  I also melted some plastic into the crack before applying the epoxy on the bottom and inside the kayak.  I still have to put the seat and pillar back into the boat so I am hoping it will work good.  Good thing to keep in mind for repairs though, stuff seems like it is going to stick well.

My river trip outlook looks low for this Fall.  I may be running it Oct. 20th to take out a Boy Scout trying to get his merit badge and join him along with the badge counselor, unless I end up going Up North!  From now until Thanksgiving I pretty much have other plans most weekends and it is too hard to get in a trip after work now since it gets dark early.  I may try to make one of the Halloween runs thoush, we'll see.

Maybe we'll see you on the river!

Post 4th of July Weekend Paddle

Took a little trip down the MCR tonight with Dale and Rob.  We had to wait for Dale to finish rounding up some piggies on the river!  Utica has a fair going on tonight and had a 'pig race' which was basically dumping a bunch of platic pigs into the river from the road North of M-59 down to M-59.  After that I went and got the 'short bus' and not only rode it but drove it!  Took it back to Heritage for Jerry to load up with canoes from the day,(they carried 7 canoes on his set of wheels!)  then we headed up to Ryan for our put in.  Was happy to find a 'Pot of Gold' at the park, if you know what I mean then you know what I mean!  On "river left" as we were just starting, there was a guy sitting with his "pet" raccoon!  Said it was an orphan and it hangs in his yard and with him, he takes it to the river every day!  I told him to take it to the zoo, he said he did that and they had so much fun they are going to the movies tomorrow!  LOL! 

It was a pleasant trip down the river today, started off hot and sunny and the thunder clouds  built up as we went down the river to Van Dyke.  Had a few short stops for supplies and the weather started cooling off as we made our way down.  By the time we ended up in Heritage and got loaded, it was starting to rain.  It actually came down pretty steady, we all left the park as it started to get dark.

Another nice day on the river!