Otter Adventures: Spring Lake Kayaking

Spring Lake Paddle:

Summer weekends are short in number and by fall you see the end is nearing and you still have a ToDo list. Not wanting to use a weekend for a short trip down the river we call out for weeknight paddlers, set up a shuttle van and splash in. It's a little windy and the current is slow but the weather is nice and we have a dandy time.

Some readers may recognize the bridge from other blogs. This is my preferred launch. Shallow, no rocks or trash and very little river mud. River mud is gray, smells terrible and slimes up anything and everything.

My good buddy, Blake is a newcomer to "The Adventures of ArcFlash and Deathrider".

Tugboats are considerably larger up close and without a huge train of size distorting barges.

This little guy is very old and in real bad shape. I'm not sure if it's getting restored or salvaged.

About a 2 hour backwater drift and discovery route puts us less than 1/3 of the way to our take-out yet consumes half our daylight.

Back in to open river and we attempt to make better time but the wind is against us. Plans are made and changed a few times and land on an alternate takeout. We should be able to get off the river just before nightfall.

With the new route we can get back to goofing off and looking around more than trying to cover 6 more miles before getting lost on a river at night without lights.

Oh Yah! I have Taffy! Taffy started out as a candy snack when Deathrider ended up with an extra pound and we ate most of it on a packrafting trip. Now it's kind of a joke to have some taffy on any water route. That and it's kind of good and easy to throw to other boaters.

This is the money shot. Long river miles all to ourselves. It's the reason we love this place.

There is a bend in the river just off the main channel that collects all the driftwood and flotsam. This tree stump is maybe 10 feet tall. It's huge, my guess is cottonwood. I've seen others this size in the area that are still alive.

How a spool found it's way here is part of the magic of a river. Everything, eventually makes it to a river and into the ocean. Anything washed down a storm drain or blowing across a parking lot eventually makes it to water. I find a lot of it on scuba dives but the majority makes it to a river like this.