A Nice Day Paddling on the Grand River
Well, I finally got out on the water yesterday after a long spell off.
What a nice thing!
Just getting down to the river suddenly flipped my switch. All the noise/tension of driving absolutely melted away. All the nastiness of anti-progress. Suddenly it might as well have been the jungle.
Glad to be alone.
I headed out in my solo C1 thru an area that caused me much insanity in the past: the Portland State Game Area b/w Grand Ledge and Portland.
This area is just 10 miles away from motor-city Lansing. But it’s like falling off the map. Even this sometimes maligned river was just a breath of fresh air.
I just have to say that I saw dozens of big bass in the crystal clear water. Wonderful snaky big catfish. The river had a delightful rocky bottom and was clean and clear-looking all around. Schools of perch. Big turtles with their babies swimming behind them.
Hundreds of monster carp in big schools (almost too many of those).
It was like being at the aquarium. What a delight. I hadn’t seen much nature all summer.
Also there was the nicest sense of autumn in the humid air.
It was warm, but I guess there was also something about all that lush vegetation starting to clear up, thin out. The weather
was similar only different. Fall? Just ahead!
2 hours of paddle-bliss.
At the takeout we come to the quaint town of Portland, with a couple old wrought-iron bridges and an icecream shanty
overhanging the river. Had a malted as I loaded the boat.
Just can’t beat it.
Oh, but before I loaded the boat I had to run my own shuttle.
HOW MANY HERE DO THAT? —I call it the Double Nexus: I stash a bike at the downstream side then ride back to the car. So yesterday
I also had the nicest bike ride. Old highway out to the Game Area, down a long dirt road which got smaller and smaller until it just dropped, twisting, into a long, lush forested valley pathway and the put-in. Not another soul.
So that’s my story. Oh, here’s a little postscript about the last time I tried to paddle this area….
To an idiot the river looks to be, say, 10 miles long b/w towns.
If you actually LOOK at the map though, the river zigs so far away and back a few times that it’s more like 40 miles. —My pals and I got caught way back in there at sundown, tired, without food or water a couple years back. This time I wanted to make it. So I put in at a sensible place halfway. So I thought. —It was still ‘amusing’ yesterday when I started
paddling thru some areas that I recalled from the last ill-fated foray. I actually got fairly nervous, like DOH did I mess up again?
I’d say there’s not much civilization for 10 miles around the river in this area.
A real nice lonely place close to a metro area!
