Manistee River Michigan Thru Paddle - Kayaking 175 Miles

Okay we are on the Manistee River here up in northern Michigan doing the full or full navigable part 166 mile trip from the old town of DeWard down to Manistee and Lake Michigan. It'll take us six days maybe five. It started out real fast and shallow here a lot quicker than I expected with the well near drought lately so you can get to this little tight spot here getting shallow. Beautiful weather it's 65 and sunny got my buddy behind me Jeffy in a similar kayak and brought my Perception Carolina 12 footer. Beautiful segment of the river here and we've only done the first mile. It is about 6 a.m here this is our second day. Just woke up around 5 30 and had a quick coffee and some breakfast. I'm starting to get things packed up here and organized. Already got the tarp pulled back. Jeffy over there. Yeah we got in last night about six o'clock and didn't really have any good camping spots so we just kind of tucked away here in the woods and kind of kept quiet and got some pretty nice sleep. Gonna hit the water here pretty soon by about 6 30 and paddle again till about 6. Should easily get us 35 plus miles today. Not the best view here but it was a it was a great night good weather it got down about 32. I got some good sleep and that's all that really counts. It's 6 45 a.m our second day here getting ready to launch the Manistee River. Got my boat down here. Jeffy's up top we'll help him bring his down and we will be on our way. Cold and rainy right now. It was raining only about the last 45 minutes or an hour of us paddling so can't complain too bad but we were tired went about 30 35 miles a day so we were ready to get out. Not the nicest exit here pretty nasty and up here we got this stuff so have to get up there and do a little cleanup. A little tough getting the boats up there. They're right up top. Yeah I think we'll get got our tarps up right now I think we're gonna get a fire going warm up because it sure cooled down. It's I actually never warmed up today this morning was 31 32 right now it's about 55 at best. It feels like the rain's letting up but I think it's going to come on heavier overnight. Tomorrow's going to be a nice day so we're looking forward to that. Okay here's our campsite for night two. A long day looks like the rain's kind of holding off. Just a light shower right now so we're all set up. Got the Warbonnet Thunderfly tarp right here. My Warbonnet Blackbird hammock and for quilts this trip I've got the 30 degree underquilt and the 40 degree top quilt. Miscellaneous stuff and dry bags down here. No hiking poles this time obviously so just use some sticks to prop up the tarp in porch mode. And oh this guy right here's been a lifesaver so far. Just one of those uh it's called the absorber. Like a car towel drying towel. Just great for you know my legs were just covered in that clay and mud from down there so be able to clean off and dry off with that. Wring it out and clean off my shoes and dry off everything else that was wet so that came in real handy. Got the MSR Autoflow this time. Holds a nice amount of water for about four liters or more. An action set of that filter that comes with it usually in this cheap just knock off like a Sawyer mini type filter and it's working really well. That way I can thread it onto a bottle. Kind of see the beef-free bottle over there as well. I can thread it onto that um while I'm kayaking. Scoop up some water and take a quick drink. And that's it for now we'll uh just get some dinner going and get ready for day three. Tonight for dinner I'm going to do a It's good stuff I've had this before. What I do though I repackage it into one of these food bags here with a zip lock before I dump the hot water in because the ones they come with are just that the heat seal type and it's kind of a mess if you try to roll it down and clip it shut. So we'll go with that and even have a fresh apple. Bought two of these on this trip since I'm not backpacking. Bring a little extra on the kayak just some junk snacks later and looks like I have a boil so we'll dump that in and get eating. We're here at the 131 roadside park taking a little break get some water here and having some snacks. Roughly the halfway point. Not real sure about that but making good real good time today. Not a whole lot going on here but a nice big ramp to stop and rest. A little cloudy and cold this morning but now the sun's out and it was out but plenty of blue sky. Having a good time. All right this is our third night. We're about 100 miles into the trip and I am exhausted. We both are. For the long day we did at least 40 miles. It's 8 15 p.m now so we are ready to eat something quick and hit the bed hit the hammock. Not a bad campsite though. Okay we're making good progress today we're at 115 I think state road 115. A little bit of bridge construction here so through here I probably should have went through the center but it looks fairly deep here so good. I wasn't real sure about that didn't expect the bridge to be closed. Let's take a look at that. So yeah we're in the backwaters here it's a little slow but we're still making good time. We'll get the Hodenpile dam here in about an hour hour and a half maybe two and do a portage around that and continue on our way. Oh we made it to the other side of the portage here. Quite a chore. Those stairs wrap up around the other side there. Beautiful day. Making good time. We're way ahead of schedule. Okay it's about 5 20 in the morning here. I woke up early just got everything packed up. Bag with all the gear there. We're slowly but steadily getting ready for day five. This is our last day. I have nowhere else to camp below the next dam which are fairly close to a couple miles out. So we're just gonna have to go at it today. Ended up being 38 miles for the last day here so a little more than we wanted but that's the best we can do. It'll be a beautiful day but it's cold now. It's 33. I can see some frost across the river. Cold night but I slept really well and I feel like I'm ready to go. Heading to Lake Michigan today. Okay this is day five. This is the final push heading towards Lake Michigan. We just stopped here. Oh about 22 miles to go. It's a long day. Started at about 38. Got through Tippie Dam. Went through the portage. We handled that fine. It's just an absolutely beautiful day. Just chugging away. We're doing probably four or five miles an hour. Pretty good current here to help us out below the dam. So definitely finishing up today. Not much else to say. Just enjoying the weather and kind of grab a couple of snacks here and filter more water and be on our way. Okay we made it into Manistee Lake. Not sure you can hear me over the wind but we are going for this thing. We're doing this. We are exhausted but a couple miles to go here. Just need to get into that channel. Between the two high tension wire towers there. Making progress. Slowest day. The wind is killer but we're almost home. We're coming up to the channel here from Manistee Lake to Lake Michigan. So that means we only have about one mile left here. Finally got out of the wind or mostly out of the wind here. We are looking forward to getting out there and getting done with this thing. Okay that does it. That's official. We made it 166 miles. 165 whatever. From the beginning of the Manistee River all the way to the end into Lake Michigan. Right about. Look at that. Oh unbelievable. What a journey. What a journey. I am exhausted.