A Great Weekend for the Weekend Warrior

Just got back from a killer weekend. I took off from work on Friday afternoon with two friends and we started off at Glacier National Park, which is about a 3 hour drive north of Missoula, skiied Saturday, and paddled Friday and Sunday.

April 9

We hit the park about 7:45 pm just as the sun was starting to set (Man, I love this daylight savings time stuff!) There were only 3 other vehicles in the town of Apgar and one was unoccupied. In the summer months, million visiters visit the park, and most of them go through Apgar either coming or going.

Map of Lake McDonald Area

Anyhow, I drug my boat across 4' deep snow (Glacier gets a lot of snow, and 4' is just what it had melted down to by April!) launched my boat at about 8:10 and glided across the gently rippling lake. Mt. Stanton and Mt. Vaught stood as snowy sentinels at the head of the lake. These peaks are about 9500', and were almost totally covered with snow. It's going to be really neat in a month and a half when it warms up and I can watch avalanches rocket down the peaks from across the lake. One of my friends brought his new digital video camera and recorded my return, so hopefully, I can upload some images of the peaks--they were truly awesome!

I paddled almost two miles up the lake and decided to head back before it got too dark. I forgot my headlamp at home, and being alone, I figured it was probably not a good idea to be paddling in the dark.

I paddled back to camp and splashed over a few random short waves. It sure felt good to be back in the kayak after nearly two months, especially looking up at snow-covered peaks that I'll be climbing later this summer when the snow melts.

Estimated trip length: 3.5 miles. Weather: wind SW 10 mph, 45*F, and not a cloud in sight!

The photo below from the Glacier website shows the view I had on Friday night, although judging from snow accumulation (lack thereof) the photo was probably taken in late July or August. Looking north from where the picture was taken near the foot of the lake, Mt. Stanton is the large peak on the left. Mt. Vaught is the peak in the middle. Mt. Brown is the peak to the right, but I couldn't see it from my low vantage point. I launched just east of where this photo was taken, and paddled to the point about a fifth of the way in from the right edge of the pic.

April 10

Skiied the Big Mountain in Whitefish, Montana. The Big Mountain features some great powder depth, and also some thick pea-soup fog all winter. During the end of their season (April 1-10), they offer $10 lift tickets. Never one to pass up a great deal, I went. Skiing was great, but what more can you say about cheap lift-served skiing? Let's face it, you came here to read kayaking trip reports, and tales of lift-served skiing make for awfully poor reading.

April 11

Map of Wild Horse Island Area

This afternoon, I returned to Flathead Lake where I made my starlit night paddle two months ago. This time, I put in about 15 miles north of where I was in February and paddled to 3 of the islands in the lake.

I wanted to paddle out to Wild Horse Island, but there is a serious lack of public beach access near any of the points close to the island. I pulled down onto Melita Island Road, and started looking for a put-in. I saw a local cabin owner out raking his yard and asked him if there were any spots where I could launch my kayak. He said that I could go down right next to his dock just across the road. Problem solved! The guy, Mike, was really nice, and asked me if I built my boat. I grinned and said that I had. Sure is nice to have a wooden boat for a conversation starter :)

I took off paddling first for Dream Island. Mike told me that the island was owned by the Daly family. The Dalys, as in the copper barons of the late 1800's. Marcus Daly was probably one of the richest Americans of that century next to the Vanderbilts and Rockefellers. The island was about 3-4 acres in area with steep cliffs on 3 sides. The lake is about 9' below full pool in anticipation of spring runoff, so most of the cliffs are covered by water in the summertime. There was a cool little submerged spit that ran all the way to the lakeshore. Mike warned me about it, and that it was only about 1' deep. Of course, the kayak had no problem gliding over it.

I then paddled on to Melita Island. Melita is one of the larger islands in the lake, next to Wild Horse. I asked Mike if it was private or public land and he told me that until 8 or 9 years ago, it had belonged to the Boy Scouts of America. They sold it to two private parties because they didn't think it offered enough room for camps and activities. Now lake-front property is selling for $10,000 per foot of frontage, and the BSA hasn't found a better location. Stupid move! It was about a 3/4 mile crossing over to Melita from Dream. The wind was blowing off my starboard quarter, so I was having a bit of a problem with weathercocking. I got to the island and saw nothing but Canada geese. The shores were a bit rocky and I didn't want to bug the geese, so I didn't land and I continued on to Wild Horse.

Wild Horse is over 2,000 acres in area, and is home to a herd of bighorn sheep. the crossing from Melita was about a mile. Since I was almost paddling into the wind, the weathercocking wasn't so much of a problem. The lake was very, very peaceful; from Memorial Day to Labor Day, you hear nothing but the drone of ski boats and the whine of Jetskis. Windy days are nice, because some huge waves get created over the large surface of the lake and the only boats out are windsurfers and sailboats.

Every cabin on the south side of Wild Horse was still buttoned up for the winter. I saw a point off to the west that looked like it had a promising view of the Mission mountains so I paddled over to it for lunch. I saw a huge breakwater that had been sawed off at various heights (probably at the height of the water's surface at lower-pool stages.) The poles from this ancient breakwater were all 18-22" in diameter. It looked like someone underwent a pretty massive undertaking to cut them off, let alone to set them in the first place. The outer ones were cut off about 2' below the surface, and the higher ones were about 4' above the surface, which would put them about 5' below surface at summer lake depth. I was really wondering why this collection of piles was here, especially considering that they were all useless at full lake pool. I pulled the kayak up on the beach and saw a whole bunch of rough-sawn beams, all bolted and spiked together in various configurations. There were 10X10's, 12x8's, and a lot of 4" thick stuff. I couldn't recognize what any of it was for. There was also a big pile of (once) beautiful clear 2x6's. The only thing I could recognize was a set of wooden rails that ran from the high-water mark up about 200' into the trees. Someone must have been in the middle of some huge project and then abandoned it. From the look of most of the wood, it must have been from around the turn of the century. Perhaps it was from an old logging operation, and the logs were cut on the island, rafted behind the breakwater, and then towed to shore. That's my best guess, since none of the living trees I saw on the island were more than 18-20" in diameter, and there were some huge 3' wide stumps around. I'll have to do some research and find out what it all meant.

I paddled straight back to the beach and made about a 1.5-2 mile crossing Weathercocking was a bit tricky, as I was running broadside to the wind. I saw a couple ducks (don't know what kind--I'll have to ask the Wildlife Biologist wife, but she already went to bed.) I'm starting to feel more comfortable with these longer crossings. Hopefully, I'll be ready for some ocean paddling this summer. I'll have to try some longer crossings with some higher winds & waves though.

Estimated length: 4 miles. Weather: Wind ENE 15-20 mph, light clouds, 60*F+ :)