March 23-25, 2018

     Mark’s car was wrecked. It had just been parked on the street, minding it’s own business, when someone drove right into it. No injuries, but now Mark had to sit out this trip in order to deal with the aftermath. Sorry, Mark.

     Rookie spent most of the drive to the trailhead asleep, only to waken and press his nose up against the window to look out every time we slowed down. This time, he saw what he was hoping for. As we pulled into the Red Bridge River Access after a six hour drive, he started whining. Adam told him to quiet down, and we got out in the darkness to make final gear preparations.

     We hiked a mile or so before we caught a good camp site in our headlamps, and quickly settled in for the night.

     We got on the trail the next morning at about 9:30. It had dropped to about twenty degrees during the night, and we hurried up the first hill to warm up. We were hiking the North Country Trail in it’s namesake direction, above the Manistee River Valley.

     A few dayhikers had passed by our campsite in the morning, and we passed them again as they were on their way out. We also saw quite a few backpackers throughout the day, as well. The eleven mile section of the trail that we were hiking stays mostly on top of a ridge, overlooking the valley below. We strained to catch a glimpse of the river that we would later be rafting, but could never manage to see it through the thick tree cover down in the valley.

     The patchy, late March snow cover gave a nice diversity to the spring landscape, covering every north-facing slope in a blanket of white. Unfortunately, the freeze-thaw cycle lately had attracted and coalesced a ribbon of ice onto the trails in these north-facing areas. Adam and I both wished we had brought traction devices for several hundred feet after every long left-hand turn in the trail. Rookie was unfazed, with his four legs and low center of gravity. After watching Adam carefully walk through one section of ice and almost fall, I pulled out my camera and started recording him. “I’ve got the video rolling so if you wanna fall you can do it now,” I said to him jokingly. I immediately fell flat on my butt, throwing my trekking pole ten feet into the air as I did. Right on the exact spot where he was struggling. Guess I should have known.

     I had foolishly neglected to think much about water supply, and realized too late that the only water on this section of trail would be at Eddington Creek, once we were almost down to the river. I would have to make due with only the liter of water that I had brought in from the truck the night before. There were several places where the trail wound up a hillside and burst out onto a promontory, giving a great view of the wide, flat valley below us. Despite the icy sections, most of the trail was dry and easily hikeable.

     We descended down to Eddington Creek, where we stopped to eat some snacks and replenish our water at the bridge. There are some logs to sit on there, and Rookie enjoyed some pepperoni and cheese. Rookie has a compulsion to jump into any and all water he sees, with no apparent understanding that the air temperature was thirty five degrees. Adam had to hold him back and tie him to the bridge to keep him from jumping into the creek.

     At about 1:30, we reached the suspension bridge near the dam, and began rejiggering all of our gear for the float down the river. By 2:20, we were on the water. Rookie tucked nicely in between Adam’s legs in the Yak, and myself in my Curiyak, we began the lazy float down the Manistee River. We saw an angler and several day hikers near the bridge. The river is wide, with channels of faster current that flow up to four miles per hour, and parallel areas of water that are almost motionless. There are quite a few sections of class one riffles, and the occasional strainer on the side, easily avoided. The gauge at Hodenpyl Dam showed four feet during our trip. I was surprised at my ability to stay warm with only my thin wool base layer, Patagonian Nano Air Light Hoody, and a rain jacket. I didn’t even need gloves.

     Rookie had some fun trying to bite at the small whitecaps that formed near the boat. He whined and barked whenever he smelled or saw something through the trees on either side of the trail, and he alternated between being incredibly attentive, and putting his head down and falling asleep in the boat. Adam said they were both comfortable in the Yak. We decided to start looking for a campsite in the late afternoon, and at about 4:30, we found a nice moss-covered area on a peninsula a little over halfway to our ultimate takeout point. I immediately pulled out sleeping gear and took an hour long nap in a sunny riverside meadow. The silence was beautiful.

     When I woke up after an hour, Adam had a nice fire going in a pit overlooking the river, and had cooked one of his freeze-dried dinners already. We both set about cooking another one. Adam had his tent set up, so I set up my shelter and we ate and talked around the fire for several hours. At dark we fell asleep to the quiet sound of the river passing by.

     Overnight, I decided to leave my Katadyn BeFree water filter near my head, outside of my sleeping bag, knowing that the temperature would drop to below twenty degrees. I thought that the proximity to my body might keep it from freezing too much, but at midnight I woke up to a mostly frozen water bottle. I poured the liquid that was left into my pot and heated it up, not so hot that I couldn’t put my finger down into it. I poured that into the bottle full of ice, and it melted and settled at a temperature that was warm enough to bring the bottle into my bag with me. Just a few degrees warmer than body temp, it was nice to feel it next to me as I fell as asleep under my tarp again.

     In the morning we let the sun wake us up and got going, lazily. Rookie was very eager to get into the boat, now that he knew what it was. We pushed off in the cold and wind. I guessed it was about twenty five degrees. Rookie ducked his head and used the pack as a wind block whenever the wind whipped up. He was sitting on a section of reflective insulation that Adam had laid on the bottom of the boat for him, and Adam’s low-angle paddling technique allowed almost zero water in the boat.

     We watched as a bald eagle soared above us, and checked out little balls of ice that had formed just above the water level as it flowed around the branches of fallen trees. I saw three beavers, who would swim toward my boat, and then duck under the water and disappear. I’ve never seen a beaver before. They’re smaller than I had thought.

     As we reached the area where the river starts to braid, we knew we were almost at the end of the trip. We took different paths through the braids, and then reconvened at the parking lot, where we took out at about 11:30am. A nice trip, well done. We both said that we would have to come back with our wives during the summer at some point. I think we will.

     In the summer time, when the weather is kinder, this would be a great trip for beginner pack rafters. There are easily avoidable sections of class one riffles, and the river is wide enough that you won’t ever have to portage strainers. It’s slow enough to be easy, but fast enough to be interesting. The Manistee River Trail is usually within half a mile of the river, if for some reason you need to bail off the river to the trail.

     Buy the excellent Manistee River Trail map from Michigan Trail Maps.

     This section of river is somewhere around thirteen miles, and we floated it in about four hours total, with only a five minute break. The gauge read four feet at the time of our trip. There are a plethora of great campsites along the river.

     There are two trails that run parallel to the river, one on each side. Both trails form a loop, connecting to each other and crossing the river; on the north side near Hodenpyl Dam, and on the south side near the Red Bridge River Access point. Both trails are roughly eleven miles long. We hiked the North Country Trail, but if I could do it again I’d hike the Manistee River Trail instead, as there is more water, and you can actually see the river from that trail. There are only a couple places you can see the river from the North Country Trail, all near the dam.

     An easy Friday through Sunday trip would be to park at the Red Bridge River Access (no permit needed), hike the Manistee River Trail north all the way to the suspension bridge near the dam, and then packraft back to the vehicle. A fast hiker could complete the hike and packraft in ten hours. For an extension, the North Country Trail could then be hiked and the same section of the river could be rafted again.