June 19th-21st, 2018
Sam and I needed a training trip to get ready for our wild west road trip of 2018, coming soon. We had 3 days, so I figured we should hit up the Manistee River Trail and packraft back down the Manistee. It ended up being completely worth the 6 hour drive from home. This trip is similar to, but an improvement over, this route that I did with Adam 3 months ago. Last time we hiked the North Country trail, but this time we would hike parallel on the other side of the river.
Construction had temporarily removed the southernmost bridge over the river, so we parked at the small trailhead east of the Red Bridge River access. The Manistee River Trail begins just a hundred yards away. We began hiking northward at about 7pm, passing several groups camped at the very scenically placed official campsites that are marked on the map. We eventually settled down at a nice campsite adjacent to the river, underneath a thick canopy of trees, with relatively little insect pressure, considering the season.
We pitched the Stratospire II and I forgot to hang our food line. Due to time constraints before the trip, I had decided to eat only MRE’s this trip. A friend had kindly donated them to me. They weren’t too shabby, really. The “Chocolate Dairyshake” was my favorite tasting, and government-est sounding, selection. Why not just milkshake guys. I might try to recreate this one with Nido and some other powdered stuff in the future. Sam wasn’t too hungry, and ate some of her Good-to-Go gluten free penne, which she said was pretty good. Right after dark I realized that I had forgotten to hang the bear line, so I went out and frustrated myself trying to find a good branch to hang from, and after about fifteen minutes, Sam showed me one that I had walked right past. Tired from the drive, we both went to bed about dark.
Sometime in the night, there was a flurry of activity that I can barely remember. Sam later relayed it to me as follows: As we were both sleeping, she felt uneasy, like something was watching her. She looked up, through the open fly of our tent, and saw a creature about as big as a dog standing there staring at her from a foot away. She yelled at it to scare it, but it didn’t leave. She started shaking me to wake me up, and then told me that there was something outside of our tent. Thinking it was probably a raccoon or something, I told her to yell at it and try to scare it away. Which of course hadn’t worked. By the time I was fully awake, there was nothing there. She told me that it had looked like a coyote or a fox, but it was too dark to be sure. Our headlamps, late to the party, didn’t reveal anything. Good thing I had hung the food I guess. We closed the fly and both went back to sleep, but neither of us slept that well all night.
Earlier, I had forgotten to grab Sam’s hiking skirt for her from the house, and we didn’t realize until several hours from home. Luckily, she had brought a second one along just in case. She seems to know the future. In the morning, Sam was sad to see that one of her earrings had broken as she slept. No problem, she just pulled a second pair out of a bag. I cracked up. What a thing to bring extras of. Perfect planning, I guess. The morning was in the high fifties with perfect weather for the rest of the day. We hiked the flat-ish trail, reaching overlook after overlook. The 10 mile long section of the Manistee River Trail that we would cover is much more scenic than the matching section of the North Country Trail on the other side of the river, which Adam and I had walked before. There are plenty of small creeks for water, and not much in the way of elevation change.
Sam has had type one diabetes since childhood, and uses an insulin pump to regulate her blood sugar. It’s visible on her left arm in the above photo. It syncs to her phone and watch, so she can manage her sugar and insulin on the go. It holds enough insulin for three days, and then she will place another one. She brings a portable battery with her on these trips to keep everything charged up. When I split up our gear, Sam’s pack weighed about 15 pounds, with mine carrying the remainder at 43. Not too shabby, including a camp chair, diabetic supplies, and two freakin boats.
As we were nearing the suspension bridge where we would inflate our boats to head back, we met a friend. Sam named him Bluebin. Bluebin the blutterfly. He was content to ride on her shoulder strap for the final mile of trail, and as we crossed the suspension bridge over the Manistee River. She helped him get to a leaf to watch us blow up our boats, but by the time we were ready to get on the water, he had died. I hope we gave him a good final ride.
By 3pm we were on the water. The temperature was great, and the wind was just enough to keep any bothersome insects down. This river is great for beginner rafters. It has a combination of tiny rapids, slow moving sections, and faster moving sections to keep everyone entertained but not too entertained. We alternately paddled and stared up at the sky. The GoPro Hero 5 gave me problems all day, as it has on multiple different occasions now. It only managed to save about half the videos I took as it complained about the memory card. I paid extra for an approved card, and this isn’t the first card that it’s had issues with. Out of warranty, of course. But after I decided to stop thinking about it, the day got a lot more enjoyable.
We had sighted a perfect campsite from the cliffs while hiking earlier in the day, and we were looking for it as we paddled. We found it, in five different places. Apparently, the “unique” combination of shoreline features we had noticed and made note of wasn’t so unique. We kept seeing the same bend in the river, over and over again. Like a lazily made video game level. It was weird. We finally decided to camp at one of them, and then realized that it was actually the site we had seen earlier in the day. We could tell only by looking across at the opposite side of the river, to the overlook from which we had seen it.
We built a fire in a fire pit, and I went out in the river to bathe. I didn’t realize I would also be bathing in mockery from my wife, as she made fun of my cold water gyrations and my underwear. But I was cleaner than she was, so I’m gonna say that I won that one. Sam cooked her dinner by the fire, which we needed to keep the insects off of us at this location. I ate government Jambalaya and tried something resembling a cheeseburger. The first was good, the second wasn’t. Vanilla pound cake and a “muffin” were good though. MRE’s create a ton of trash, so we burned it in the fire and listened to podcasts to pass some time, as the sun gradually receded over the hills. Sam wanted to go to bed early tonight, so we took shelter from the mosquitos in the tent and both got a good night’s sleep. The Spirit 48 quilt from MLD was just warm enough, after I put on my wind shirt and rain pants, which went otherwise unused. My PFD was a comfortable pillow.
The rafting section of this trip can be covered in 4 hours, and we had saved 2 for the morning. We packed up hurriedly as the mosquitos fed on our blood. As soon as we got on the water the breeze made them stop. We floated lazily, not wanting the trip to end. Where the river braids out near the finish, I had us take the longest route. We saw families of ducks and a beaver.
After the takeout, we strapped the still-inflated boats to our packs and walked the few hundred yards back to the vehicles, where we dried the boats and packed everything up for our long drive home. This isn’t the last time that we’ll do this trip, I think.
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Logistics Notes:
This is 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.
It’s $7 including shipping, and labels campsites and water sources and trailheads and just buy the stupid map ya bum
This section of river is somewhere around thirteen miles, and we floated it in about four hours total. 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.
No permit is needed for this trip. 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.
As evidenced by the photos, we chose not to wear our pfd’s while rafting on this particular trip. We had them with us, but decided against wearing them due to the mild water temperature and speed, and our ability to swim, as well as the very low chance of flipping a stable raft on smooth water. This obviously can’t be recommended to others. I always try to make risk decisions based on the realistic conditions at hand, rather than fearfully imagining the worst possible outcome from stacking three or four big mistakes on top of each other. This means that one day I might die, but in the meantime I won’t be bothered by much. Everyone chooses their own risk level.
WHERE MAN DOES NOT REMAIN
Wilderness is an area where man himself is a visitor who does not remain
amen…
i have found that in the Black Hills of South Dakota… amazing country… thankful that God called me there… love and miss you guys… need to connect with you while i am here in indiana… love, steve