Hosh's Life: The Mighty Manistee

Home. Resting. Relaxing. Recovering.

Reflections after a 3 day journey into the Manistee National Forest:

A buddy of mine and I just got back from up north a ways by the Hodenpyl Dam area. We kayaked the Big Manistee and then Backpacked down the North Country Trail and then back up the Manistee River Trail. We made some good memories and some mistakes to learn from.

Day 1: Kayaking the Big Manistee

I borrowed a couple of Vision sit-on-top kayaks from another buddy of mine to paddle down the B.M. and I crammed them on top of my little Chevy Metro. Needless to say they barely fit. After some worry, a 3.5 hour car ride and GPS from the Droid we were there. She (Droid GPS lady) took us right to the Hodenpyl Dam. Many jokes were made in reference to the dam...the bathrooms, the road, etc., etc. After scoping out the put-in and talking to the president of the Manistee River Trail Club or whatnot, we saddled up and got them in the water. Instantly my buddy remarked that there was a hole in his kayak and he was getting wet. I guess I forgot to tell him that these were made that way, to get wet.

After a while of floating I decided to try to fish a little from the kayak. Harder than it seems, I found out. As you are floating it is hard to cast downstream and reel with any kind of fish-alluring ability as you are needing to paddle to keep away from downed trees, the shore, the current, etc., etc. After my 3rd cast I snagged a tree about 5 inches under the water. Great! 2 minutes into it and I had already lost my brand new lure! After getting wet and fighting with the tree and the current I got it back.

We caught up with the President and the First lady once again as their children were jumping off a rope swing. We stopped as well and my friend had to jump off too. After the first lady told me, "Let me tell you something you don't know…" we left. The First Lady was obviously not that well versed in public relations. My buddy dumped a few times and once lost his paddle and boat. Luckily the canoers that we had leapfrogged a few times snagged the paddle and my buddy swam to retrieve the boat. Exciting stuff. 4 or 5 hours later we floated under Red Bridge and off we were again to the Hodenpyl Dam.

Day 1.5: Beginning the North Country Trail

We suited up and about 4:45p we were off. The NCT was basically a walk in the woods. Literally that is about all you see. Not much scenery and a lot of Maple trees and ferns.

For some reason I decided not to go with my trusty red backpacking shoes but with my hiking black shoes. You all know where this is going. Yeah, hot spots and very sore feet. My buddy as well decided to try his Vibram 5 Fingers for Backpacking. Needless to say we were both very sore after we got into camp around 7:30p.

After slipping into flip flops I proceeded to make the first of a couple of gourmet meals. White Bean Chili over Couscous! Man was it good! Way better than any dehydrated meal. Yes that's right I took real veggies and all for this bad boy. We ate a ton and had left overs! A few Smores were had and then off to bed. Well at least for my buddy. I had to hang the pots and some more food except I dropped my pot kit and it rolled off into the darkness. It sounded like someone playing a snare drum while sipping moonshine. All I could do was stare with my headlamp and hope that there was not a cliff. After a big crash my buddy and I hiked down and found all the scattered pieces. A good end to what could of been a bad ending to the day.

Day 2: NCT–MRT

We woke up to the sun coming through the trees. I had seen a recipe online that said you could cook eggs and bacon from a paper bag. Well, either we did not have a big enough fire to produce the coals we needed or those people were smokin' crack. So we dumped it into a fryin' pan and ate very well that morning. After the main coarse we still needed a little bit more flavor. I wanted some coffee and my buddy wanted some oatmeal to have with the fresh blue berries we found. The problem: no more water and no where to get any more. Or so we had been told. We did notice however that there was a lot of moss around and my buddy knelt down on some last night and his knee was soaking wet. So yes, we squeezed and collected at least a quart of water and bowled it up. I made some coffee with mine and he strained his through a coffee filter and made some oatmeal. The best water we had ever had from moss! Thanks Bear Grylls!

After the joy of that accomplishment we set out for the MRT. We passed a few more backpackers but not many people on the NCT. We mad it to Red Bridge and sat down and had lunch. We made pizza rolls from tortillas, tomato paste, spices, pepperoni and some hard Parmesan cheese. Man those are good! After exploding yet another blister we pushed on.

The beginning of the MRT was pretty uneventful besides the retelling our epic saga from the previous winter's backpacking trip to the MRT. We reached the bluff were we knew we wanted to stay and we couldn't believe our eyes that it overlooked the very spot where my buddy had lost his boat and his paddle! Too funny. We also found a rope swing that we had spotted floated down the day earlier. So off we went to have some fun in the water. After 2 swings and the surging pain in my blisters from the water I moved to the role of camera man as my friend proceeded to do back flips and twists off the rope. Awesome time. Then we headed up to make dinner. Pad Thai with Chicken and Veggies was on the menu tonight. It was awesome as well but no left overs this time. We scarfed it all! A few more Smores and off to bed.

Day 3: Back to the Hodenpyl Dam

Wanting to make good time back to the car so we ate light and only had 4 packets of oatmeal, packed up camp and started the scramble back. Both his bruised foot and my blisters were feeling pretty good this morning. We made some good time and passed a lot of people on the trail. Being Saturday there were a crazy amount of people on the river as well. We reminisced about the float a couple days earlier and checked out some other camp spots.

After seeing a couple making out on the bridge (come to find out they just got engaged) we finally made it to the car bout 12:15p. We figure it probably took up 13.5 hours total to do the 20+ mile loop. Not too shabby with 5 blisters and one bruiser foot!