Now that rivers are icing up in the Upper Midwest, it may finally be time to declare the end of the 2015 late-fall, early-winter whitewater paddling season. Some hardy sea kayakers will still be at it wherever they can find open water. While most kayakers wait for warmer weather, pool […]
Category: kayaking
December Beatdown on Lake Michigan
A cold, rainy day in late December but rare open water for this time of year on Lake Michigan. Fellow paddlers in the video: Dan O’Connor and Peter O’Malley.
Three Great Days of Boating in Mid-December
Editor’s note: Rob Smage is an accomplished Midwest whitewater paddler and author of many river reports on the American Whitewater website. He was also one of my mentors during my early ventures into whitewater kayaking. The following guest blog post came my way today via Tony Cantania, a fellow protégé […]
Video of this year’s Door County Sea Kayak Symposium
Each year the Door County Sea Kayak Symposium (DCSKS) takes place during the second weekend of July at Rowley’s Bay near the northern end of Wisconsin’s Door County. In the 2015 edition, 170 kayakers with skills ranging from novice to advanced took part in classes and trips led by 38 […]
Some Like It Cold: Sheboygan Surfing
“From countless hours of reading surf magazines, he realized for the first time that Sheboygan was in the best location for surfing anywhere on the Great Lakes. Understanding that surfers are only restricted by geographic necessity (a coastline that generates sizable waves), he no longer saw a series of river […]
Wisconsin’s Wolf River Section 4 at 450 CFS
Thanks for the rescue, guys!
White water on the Red River
For more years than anyone can remember there’s been an organized Tuesday evening paddle on the Red River near Gresham, Wis., from early spring deep into autumn. I’ve seen anywhere from four to 17 paddlers of all ability levels join in. The great thing about the Red, compared to many […]
Island Hopping on Lake Michigan
This past weekend I paddled and camped a portion of what might one day be America’s newest national park. There’s an effort underway to place The Grand Traverse Islands — — islands and some surrounding mainland from Wisconsin’s Door County to Upper Michigan’s Garden Peninsula — under control of the […]
“Flat water” kayaking
My whitewater river kayaking friends like to refer to the other kind of kayaking as “flat water.” Yeah right. Not when southerly winds kick up 5-foot waves on Lake Michigan, as was the case this late afternoon and evening at Two Rivers, Wisconsin.
Paddling La Crosse
La Crosse, Wisconsin is a beautiful anomaly. Bordered by magnificent bluffs along the Mississippi River in the unglaciated “driftless” region, the valley cut by erosion was spared the leveling effect of the last Ice Age that flattened the surrounding countryside. If you have never driven across the Mississippi River, or […]