PaddleWise by thread

From: Wes Boyd <boydwe_at_dmci.net> subject: [Paddlewise] A Cold Day In Hell Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 20:33:46 · This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:33:29 PDT

Charlie Parmalee stood at the boat launch at Bruin Lake State Campground,
and surveyed the couple of dozen boats on the water, then yelled, "All
paddlers, go to Hell." 

So, we did.

Hell, in this case, is a small town northwest of Ann Arbor, Michigan -- a
very small town in the middle of a lake district. It's small enough that
you don't have to wonder where in Hell you are. If you're there, that's
good enough; it's almost small enough to have the "Welcome" and the "Come
Again" signs on the same post. But, it's traded on it's name for years.
Back in the sixties, the Marine reservists used to do a 50-mile "March to
Hell", and for some years a local high school's Senior Skip Day was held in
Hell. It's a popular place for bikers, to make a Run To Hell. And, of
course, there are paddlers, too.

The event was the Lansing Oar and Paddle Club's annual "To Hell And Back"
paddle, which I'd been meaning to make for some years but finally got
around to. It's not been a warm spring -- we've had lots of rain, lots of
wind, lots of overcast, lots of cold temperatures, and we had all of it.
When I got up in the morning, my wife said, "You've got a gorgeous day to
go to Hell." I looked out the window, and it was overcast and the wind was
picking up, and just snorted. As I was getting around, the local TV weather
came on, and apparently, it was slightly warmer up towards Ann Arbor -- and
yes, you can take it to mean it was colder than Hell, although it was
clearly going to be a cold day in Hell, at least for late May. It was to be
cold enough to be wearing gloves for the whole trip, like it was January,
even though the trees were pretty well leafed out.

It's an hour, maybe a little more, up to the put-in -- not a bad drive, at
least with a cup of fresh coffee from the convenience store. I didn't have
a real clear idea of where the put-in was and the map I had was a little
ambiguous, so it took a little hunting around to find the place, Bruin Lake
State Campground. Still, I was one of the earliest ones there, which was
good, as the launch site is kind of small, and the kayak on the trailer
takes up a lot of space, so I could unload and get out of the way before it
got too jammed. As I sat and sipped on what was left of my coffee, more
people showed up -- it seemed there were a lot of paddlers going to Hell on
this trip. It finally would up with, I think 26 boats and 29 paddlers,
roughly evenly split between canoes and kayaks.

I don't go out with this group an awful lot -- maybe a couple times a year
-- but I know several people, so we had to sit around and talk about who
was doing what, and the new boat or paddle, or whatever. The age range ran
from, I'd guess, preteen up through well into the seventies. Several
paddlers were camping for the weekend, and I did hear that the party crowd
was a little loud and a little late

The paddle puts in at the Bruin Lake Campground, and goes three or four
miles through several small lakes, some channels and a stream to the dam at
Hiland Lake, which backs up the Portage River into several interconnected
lakes. The road to Hell may be paved with good intentions, but the paddle
to Hell mostly goes through Pinckney State Recreation Area. Except for the
north half of Hiland Lake, private property is scarce and there's not a lot
of sign of high speed boats, but that could well be different on nicer
days. The shores are mostly wild, although there are busy hiking and
mountian biking trails; twice on the trip, you pass under trail bridges.

I dawdled at the launch site a bit -- I tend to be comfortable going a
little faster than most of the people on these paddles, so I was a couple
hundred yards behind the group when I started. This works out pretty well,
as I get to paddle along with a lot of people and shoot the bull. In wind,
under the gray skies, we paddled down to the end of Bruin Lake, and into
Patterson Lake. We only crossed the tip of Patterson, which extends quite a
ways to the north and then into yet another lake, Woodburn; I didn't get up
that way this trip, but it's something to save for another trip. Under a
bridge, and then onto Halfmoon Lake, the largest we'd see on the trip,
although again we only went across the end of it, and into a narrower
section of the Portage River, a section something less than a mile long.
There was a noticable flow there. By the time I went through a culvert at
the one road we crossed, and shortly afterwards under a second hiking trail
bridge, I'd pretty well caught up with the front of the pack, dawdling to
let some of the others catch up. Since I hadn't been there before and
didn't know where in Hell we were going, I decided I'd better wait there
until someone who knew Hell better than I showed up.

It's probably about a mile from where I waited to the dam. A small group of
us, about half a dozen, followed along behind a guy in a solo canoe who had
been there before, and we paddled across Hiland Lake. It's not a good
takeout at the dam -- poor, in fact, with lots of concrete rubble to have
to land over. "Welcome to Hell," I thought. Fortunately, we had some open
canoe people with us and it's a lot easier to get in and out of them than
it is a kayak at this point, so some of the canoeists were able to help
some of the others, including myself, land without tearing the boats up too
badly. 

Twenty-six canoes and kayaks did a pretty good job of filling the limited
space available at the landing, but eventually we got everyone out, and we
walked into the restaurant nearby, the Dam Site Inn, which is the only
restaurant in Hell, as far as I know. The one waitress on duty was not real
happy to see this crowd coming in, and the poor girl was about the busiest
person in Hell for about an hour there, while we sat and drank coffee, ate
pizza and warmed up and exchanged stories -- I spent a lot of time
listening to Rob Branch explain that a long, straight keel is slower than
one with some rocker -- he has a fairly extensive software package he uses
for hull design for strip built boats. Finally, the waitress stuck Charlie
with the bill for the whole group -- $210 (we anted up into a basket to
help him pay it), and headed back to the poor dam landing.

The wind was more in our faces on the way back, and we got rained on
lightly several times. Part of the group broke off to go investigate Blind
Lake, a side trip off Halfmoon Lake, while several others, including
myself, pressed on back to the takeout at Bruin Lake.

I'd just gotten the boat on the trailer when it started sleeting. It
couldn't have been more appropriate for a cold day in Hell.

-- Wes
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wes Boyd's Kayak Place               http://www2.dmci.net/wesboyd/kayak.htm
Kayaks for Big Guys (And Gals) | Trip Reports | Places To Go | Boats & Gear
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
***************************************************************************
PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed
here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire
responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author.
Submissions:     PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net
Subscriptions:   PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net
Website:         http://www.paddlewise.net/
***************************************************************************