We started at the Betsie River dam. One of the campground hosts told us that this was the place to witness the wonder of the salmon run. We didn't even know that Michigan Lake salmon made their way up these rivers!
We are at the dam on the Betsie River, where the spawning salmon are trying their best to get to their birthplace so they can lay eggs like their ancestors. But to get up the rain-swollen Betsie River, they must leap two giant rungs on this fish ladder. We sat here for an hour, watching the spectacle as these giants tried jumping against the torrent of water. Sometimes we were lucky enough to get two fish jumping at the same time.
Sometimes we caught fish jumping the wrong direction.
When Mark climbed down on the rocks to get a different view, he got splashed by a disoriented fish that tried to jump up the dry rocks beside him. Mark did a little search and rescue operation to lift the fish off the rocks and back into the water to jump again.
Sorry for all the pictures, but it was fascinating to watch. You can see the fish in the bottom left hand corner jumping into the sunlight. We were cheering on their efforts, but only a small percentage made it up the first step. Then they had an even tougher challenge to scale the final wall of water at the top of the dam. The entire time we watched, we only saw a hand-full of fish successfully progress up the final step and on to the smooth flow of the Betsie River.
Even though the salmon run was news to us, it is obviously a well-known spectacle in these parts. Fishermen lined the river before the dam, looking for a chance to hook one of these big salmon on their way up-river.
As crowded as it looked on this week-day evening, we heard that this was just a tenth of the people here on the weekend. This is called "combat fishing" as tempers can flair when fishing lines get crossed in the middle of the river, or fish get caught by more than one hook. When one of those big salmon is on the line, the fisherman must work his way down the river through that gauntlet of poles to try to reel in a two-feet-long fish that doesn't appreciate this detour to her reproduction pilgrimage. It was as fascinating to watch as the dam on the Betsie River!
Some were successful at bringing those big salmon out of the water, and we watched as fishermen lugged their trophies out of the water.
Now that we have been introduced to the Betsie Dam, we found that there are several other places affiliated with Betsie. For example, we went to visit the Betsie Point Lighthouse.
The Betsie Point Lighthouse faces Lake Michigan, and we spent some time looking at the rocks on the shore. We think that looking for those elusive Petoskey stones is more fun than hunting Easter eggs!
Our next meeting with Betsie was on the Betsie Valley Bike Path. We started our ride beside the river, but we quickly found ourselves among the trees.
A couple miles later, the bike path took us right beside Crystal Lake.
True to its name, the water is crystal clear. We have been so impressed with the pristine water here in Michigan. As we look out over the horizon, the clear water takes on a turquoise blue hue that we love.
Mark is walking along the shore, looking for Petoskey stones. We have to include a picture of him just to prove that he was on this bike ride. He's getting really good at one-handed-picture-taking-while-riding-on-a-bike, so Denisa is always in the action pictures. Especially since her bike crash, Denisa is forbidden from taking both hands off her handle bars.
Another mile takes us to a section of Crystal Lake that is surrounded by homes. We read that these homeowners have fought the paving of this section of the bike path because they don't like the bike traffic between their homes and their slice of lakefront property. We can't say that we blame them.
We looked up just in time to see two adult eagles gliding overhead. We haven't seen any of these majestic birds in a while, so it was fun to find out that a pair had a nest along the trail.
After almost 5 miles, we turned around for a total of around 10 miles today. This Betsie Valley Trail stretches for 27 miles, and we'll see other sections of it before we leave. We see hints of fall in the leaves, and we're thinking that this will be beautiful in a couple weeks.
We walked another section of the Betsie Valley Trail, as it curved around part of a wildlife preserve near the town of Elberta. This big blue heron was keeping watch over the Betsie River as we walked by.
The river is home to a pair of trumpeter swans, and this one was balanced on one foot near the trail.
A pair of ducks was balanced on a log, and their image was reflected in the calm water of Betsie Lake.
But it was most fun watching a muskrat, patrolling the waters of the Betsie River.
That's when Mark noticed that one of the sides of our inflatable boat was losing air. We could barely hear the high-pitched sound of air escaping from a tiny hole. Darn! Denisa was sure we needed to scrap this kayak trip, but Mark pointed out that we had two other inflatable chambers to keep us afloat. Alrighty then, we headed down river to see some great fall foliage.
We knew that this was an ungroomed river, but we saw some downed trees that stretched almost the entire width of the river. It took some fancy paddling to get around that tree.
Here's another tight place with a leaning log on the right and a downed log on the left. We're continuing to lose air in the right-side pontoon, but Mark is making those masterful turns to get us through the maize on the Betsie River.
Remembering the number of salmon we saw at the dam miles from here on the Betsie River, we saw evidence today that not all of those big salmon make it that far. We saw several floating belly up, and several more dead fish caught on logs. At times the Betsie River was less fragrant than we had hoped.
The resident turkey vultures were on alert to clean up the carcasses on the river.
From an ugly black bird to two beautiful white birds, it was more fun to find this pair of Trumpeter Swans.
This little water bird is so light, he was walking atop the floating reeds at the edge of the river.
Denisa is relieved that we still have enough air in our right-hand pontoon to make it the entire trip of this two-hour float. Now we just have one more bridge to get under before our take-out point. But it's a really low bridge.
We've never had to do this before, but today we have to let the air out of our seats. Then we can lay completely down in the boat.
This is our view as we scrape under the bridge that connects us from the Betsie River to Betsie Lake.
By the time we get the kayak out of the water, we can see that we have lost a lot of air. But we have learned that we can stay afloat even when we spring a leak.
It's a tiny hole in the side of the boat, and we have no idea how it happened. Double darn!
That ends our exploration of all things Betsie here in western Michigan. We saw the Betsie dam, the Betsie Point Lighthouse, the Betsie Valley bike trail, the Betsie River, and Betsie Lake. We feel we know Betsie well, and she's provided us lots of fun.
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