Kayaking
Page
We have an Old
Town Loon two person sea kayak that we use on lakes
around the west. The two images below are not our personal
boat
but pictures from the Old
Town
website..
Our boat is
equipped with a rudder that is controlled by foot pedals
available to the person in the rear seat which is usually me. We
generally paddle for exercise or to view the scenery but also sometimes
for fishing. The kayak
is fiberglass but still weighs 74 pounds so it takes two of us to move
it
around. We can carry our boat on our truck or on our RV.
Here
is our
truck and kayak near Flaming Gorge Reservoir on the Utah side.
Locally we take
our boat up on Pikes Peak to either Crystal, North or
South Catamount lakes. We do this trip a handful of times a year. Here
are some pictures from up on the Peak. The water level was really down
in the first picture. Too many people watering their grass lawns in
Colorado Springs I guess. This was taken at the height of the drought.
Here I am with my rubber kayak jacket on looking at the low water.
You
can just see Heather's paddle in
the lower right corner of this
picture.
Another
view of Pikes Peak below.
Here
is Heather getting ready to shove
off.
Here
she is again in the front seat
where she usually is. In this case
she is a front seat driver because she tells me where to go and since I
have the steering pedals in the back seat, I just follow directions. A
lot like when we are driving together in a car (;>).
We
also take the boat to Rampart
Reservoir outside of Woodland Park.
Rampart has a lot of inlets which let us do some exploring. One year we
saw a rather large turtle on a rock in the lake. He must have been an
escapee.
Dillion
Reservoir is also very nice when the water level is decent.
We boat there a lot and ride bikes and camp in the area as well. The
Frisco/Dillion area has been hit real hard by the pine bark beetle so
most of the trees in the town and the campgrounds are dead and are
being removed. The extent of the damage to the forest is incredible and
the trees will not return in our lifetime. It is really sad.
Here's our boat
with Dillion Reservoir as a backdrop. I think we
stopped to eat lunch. When the water level is normal like it was in
2006 you can rent kayaks on Main Street in Frisco and head out on your
own. You can see the sail boats in the background. It is fun
to
take the kayak through the marina and look closely at all of the boats.
Twin Lakes is
always nice. You can have a nice paddle in both of the
lakes and see the abandoned Inter-Laken hotel complex that you cannot
get to by car. Some years you can also grab a nice German meal and
great beers at the Twin Lakes Lodge which is a old converted house of
ill repute. The rooms in the lodge are named after the
working
women who occupied them. Each room has old time feather beds which are
quite something to sleep on. The fall colors at Twin Lake are
spectacular.
Turquoise
Lake outside of Leadville is
another nice kayaking spot. Here
is an image to give you an idea of what it looks like. It is beautiful
as are all of our local lakes.
In 2003 Heather
and I spent a week boating at Flaming Gorge Reservoir
which spans the border between Wyoming and Utah. The Wyoming side is
pretty barren and hot in the summer with no trees in sight for shade.
The Utah side is quite the opposite with beautiful camp grounds, plenty
of shade, lots of geological interests, wonderful flowers, lots of
ospreys, big horn sheep and seriously great boating. It was a great
trip and we want to go back at some point. Probably as soon as I get a
kayak rack on the RV I'm thinking. In the gorge there are lots of shear
rock wall and a bunch of little caves and overhangs on the water that
you can pilot the boat through. We saw a lot of really big
fish
but they paid no attention to my line. Heather was my trawling motor as
I fished. I just had to point and she would slowly move the boat in
that direction.
Here
are a selection of pictures from
Flaming Gorge Reservoir.
On
another trip Heather and I took our
kayak to Jackson Lake in
Grand
Teton National Park. Here are some pictures from that trip.
It was
unfortunate that the north shore of the lake was on fire the whole time
were were there. It was sure nice to go into the Jackson Lodge for
draft beer after a hard day of paddling.
