Paddling into the Abyss

After departing Minneapolis, we headed to Wisconsin to paddle our SUPs through caves on the cliffsides of Lake Superior.  We picked a campsite between Bayfield, WI, and Duluth, MN, since we also wanted to check out the city rated by Outside Magazine as the number 1 outdoor city in 2014.

The campground, named Bark N’ Beavers, was a very affordable ($10/night) private campsite.  The owner created the campground because there didn’t seem to be any other campgrounds in the general vicinity.  Overall it was a lovely campground, although there were some country dogs in the background that barked__all__night__long!

The put in for the Apostle islands was only about 30 minutes away from camp.  The Apostle Islands and mainland caves are part of the National Park Service, technically as a National Seashore.  There was a Ranger guiding cars into the small parking lot, which was already filled with mostly commercial kayak trailers when we arrived at 11am.

The ranger looked at us very skeptically when she couldn’t see any watercraft in the truck.  She made quite a few references to the fact that we can rent kayaks in the nearby town of Bayfield.  The NPS formally does not recommend stand up paddle boards for kayaking to the caves.  In fact, they seemed to only approve of sea kayaks greater than 16’, which is a fairly lengthy kayak.

Fortunately, the only repercussions to our inflatable 13’ SUPs were lectures from the ranger about the dangers of paddling in Lake Superior, potentially dynamic weather conditions, and hypothermia danger from cold water.  All fair advise, albeit quite conservative.  We are guessing they try to filter out people unfamiliar with their watercraft, and/or those expecting the glass calm conditions of many inland lakes in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

We did not bring the dogs, since they can complicate paddling immensely.  We also brought both kayak and SUP paddles.  We’ve found that kayak paddling is much nicer and more efficient if the conditions do not allow for standing up on the paddle board, which is usually do to wind or waves.

So we headed out for our adventure to the caves, albeit somewhat apprehensively after the Ranger’s warnings.  Both Leah and I started out sitting down on the boards, and using our kayak paddles.  The paddling distance is about 1 mile to the caves, and then you have about 1 mile of caves along the cliff sides.

The conditions were definitely choppy, but the wave height was pretty minimal.  Just enough to splash the top of the board periodically.  It was actually really nice paddling since there was very little wind.  We made good time getting to the caves; it took 30-45 minutes.  After we got to the caves, I tried to stand up on the board and use the SUP paddle.  It was some of the harder balancing I’ve done, since the waves were random and choppy due to bounce-back from the cliffs.  But overall, it made for great balancing practice and fun paddling.

I actually missed the first section of caves since I was so focused on stand-up paddling, but Leah brought me back to reality as we paddled through our first cave-tunnel.  It really is hard to describe how amazing they were!  It feels like you are in another world, exploring the unknown.  As we paddled through some of the caves, there was uncertainty about whether we could paddle through the exit, which increased the sense of adventure.  It was always easy to paddle out the way we came in, regardless, since each cave-tunnel was only 20-50’ long.

Speaking of being in our own world, we were incredibly lucky with the timing of our put-in.  The conditions were apparently better than they had been for quite some time (which was not a coincidence, since we had been watching the NOAA weather forecast all week), and it was a Saturday, so the guide services were in full force.  I’d say 90% of the paddlers we saw were in a guided tour.

The guided tours were huge, probably 10-15 boats per group, and it would have definitely deterred the experience if we had to wait for each group to paddle the caves before we could explore on our own.  Luckily, we put-in just between the major morning and afternoon start times, so we had the best of both worlds: the security of having other paddlers within eyesight, but far enough away to feel secluded as we explored the spectacular cliffsides.

All in all, it was a fantastic day on the water.  Afterwards, we took the dogs to the put-in beach and played our new favorite exercise game with Loki: paddle him away from shore on the board, push him in, and have him tow me and the board back to land .  Dusty meanwhile did what he enjoys best: fetch balls from the water.