28 September ‘06
We did make it to Spirit Lake and we did get the kayak into the water… the trouble was, we had a tough time finding the right place to put in. We had wanted to kayak a little of the lake, but first we wanted to find this little creek that flows into Spirit Lake from Mt. Spokane. Spirit Lake does have a nice beach and boat launch area, but it just happens to be at the far end from which we wanted to put in. After taking the only road following the lake, we finally found a spot that would allow us access. The only problem we encountered at this launch area was there was no spot to park our car…”NO PARKING OF ANY DURATION” was posted just about every 10 feet from the water on. Now seeing as how we were just about the only water craft on or just about on the water, we found this to be ludicrous. With a short conversation between us, we decided to get the kayak all pumped and ready anyway and then take the car up the hill to find a spot to hide it from view. In finding a location for the car (about 400 yards away), we loaded ourselves aboard our kayak and headed out for an afternoon of paddling. Heading down lake, it wasn’t too hard to find our entrance into “Brickle Creek”. The only problem was it was the mouth going in, was very shallow. As the water flowed into the lake, it brought a large amount of sand and mud down with it. The kayak draws about 2 inches of water and we just made it through. The creek was about 10-15 feet wide and the bank about 10 feet above the water. We paddled up creek for about 45 minutes and thought that with out being able to see anything above the bank, our trip up this creek just wasn’t worth the time and effort. Now the question was how the heck are we going to turn around? I knew one thing for sure we didn’t want to back out all that way. It took us about 4 times to find a place that was wide enough for us to make the turn, but we were successful. We did see a few things of interest while in the creek, such as a couple of beaver dams that were under construction. In getting back in to Spirit Lake we just decided to follow the shoreline for a while. Not too sure what we were seeing, we did find that there was an island that looked ready to explore. Just as we were close enough to the shore of the island we found that it also displayed a ton of signs warning us not to approach. Oh well, all we wanted to do was find a place in the shade to eat our lunch so we just put our bow up to the shore and maintained our seat while we enjoyed our snack.
We did make it to Spirit Lake and we did get the kayak into the water… the trouble was, we had a tough time finding the right place to put in. We had wanted to kayak a little of the lake, but first we wanted to find this little creek that flows into Spirit Lake from Mt. Spokane. Spirit Lake does have a nice beach and boat launch area, but it just happens to be at the far end from which we wanted to put in. After taking the only road following the lake, we finally found a spot that would allow us access. The only problem we encountered at this launch area was there was no spot to park our car…”NO PARKING OF ANY DURATION” was posted just about every 10 feet from the water on. Now seeing as how we were just about the only water craft on or just about on the water, we found this to be ludicrous. With a short conversation between us, we decided to get the kayak all pumped and ready anyway and then take the car up the hill to find a spot to hide it from view. In finding a location for the car (about 400 yards away), we loaded ourselves aboard our kayak and headed out for an afternoon of paddling. Heading down lake, it wasn’t too hard to find our entrance into “Brickle Creek”. The only problem was it was the mouth going in, was very shallow. As the water flowed into the lake, it brought a large amount of sand and mud down with it. The kayak draws about 2 inches of water and we just made it through. The creek was about 10-15 feet wide and the bank about 10 feet above the water. We paddled up creek for about 45 minutes and thought that with out being able to see anything above the bank, our trip up this creek just wasn’t worth the time and effort. Now the question was how the heck are we going to turn around? I knew one thing for sure we didn’t want to back out all that way. It took us about 4 times to find a place that was wide enough for us to make the turn, but we were successful. We did see a few things of interest while in the creek, such as a couple of beaver dams that were under construction. In getting back in to Spirit Lake we just decided to follow the shoreline for a while. Not too sure what we were seeing, we did find that there was an island that looked ready to explore. Just as we were close enough to the shore of the island we found that it also displayed a ton of signs warning us not to approach. Oh well, all we wanted to do was find a place in the shade to eat our lunch so we just put our bow up to the shore and maintained our seat while we enjoyed our snack.