Tim & Nancy's 2011 Kayaking Adventures: July 3, 2011 Lewey Lake to the Miami River

I was a little worried this morning when I woke up to rain. We were supposed to meet the Yakkers in Mayfield at 8 AM. The forecast was for scattered storms, with most areas staying dry. We loaded up and hit the road. In Rock City Falls it poured! Fortunately we continued on and drove out of the rain. We met the group and headed for Lewey Lake. Day use was $8.00. We parked and unloaded, bringing rain gear and spray skirts with us, "just in case!"

We're here!

The paddle across Lewey Lake is 1.5 miles. Access to the Miami River is at the south end of the lake. I love it when we kayak as a group. It looks pretty as we paddle across in all of our different colored boats. Today we had 10 of us kayaking.

Tim paddles toward the Miami River

The last time Tim & I were here was September 2009. We had rented a cabin at Snowy Mountain Inn for our Anniversary. In 2009 we paddled the Cedar River Flow on Saturday and Lewey Lake/Miami River on Sunday. It rained when we paddled here the last time!

The grass lined Miami River

We navigate the twists and turns of the Miami River.

This trip ended up being a showdown between us
and the beavers. I think we ended up crossing

over 5 beaver dams by the end of our paddle.
In 2009 there was only 1. That year we got
out of our boats on the low side, moved the
boats to the high side and got back in. At the
first dam today, Gary was ably to remove some sticks from the edge of the dam and push each of us through. I was glad to be able to stay in my boat!

Gary starts breaking apart the end of the dam


Gary assist us through the opening in the dam

As we continued down the Miami River we came upon a total of 5 beaver dams. Many times if the water level is right you can paddle hard enough to get over the dam. Not today! At 4 of the dams we were able to have someone break open a space that we could be pushed through. The middle dam was the tough one. The water was flowing over the dam pretty strongly. We went to the left edge, got out of our boats and pushed them through. When I went to step out of my boat the water was too deep and I couldn't reach the bottom. After a little
re-positioning, I was able to get out ok. As I walked in the river to get to my boat, my left foot was stuck in about 12" of mud. It took some work to get it out! We all got re-loaded and went on our way. We talked about the paddle back and being able to ride over the dams as we would be going from the higher water to the lower water. As it worked out, we paddled until the Miami River was too narrow to paddle. We headed back and "sailed" over each of the dams. The current going over the first dam on the way back forced you towards the bushes, so you had to paddle hard on that one. Other than that... smooth sailing!