Ice Dam

ICE DAM



This past Sunday, 1-18-04, my brother Gary and I decided to kayak the South Branch of the Ausable River. This section we were to run is called the Mason Track (http://www.flymartonline.com/article205.html)

I have canoed and kayaked this stretch at least 20 times in the last three years but this was to be the first time in the winter. In fact neither of us had every done any winter Kayaking but figured if we were prepared for it, warm clothing , spare duds in a drybag, matches and such, in case of a swamping, we could not go wrong.

We spent a bit of time talking it over and trying to cover everything and figured we had.all bases covered. We were not really worried about much other than turning over. The river was smooth and although it was rather fast in places, there is no white water. There are lots of trees and logs in the river but it is easy to avoid them, if you look ahead.

The drive to the river was a short one. It was cold, with snow and the wind was pretty bad but it was sure to be better down at the river.



We put in at Chase Bridge and take out at Smith Bridge. Most of it is in the Mason Tract. I am told it is 16miles of river and there is one cabin at the Chase Bridge end and a couple homes at the Smith Bridge end. It is just wilderness Along the river, usually a distance from it, is a foot trail. You cannot see it from the river but I have hiked the whole thing and it is rather familiar, at least in the summer. It is hard to even see it, covered with snow. There also is a two-track road that parallels the river. It is not plowed in the winter and is a ways inland but generally follows the river. Snowmobilers are the only ones on it in the heavy snow. Heavy snow we had. There was about 15 inches on the ground but I didn’t care. I just figured it would make for some great pictures!

The day was cold, below 10degrees F and windy. Since we were to be down in the river valley, I didn’t figure that would be a problem.

Taking our time, it is usually a 4 hours trip. We wanted to start before noon as there was no way I wanted to get caught on the river after dark, which is around 5 PM. Gary drove up Sunday morning and got there about 10AM. We loaded our gear, Kayak’s, and rest of gear, in the back of my 4WD GMC Pickup and with him following in his car, headed for Chase Bridge.

What we do it drop off the Kayak’s and then drive to the other end, about 15 minutes by highway, and drop off my truck for the pickup and then return to the put in spot with his car. Then we load everything in the kayaks and head down river. We were a bit nervous but we figured we had everything covered.

There was ice on the banks and it ran out into the river for 6 ft or so. I just sat in my kayak and scooted it across the ice and into the river. It worked fine and soon we were on our way. I slid down the river a ways and grabbed a tree limb to wait for Gary. He soon followed.

I asked him if he wanted to take the lead. The person in the lead is more likely to see wildlife and I wanted to be able to help him if he got it trouble. I had a heck of a lot more time in canoes and kayaks than he did and it is hard to watch behind you.

The river was just beautiful. Better than I had hoped for. There was a lot of floating ice in places. It looked like the river had been about 4 inches higher recently and as it lowered, ice would break loose from the shores. None of it was a problem but just something to try to miss.

There were places that cedar trees were laying across the current and the ice would be built up a bit. Nothing bad but hard to push through. One place I had to take the lead as my weight was needed to break through the ice. It took a few minutes to get through those places.

One thing you have to do when canoeing or kayaking a river is to look ahead. You can save yourself a lot of grief if you look head and read the river. There are boulders in the river and you can usually tell where they are by looking at the current. What a new person on the river fails to see, at first is that where you see the swirl is not where the rock is. The rock is up stream for the swirl.

Another thing you have to avoid is the trees and logs that hang over the river. You get swept into one of those things and it can just roll you right over. That is something we sure didn’t need and I alerted Gary to it. Sometimes it is hard to avoid though, especially when you are dodging the ice and looking at the wildlife and scenery.

Gary was running about 50 yards ahead of me and I saw him catch a cedar about mid chest. Ohhh Ship! I thought, or something like that. He kept his head and held on. I yelled to just take his time and work himself to the right and around the end of the tree. All the time I was drifting toward him and I started a back paddling. I sure didn’t want to ram into him or join him. I got myself to a limb or something to hold on to and watched him work out the puzzle. The dang tree had a foot of snow on it and as he was working his way along it, the stuff was falling off into his lap. He took on a lot of snow J

The trip was going as I hoped it would. We were not the least bit cold and the scenery was really a treat. There were ducks around almost every bend in the river but they would take off as we appeared and intruded on their privacy. I kept watching for beaver, deer or mink, of which there are plenty on the river but saw none.

Gary was a bit ahead of me and I saw him holding onto shore. I didn’t know why but assumed he was waiting on me. As I pulled abreast of him he asked me if I had seen the Otters. Hell no I didn’t see any dang Otter! He had a camera and I asked him if he had gotten any pictures but he had not even tried. Seemed to me that it would have been a pretty good subject for a picture J There had been two of them but they had gone there way by the time I got there.

Further on, again 40 or 50 yards behind Gary, we saw a beautiful Bald Eagle coming down the river toward us. It was looking for dinner it seemed. As it saw us it flared off to the right and I will never forget the picture of that huge bird, a forest of pine behind him, flaring out and showing his belly to us as he headed away. It was just too fast to get a camera out and get the shot. I will never forget it though.

Much of the trip was smooth and calm. There were places that the wind surprised us though as it swept from right to left , at some low laying marsh area. Most of the time we were deep in the river bottom and protected.

The river is shallow, rarely over a couple feet deep. There are places that are over 6 ft but they are few. The river also winds like a dang snake. You can rarely see far ahead and this is to our benefit when looking for wildlife. Some of the bends are very sharp.

At one point we had come to one of those dang cedar trees that was half cross the river. There was a good ice jam up there and I had to take the lead to bust through it. It was not really that big a deal, maybe I had to bust through 10 ft of it or so but it only took a couple minutes. I would run the Kayak up on it and beat the ice with my paddle. I got through it and drifted down past a place that used to have a cabin on it. When Mason donated the land it was specified that all the cabins on it were to be destroyed. There are no signs of cabins now but occasionally you can see stairs leading to the river or old posts that used to support a dock.

Gary was following me and we passed such a spot. Gary was saying, “Well if we didn’t have slight difficulties like that jamup, the trip could be boring” I am not sure if he got the whole sentence out or not!

Like I said, I was in the lead and looking ahead I could see the dang river disappeared! There was an ice jamb as far as we could see. I asked Gary if that was enough difficulties for him! J Dang! What now??

We were only half way through the trip, My turck was a hell of a long ways away. There was no dang road for us to drive back on, other than the dang snow mobile trail and I was not sure if I could make that.

I looked to the shore for somewhere to land the kayaks and since the ice ran out quite a ways, there was nowhere that it was gonna be easy.

Gary said maybe we should try to make it back to that old homesite that we had just passed. It was a couple bends back and UPSTREAM L Damn!!

I could not see any other choice so I headed upstream. That was hard paddling and you just can not rest when you get tired as you will loose everything you gained! I could not look back but just hoped Gary was with me.

I was about played out when I saw the posts and kept a stroking. I slid up to them and grabbed on with my right hand, panting like a dam racehorse! I looked back and Gary was close behind. He went upstream from me and grabbed onto a post too. Now what??

We were far from secure on land and what the heck, once we made it to the shore, then what? We were a heck of a long way from my truck; in fact I had no clear idea where the heck we were. I had not been keeping close track of our progress and it probably would not have helped anyway.

We both just hung onto the old dock posts and rested. The dock was long gone but there was one board still nailed between two posts. Nailed to the side of the post but it was rather rickety looking to me. I doubted it would have held my weight!


Gary was holding onto the cross brace and trying to figure a way to get out of the dang Kayak without going in. From the posts to shore was about 4 ft and Gary was going to have to get out of the Kayak, somehow stand up on the post and cross brace, get his balance and jump to shore. Right!L

There was no way I could see to get my fat ass out of the kayak without taking a swim from where I was and Gary looked like he was working out a plan. He had no way to tie off the Kayak to the post when he got out and I happened to see a piece of wire someone had wrapped around one of the posts. I pointed it out to him and he started working on it.

I was trying to figure out what we were gonna do, if we did reach shore dry, when I looked up and had managed to stand up in the kayak. That was a plus. He was trying to balance himself, with nothing really to hold on to. He put one foot on the cross brace and put some weight on it. It held. So far so good. HE then lifted his left foot out and on to the post, crouching and trying to hold his balance. I saw him rock back and I was sure he was one wet sucker but he crouched more and caught his balance. Boy I don’t know if I breathed or not!

I told him there was a small branch to his left he could use for balance and without looking, he reached out for it. I could see him relax a bit then. He smiled and jumped to the shore.

He then walked down toward me and I backed up my kayak and angled it in to a spot where he could reach it. He then pulled my boat to shore and I got out. Aaaaah, safe! Safe my ass!

We were at least 8 miles from my truck. I was not sure how the hell to get to it. It was after noon and I sure didn’t want to be out there after dark. No place to spend a cold night. If and when I got to the truck, it was no sure thing I would be able to get all the way back in there to get Gary and the Kayaks. I sure the hell was not gonna be able to carry them that far.
We walked up the bank and looked around. Down stream, toward the ice jam it was much lower. I remembered some tight bends there with very shallow water. In the summer the only way to get through there was hug the outside of the bend. I had no clear ideas exactly what lied ahead of us but decided to walk a ways and see if we could get around the jam. Off we went. The snow was easily knee deep and rough to get through. We made it to the cedar swamp and worked our way toward the river. It was hell getting through there and I doubted we could get the kayaks through, the trees were so thick.

We finally beat out way to the river and it was solid ice. Well not solid as you could not walk on it without going through but there was no river to be seen, up stream or down. With all the bends in that area, there was no way to tell how far it ran.

We trudged back to the kayaks and Gary was having a rough time of it. He was over dressed for such a hike and had to pull some clothing off to prevent overheating.

I didn’t know what the hell too do but knew nobody was gonna get us out of this fix but ourselves. Damn, to be a young man again L

I told Gary to stay with the gear and since I was sorta familiar with the area and had hiked it all, I would try to walk out and get the truck. I had no sure idea where the hell I was but was sure I could figure it out if given time. I don’t think he was in any mood to set there but there was no way it made sense to me to have us both at risk. It was colder than hell but if I paced myself and hiked smart I would eventually get out. He said ok. I asked if he had a cell phone and he said sure. Aaaah, now we were getting somewhere. He got it out and tried it but we could not get a signal down there by the river.

I have friends that life up there and I wanted to call Dave to give us a hand. He had 4wd and might be able to get too us. I told Gary I would take it with me and when I got to high ground, I would call Dave. Off I went.

It was one bitch of a hike up to the flat from the river valley. Especially through the dang knee-deep snow. I just took my time and finally topped out on the flats. I tried the phone again and it had a signal. Now I called Dave. Lookin’ better bout now. Nobody home. I turned the phone off.

I looked around and sorta got a feeling where I was but nothing for sure. I started plodding through the snow. I knew I had a heck of a ways to go so I paced myself. I was looking at the ground ahead of me and something caught my eye to my right.

There was a faint path going off through the sapling aspen to my right. It rang a bell. I looked around and sure enough it looked like a little trail that trout fishermen use in the summer to fish this stretch of the river. I wasn’t sure and nobody had been down it since winter but I was going by just a hint and a memory. If it was what I thought it was it led out to the two track, I needed to find.

The walking was pretty rough, with the deep snow and there was nothing I could do but push through it. I walked the faint trail, hoping it was the right one.

After a quarter mile of this I could see ahead that I was right. The path lead to the two track road. There was a turnaround where the path came out but now sign that anyone had been on it. I was hoping that some snowmobiles had been using the road but there was no sigh. On well, time to walk.

I knew exactly where I was now and where I had to go but it was a hell of a long way, walking in the deep snow like that. I looked at a map, and it is about 8 or 9 miles from where the Kayaks are to the truck, at Smith Bridge. That is taking the route I was to take. The map I am providing shows the river. The arrow shows where we were stopped by the ice and the green trail shows where I walked. That leads to the red line and that is where I was helped by the snowmobilers. The yellow is the route we had to take to get out and back to Gary’s car, at Chase Bridge.

The two track I was now on had not had any traffic since the storm and the snow was knee deep. Luckily it was a soft snow and I could get through it if I just took my time. This leg of it was about two miles and it was rough. I could keep moving but I had to keep taking my hat off and my gloves to help control my body heat. I was working much harder than I was used to and did not want to over heat.

I finally hiked out to where the yellow trail neets the green. Then I headed to the right. This was hammered by snowmobiles and I figured it would not be long before some came along. I did not give thought to the fact that it was Sunday afternoon and most of them were already headed south on I-75.

As luck would have it I walked the trail until I got to a small creek called Thayer Creek. Now this is usually just a small thing that runs under the road, through a culvert. Not today! The creek now ran over the road and was about 15 or 20 ft wide. I looked it over and it still looked like the bottom was solid and it was only a couple inches deep. It would not be a problem for the truck, if I got it back this far.

I had to work my way across this creek by going from clump to clump of marsh grass, which was along the side of the two track. I had to be careful, as I did not want to get my dang feet wet, at this stage of my walk.

The snow was beaten down here and the walking was easier but I had to pace myself as there was a good 6 or 7 miles yet to go. I was worried about the time as I did not want to be out there in the dark, without a flashlight. I also worried that Gary would get antsy and try to walk out. He did not have a clue about the area.

I finally got the end of the two track, at least that two track and came to another, which I had to take to the right. I could hear an occasional snowmobile, in the distance. I could see signs that this trail had been used recently so my hopes for help increased.

By this time I had walked a couple miles and was getting pooped. I set a steady pace, actually walking faster than I wanted to because I was concerned on getting to the truck and back before dark. I didn’t have a flashlight in the truck.

I started off again and this trail was well packed by the snow machines. I was thinking that the drive back would be pretty easy as I had 4WD and the snow was not deep. I just kept going and hoping for someone to come along.

I walked a while, by the map it looks like a total of a little over 4 miles, when I heard some snow machines. I turned around and there were 6 coming up behind me. Big Grin here!!

I flagged them down and told them of my predicament. The machines they had were all single place machines but they managed to get my big ass on behind one of them and off we went.

I was a hugging this guy and since I had forgotten to put on my gloves, after the last cool down, I dam near froze my hands on the four mile ride the highway. What a great sight it was though when we finally go there.

I hopped of the machine and thanked them all for their help. Then I headed down the highway toward the bridge where I had left my truck. It was a half mile or so but easy walking.

I got to the truck and figured I had it made now. I started the thing and headed to the highway. I then drove the short distance to where the two track met the highway.

I stopped and looked down the two track. Something about it bothered me but I didn’t know what. It was flat and smooth and there was plenty of room for my truck to get down it. I had drove the thing a couple dozen times and a bunch of times in the winter. This was the worse snow I had encountered up there though.

I have been on the back roads, in the winter many times and never came close to getting stuck but this bothered me for some reason.

Well, I had it to do and no choice so I put it n 4WD and headed down the trail. Something didn’t feel right and I didn’t understand what it was. The motor seemed to be revving too high but I was moving ok. A little sluggish though. I had to really give it gas to get up the hills, which was not normal and at times I was going halfway sideways. It didn’t make sense but I could not stop to check it out. Had to keep going.

I came to a little downhill stretch and let off on the gas and the dam thing only coasted a short distance before I had to give it the gas again . Something was not right.

Then it dawned on me. The snowmobiles had packed the snow but only the first couple inches! Hell I was breaking through that and my truck was half way to the axle! I knew what was happening but had to keep going. It was good to have figured out the problem but it sure added to my tension, knowing that if I stopped, I might not be able to start again.

I just kept pouring the gas it and watched the temp but it stayed in the safe zone. Finally I went about 6 miles of this and I came to the two track that had not had any snow machine traffic .The snow was much deeper but the truck went through there easily. I finally could relax a little. I drove the two miles to the little foot path I had come out on and stopped.. I blew the horn a few times to let Gary know I was there but he didn’t hear it.

Now I had it made!! J I started down the little path, headed for Gary and the Kayaks. I met him on the trail and we were sure happy to see each other. I told him I had the truck and he was surprised as he was convinced he was gonna find my dead old carcass laying on the trail! Not THIS old carcass I told him J

We trudged back through the snow to the kayaks, which he had hauled up the small bank. They were still in the river when I left. He had a fire going and started a bitchin’ about all the work it was to keep the dang old fire going. Chasing firewood and such, you know. In a dang forest, he tells me that J I told him that next time he can walk out and we had a laugh over that.

I had brought a length of rope from the truck and cutting it in half, I gave him one piece. I tied mine to my kayak and started up the hill with it in tow. Now I figured dragging a scrawnyassed kayak through snow would be a piece of cake. Wrong! Not through deep snow it isn’t. The hill we had to go up, with the path at the top, was about a hundred yards long. I don’t know what the grade was but it must have been about 20%, increasing to 30 toward the top.

It was not long and I had to take a rest, I was panting so hard. Geesh! I looked back at Gary and was pleased to see he was on his knees gasping too. My breathing got to normal and off I went again. I would go 20 steps and rest ,20 steps and rest,15 steps and rest,15 steps and rest. The rest stops got longer too. I was still going the right direction though. Looking back I could see Gary was taking advantage of my stops too. Hell he was hurting as bad as I was, it was to my joy to notice. Wore out keeping a dang fire going my ass J

That is the way it went, all the way up the dang hill. He kayaks were completely down in the snow and there was much more drag than I expected. This getting old crap sure sucks, I’ma thinking.

I got to the trail and waited for Gary to catch up. By the time he caught up, I had my breath back. I waited for him to get his as I didn’t want him to die before we got the dang things to the truck.

I was on my knees and a brilliant thought came to me. Why the hell don’t we double team these dam things and see if that would be easier. He said he had just been thinking that himself. We tied both ropes on my kayak and headed out. That was one hell of a lot better. We only had to stop every 40 steps or so and the going was much better.

We finally got both kayaks in the back of my truck and tied down. With that done, we headed back down the two track, toward his car at Smiths Bridge. That trail had been packed by the snowmachines too but we just kept a going and made it out ok.
That night I was so dang tired that I fell asleep watching tv. I got up and went to bed and lay there awake. I got to thinking about what could have happened if Gary had not caught his balance when he was getting out of the kayak. Things could have been much worse.

I drove home the next day and as is normal, I listen to audio books during the three hour drive. I was listening to WEB Griffins Counter Attack and it was very interesting. I had gotten into the book, Marine Corps and all. I was headed south on I-75 and it was windy and cold.

All of a sudden my truck gave a sputter and drifted to the side of the highway. Now what?? I looked and saw I had run the dam thing out of gas. I had not paid a bit of attention to my gas and ran out. L

I looked up the road and there was an over pass and a Sunoco station was in sight. I took off walking, like the dumbass I was and a guy and his family stopped and gave me a ride to the station.

They said they would give me a ride back, since it was so cold and windy but I told them that when a guy was as stupid as I was, he deserved a bit of punishment J

That was my weekend. I hope I wasn’t too longwinded but I am that way in person too.