ROUGH ROAD TO SERENITY

 

                                     Difficult roads often lead to beautiful destinations

Up until then, everything had been OK. But, then the road suddenly stopped! Being a road, that is. Huge ruts and massive rocks block our way. We sat at the point of turning around, going back and finding another way. Meadow Lake Road on the east end of Bowman Lake looked more like a mountain goat trail than a lane of travel.

In all my trips to the water, it's always been fairly simple. For trips to Lake Natoma or the Lower American River, stops signs, traffic, and parking spots are my biggest concerns. With a little luck,  I'll squeeze into a spot at the boat ramp instead of having to park further away after dropping the kayak off at the water edge. For bigger trips, I'll leave the driveway, wade through traffic to the interstate, speed along to the exit, and end up getting stuck behind a slow-moving tractor or truck on the blacktop. At the crossing, I'll turn off the blacktop and drive on gravel down to the boat ramp.

"It’s the portage that makes traveling by canoe unique." said famed paddling guru Bill Mason. He, of course, was referring to hauling canoes through the northern woods from lake to lake. That's how it's done in places like the BWCA. Canoes are inserted on to lakes and streams and then carried by hand to other lakes and streams in between. Meanwhile, whitewater extremists will hike and climb miles transporting their kayaks up mountains to attempt the first descent of a waterfall or canyon creek. The paddling is the easy part, getting to the water is always the ordeal.

Our friend Curt Hough told me, it was a place we just had to paddle. High in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, Lake Foucherie is an outdoor paradise. Clear water, mountain views, and towering pines encompass the lake. It's a hidden and remote treasure that offers more that than just tranquil splendor, but serenity as well. It's so beautiful that photographer Ansel Adams just might have switched to color film to photograph its grandeur.
We gathered in my pickup with tandem kayak on top and looked forward to what naturalist John Muir described as an inexpressible delight of wading out into the grassy sun-lake when he wrote, "Feeling yourself contained in one of Nature's most sacred chambers, withdrawn from the sterner influences of the mountains, secure from all intrusion, secure from yourself, free in the universal beauty."

The Bowman Lake Road off of Highway 20 on the northern end of California's Nevada County is bumpy but well-traveled by four-wheel-drive pickup and Jeeps. It weaves and winds, mostly on gravel in a northerly fashion past Fuller Lake and then on up to the dam site.
The Meadow Lake Road begins just below Bowman Reservoir's Dam, turning off and winding up the mountain. The road is rocky and a bit unnerving with a steep drop off at ones the side. It would be a wonderful breath-taking view of the mountains and valley if I hadn't been holding my breath at the sight of the depth chasm.
About halfway up we came to our roadblock. There was just no way my truck could clear those ruts and rocks. We regrouped, turned around and went back down to find a different road up the mountain via GPS.

The first road must have been the express lane for four-wheel drivers and mountain goats. The other road adorned with switchbacks, but they still meet together for the same view Bowman Lake. At an elevation of 5,585 feet, the lake gleams through our windshield. Its fortress-like granite rock formations line the lake buffering it between the water and sky. The north side road runs parallel along the steep lakeshore. It was slow going, but, our destination seems to be in grasp.

All the way to the end of the lake and past Jackson Creek the road went from good to bad, to worse. My wife Debbie had taken the wheel now and she compared the road to a dried-up river bed.
The washboard grooves and stones tested the truck's tires and shock absorbers while driving up what looked like an evaporated stream.
I even got out of the truck and walked ahead in spots and clearing rocks and guiding Debbie to even ground.
At the Jackson Creek Campground, the road splits and leads to Sawmill Lake and Lake Foucherie. That road wasn't any better. It was a rugged adventurous drive over a parched creek bed and along a narrow pine-lined path.
When we limped into the Sawmill Lake Campground and saw the sight of Sawmill Lake, we agreed that we would just have to save Lake Foucherie for another day and unloaded our kayaks.

After the rigorous day of travel, the payoff came softly.
Sawmill Lake cooled us off in an instant. The water gave us relief, the pines refreshed us and the majestic mountain views mesmerized us with their beauty. It wasn't our original destination, but the wilderness always seems to sing to me. You made it!  It was the journey that mattered and the adventure in just getting there. Now enjoy my serenity.

Naturalist Sigurd Olson thought of it that way. He said, "And that, I believe, is one of the reasons why coming home from any sort of a primitive expedition is a real adventure. Security and routine are always welcome after knowing the excitement and the unusual. We need contrast to make us know we are really alive."

This article was originally published in Outside Adventure to the Max September 4. 2015

BOATHOUSE DAYS

        I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately -- Henry David Thoreau 

On a July day in 1845, Henry David Thoreau embarked on a two-year odyssey of living simply in a small house on the shores of Walden Pond. Nine years later after revising his manuscript, he published his classic Walden, or Life in the Woods recounting his time on the lake.

While I have to admit I'm no Thoreau, but through a series of events this past summer, I found myself embracing the charm, beauty, and tranquility of the lake, much like he did at Walden Pond, while running the small boathouse and rentals operation on Lake Jenkinson at Sly Park Recreation Area during the weekends.

Lake Jenkinson is an idyllic setting nestled in the Sierra foothills near Pollock Pines, California. Surrounded by a fringe of tall pines that reminded me of lakes of the Northwoods of my past. Divided by a narrow channel, the lake has two main parts. The larger rounded lower lake is home to the speedboats, picnic, and campgrounds and swimming beach, while the upper lake is narrower, much quieter and home to the boathouse. Over the summer, while renting out a slew of kayaks, canoes and standup paddleboards, I kept a series of notes recounting events and my daily observations of the lake.

June 17...It's Father's Day at Sly Park. Dan Crandall and The River Store took over the Sly Park Boat this season and so far it seems business is good. We have four canoes, a dock full of kayaks and seven paddleboards ready to rent. It's all fun stuff on one of the area's most beautiful lakes.  
Dan has two other employees working here, one doing the paperwork while other loads and unloads the people into the crafts to get them on their way. I'll be training most of the day to learn the operation. 

June 24...It was the summer solstice a few days ago. The long hot days of summer days, at last, sparking my memories like lightning bugs as each dazzling thought of summers past flickers in my head. If you would have told me I would someday be in Northern California running a boat rental house and dock on pine encompassed lake I would've never have believed it. How could I be so lucky? But, here I am, renting kayaks and canoes on the lake.
  

July 6...The sounds of children laughing and the waves rocking the dock is the soundtrack of the lake. It's my perfect world as the neighborhood eagle soars overhead. 
My wife Debbie is working with me today and it was a little slow at the start, but business picked up later in the afternoon. Single kayaks and SUPs are $20 dollars an hour while tandem kayaks and canoes are $30. It makes for a fun day for folks wanting to get out on to the water.

July 14...The lake is busy today. At one time, we had all the boats rented out on the water. The pace is brisk for me. Checking folks in and getting them outfitted to be on the lake. 
The canoes look fine, but I've not been able to paddle them yet. They're Old Town canoes and they look right out of my memories of Minnesota. We can get a family on the water with little problems with them. The big sit on top ocean kayaks are like the ones I paddled in LaJolla. The tandems kayaks are long, wide and mostly heavy.

From here on, my time at the boathouse turns into a more solitary experience outside a few visits from my wife Debbie. The two other employees who started off the season quit for one reason or another leaving me alone much like Thoreau 173 years ago on banks of Walden Pond.

July 27...A misty haze covers the lake and trees of Lake Jenkinson. There are fires burning all over California pushing their streams of smoke into the hills and mountains. I can see only the dark silhouetted shadows of tree points showing through the milky cloud. By the way, it looks I would think it would be cooler because it's more similar to the appearance of a marine layer's cold wet fog. But it's not so. Temperatures here have been boiling. Even an escape by jumping into the lake isn't as refreshing as it should be, being it's almost like bathwater at 78 degrees. 

August 3...A return to my roots today as I take the Old Town Discovery canoe out on the lake before I open up the boathouse. I can't go far. Just across the lake and back. Canoeing is how I got into paddling I told Dan when he dropped off a load of kayaks and PFDs that afternoon. That's when I learned to paddle by taking trips on the Missouri and Niobrara rivers. I'm still kicking my self that I didn't take the trip to the BWCA when I had the chance.
Like riding a bike, I remember. The bow slightly raised out of the water as I paddle from the side to side from the stern.

August 5...Finally a clear morning. Waking up the boathouse, I'm always taken in by the pine and aroma of the forest. Each prickly needle and cone giving off the unmistakable fragrance of the woods and lake. It stops me for a moment to breathe it all in.

August 10...It's one of those Thoureu like mornings. It's started off a very quiet morning on the lake only a few fishermen gently motoring by otherwise it's pretty much like it would be a 100 years ago. As I float in the stillness I think everyone should appreciate an escape to a quiet lake.
So it's more than little upsetting when loud music rap interrupts the silence from the upper campground. At times like these, as Sigurd Olson said, "All noise is sacrilege."

August 11...I think back on all the times I thought about how hard it was to roll a canoe, but with two people rolling over today within sight of the boat dock losing a shoe and cell phone in the process. I have to say some folks find a way.

As summer continued I followed a uniformed routine at the boathouse that usually consisted of getting up early on Fridays, Saturday, and Sundays and driving the 45 miles to the lake. Upon arrival, I would zigzag down a steep trail and open the gate and unlock the house floating on the dock.
The cumbersome part of the day was removing the heavy but sturdy paddle boards that I had locked away inside the house on my last visit and stow them alongside on the house. From there I would get all release forms and cashbox ready and wait for customers to come walking down the trail.
On command, the wind from the east dies just after nine turning the lake into glossy reflective paradise. It's only for a couple of hours before the west wind comes gusting back through the narrows.
This was my opportunity to take out a canoe or paddle board and float idly in the emerald green of the water a short distance from the dock. It's was time to reflect and observe. It's was my favorite time on the lake.

August 19...A rocky red bathtub ring emerges around the lake between the trees and the water. Without rain, it's common in the summer months as the lake is slowly drained away. The boat patrol guy that drops by daily says it's at 85% capacity.  But, he says he has seen much worse. 
How far to the waterfall? The customers will ask. It's not far, but it's not flowing, I'll tell them sadly. You will have to come back in the spring.

August 24...Paddle day one hundred this year spent in a canoe. Thoreau, Sigurd Olson, and Bill Mason would be proud. These guys will live on forever with every dip of the paddle. Not for showing how to canoe, but a thousand reasons why to canoe.
It's a nice way to spend a summer morning across from primeval pines silhouetted in mist and smoke on perfectly still water. with a mug coffee and brief bible lesson. In a canoe, I float in the stillness within an earshot of the boathouse. People are in such a hurry these days. They have little interest in the power of the paddle. We do have a motorboat at the boathouse that people ask to use. They're always disappointed when I say it's not for rent. 

August 26...I find it amazing how sound travels over water. While in the middle of the lake I can hear the clatter coming from campgrounds, kids yelling on the beach and each jogger footstep as they thud, thud, thud down the trail around the lake with theatre like acoustics.
The lake being an oasis for everyone,  I also listen to the many languages the coming from around the water. There is Spanish, German and Russian, Hindi, Farsi, and varieties of Chinese languages. I can't help thinking this what it would have sounded like during the Gold Rush. Now instead gold they are seeking the treasure of the water and the outside.
   

August 31...Other than visiting customers, my boathouse neighborhood consists of darting minnow and fish swimming in the dark shadows beneath the dock, two sunning turtles on stumps just out of the water and couple of lizards that quickly hide when I climb up the steps to the parking lot. In the sky two ravens and a hawk circle above. I haven't seen the eagle in several days, but he likes to sit in the high pines from across the boathouse. There are also a couple of forging ducks who hope I will drop a corn chip or two into the water.

September 2...It's Labor Day weekend and one of my busiest days of the whole summer season. At one time, all my boats except for a few were being rented. I did my best to keep everyone moving on and off the water with surprisingly good efficiency. But, when a lady rolled her kayak after getting bumped into by another, I told her to swim to the ladder and I'll retrieve the upside-down boat.
Quickly into the water, I got a hold of the kayak and hooked it to the dock. But, somewhere in process of the boat rescue, I  ripped a six-inch tear in my favorite pair of shorts. The only problem was I didn't notice it till a bit later when I was sitting on the aluminum dock steading a canoe for young lady when I noticed a burning sensation on my bare buns. Of course, I could change since my dock was so crowded customers providing some challenges. Let's just say I didn't turn my back on any of them.

September 8...We are going into extra innings at the boathouse. In the past, under the old management, they have always closed up on Labor Day. But, Dan thought let's just see what happens by keeping the place open for two weekends after the end of the summer holiday.
It turns out to be a good day renting mostly canoes and tandem kayaks Saturday afternoon as people want to try and get as many people as they can into each craft. How many does it fit they will ask? My answer is not as many as you would hope for. 

This weekend I'll wrap up my summer season at the boathouse. It's been as Thoreau called it "soothing employment" to bask in the warmth of the sun, overlooking the pond. Even though I had to push boats and canoes around throughout my day the time always seemed to go quickly. Every day brought smiling customers, visionary delights and solace on the water.

"How peaceful the phenomena of the lake." Thoreau would write of Walden Pond.

Indeed.

GOODBYE YELLOW TANDEM

When a man is part of his canoe, he is part of all that canoes have ever known. ---Sigurd Olson

My dad used to say, there are two happy days in life with you in your boat.
The day you buy it and the day when you sell it. Of course, he was right about the day I brought my Perception Prodigy 14.5 tandem home. Back in Minnesota, it opened up my summer with endless possibilities.

I purchased the tandem with the whole idea of taking my daughter's dog Mazie camping while she was working that summer in a Boy Scout camp. I can remember taking several trips that summer. Heading off across the lake to my favorite boat in campsite, Mazie a chocolate Labrador was a great companion. Over the summer, she excelled at becoming a "water dog" with little trouble climbing in and out of the boat and not rocking it too badly.

I can recall taking friends and family boating with it over the years. It was great for family campouts and getting folks on the water for the first time. My kids could bring friends along and paddle to tour the lake without leaving anyone behind. Usually called a divorce boat, the tandem boosted in the courtship of my wife Debbie. It took only a little practice to get our stokes in sequence. It was the only boat we used when crossed the country while moving to California. On a stop in Colorado, we got stuck in a late afternoon thunderstorm while on the lake together. We ended up soak while rushing back to our campsite.

Like that storm, a deluge of memories rolled back through my head as I watched the tandem being loaded onto a couple's vehicle, strap down and tied off before driving away forever after being sold. A bittersweet day indeed.

While many people think of a kayak as a simple mode of transportation for a fun day on the lake or river, for many of us, our canoes and kayaks are connected to our souls. We give them names and almost human personalities. Your boat automatically states a lot about you as a person. In fact, they become a reflection of who we are.

"The first thing you must learn about canoeing is that the canoe is not a lifeless,  inanimate object," wrote paddling guru Bill Mason, "It feels very much alive, alive with the life of the river. Life is transmitted to the canoe by the currents of the air and the water upon which it rides. The behavior and temperament of the canoe is dependent upon the elements: from the slightest breeze to a raging storm, from the smallest ripple to a towering wave, or from a meandering stream to a thundering rapid.”

As you can see, I have plenty of great memories of the camping trips, moonlight paddles and all the fun we had in that kayak. But, the thing is, I've not been using that boat as much in these last couple of years. It was pretty much just sitting on its side inside our garage being unused and forgotten serving only has a hideout for the cat. A sad fate for a vessel of its caliber.

So it's nice to see that the tandem, now has a new home a young couple who will use it more than I did. They studied the boat with glee as I showed the different features of the boat and retold its past adventures with me. They, in turn, told me how they planned to take their dogs along and looked forward to getting it on the area's lakes. For them, to paraphrase Bill Manson, the acquisition of this boat is a way to journey back to what’s left of the natural world and a voyage of discovery.

But I was more than a little sad to see it drive away and know that I would miss it. Afterward, I told a fellow boater that I had sold the tandem, she sent a back a message of condolences, like I lost a dear friend.
"I would be sad if I were you too," she texted, But, you still have the memories. Glad the boat found a really nice home."

A nice home and a better life, where it will be used to have more adventures and make even more memories. As the couple drives out of sight down the road, Jerry Vandiver's song True and Deep serenades inside my soul.

I hope the waters you cross are calm and still and take you to where you seek.
Should the wind start to blow just where it will, May your paddle be true and deep.
I hope the skies above you are always blue and your journey will flow downstream.
Should the current rise up to challenge you, My your paddle be true and deep.

It's was a wish for the young couple of course, but mostly it was for my faithful yellow tandem kayak.

OVER THE BOW: RED RIVER

And so for a time it looked as if all the adventures were coming to and end; but that was not to be. --- C. S. Lewis

I was hoping to get one more day in. Just one more day on the water. An early winter weather gloom hung over the river valley. The first snow had come early in October, followed by another dusting a week later typical and Fargo-like. The temperatures were plunging each night to that mystical point where water becomes ice. My season of days paddling was quickly running out on the Red River.

“There is one thing I should warn you about before you decide to get serious about canoeing, " said paddling guru Bill Mason in one of my favorite all-time quotes "You must consider the possibility of becoming totally and incurably hooked on it. You must also face the fact that every fall about freeze-up time you go through a withdrawal period as you watch the lakes and rivers icing over one by one. Cross-country skiing and snowshoeing can help a little to ease the pain, but they won’t guarantee a complete cure.”

When fall comes to the Red River Valley only the hardiest have yet to put away their canoes or kayaks for the season. The Red River was once again comfortable in its banks as its dark waters of flowed past the snow white covered shoreline creating a Christmas card like setting, insulated from the whir of traffic of the river's two cities.   

A thin layer of ice from freezing rain coated my bow and water bottle as it froze on contact. While an even thinner film of ice had formed over the water along the edges of the meandering waterway. The sound of reverberation of radio static and breaking glass echoed over the peaceful river as the kayak's bow broke through the ice, a reminder of my coming to end to that years paddling season as the river way slumbered into its winter hibernation.

Over the Bow is a feature from Outside Adventure to the Max, telling the story behind the image. If you have a great picture with a great story, submit it to us at nickayak@gmail.com

FREEZE WARNING

  
He said I wanna see you again. But I'm stuck in colder weather. Maybe tomorrow will be better --The Zac Brown Band 

I was hoping to get one more day in. Just one more day on the water. The early winter weather had been typical and Fargo-like. The first snow had come early October, followed by another a week later. My days of paddling were quickly running out. My kayak world looked like a shaken snow globe. The dark waters of the Red River flowed past the banks of white snow in a dream-like setting. Along the shore, a thin layer of ice formed over the water. I can still recall the sound of my kayak's bow breaking through the ice. A reverberation of radio static and breaking glass echoed over the peaceful river. The Red was not a far cry from the Arctic.

"We hit a point where the ocean was all these pieces of broken ice," explorer Erik Boomer,  told Canoe and Kayak Magazine,  "It was just huge cliffs and bad ice, and the ice was traveling four or five miles a day, so a lot of movement. One idea we had was to jump out on a large piece of ice and sail it through a strait. So we hopped on some ice, set up camp, and joked about being on a big icebreaker ship."
He was recalling his epic trip with Jon Turk as they became the first paddlers to circumnavigate the 1,485-mile around Ellesmere Island, in the high Canadian Arctic in 2011. They skied and walked, towing their boats, about 850 miles, and paddled the remaining 600. "We both slipped in once—into the freezing cold Arctic Ocean. We made sure we always traveled real tight together and helped each other when we were seal launching off of a piece of ice, or climbing a piece of ice because there was always danger. And there was also danger of being squashed by the ice."

Ice would all too soon squash my plans. Thanksgiving weekend was mild and pleasant, with a little luck I thought, the weather would hold and I could paddle into December. But, a cold front rolled in freezing everything it touched. The river and lakes were entrenched with ice and snow, leaving the only memories, ghosts of days of the past season. Scottish poet Walter Scott had it right when he penned, "When dark December gloom's the day,  And takes our autumn joys away; When short and scant the sunbeam throws, Upon the weary waste of snows." My snow-covered kayak still loaded on the top of the van, was about to make its last and shortest voyage of the year... into the garage.

"One thing that we observed and talked about is how we were watching the ice change and the seasons literally go through these transitions," said Boomer, looking back on his experience in the Arctic, "It gave me a different perspective on changes and transitions. Changes and transitions are always difficult, you have to literally change your method working through it, but they’re bound to happen."

Now my boats have been loaded and unloaded off and on, and into the garage since last spring, but for me, there is something final about the last portage of the year. Lowering the kayak off the van's roof and onto the rack inside my single stall garage, I sandwiched it between two other boats along the wall. The van, only used for kayaking was then slowly backed into place in the garage as well, locked away for the winter. When the garage door shut, my kayaking was over until next spring.

"I actually don't even see my kayak when it's in storage. Your message prompted me to go out and confirm it's still where I left it!" said Heather Schmidt, who split her time between Fargo and Duluth, Minn, "What's painful for me, is seeing the water on the big lake so calm and seemingly inviting during the colder days. I don't have a wet-suit, so most of the year, paddling is out-of-bounds for me, but I still drive by the calm, beautiful water that is calling for a kayak to cut through its waters."

Withdrawal would soon occur. Psychiatrist William Glasser said, "We are driven by five genetic needs: survival, love and belonging, power, freedom, and fun." Glasser claims that positive addictions “strengthen us and make our lives more satisfying.” Positive addictions, like kayaking, enhance life. They also help us to “live with more confidence, more creativity, and more happiness, and usually in much better health."
When I stopped paddling for the season,  symptoms of kayak withdrawal seem to emerge, and from what I was told there was no cure.
"There is one thing I should warn you about before you decide to get serious about canoeing." warned paddling guru Bill Mason, "You must consider the possibility of becoming totally and incurably hooked on it. You must also face the fact that every fall about freeze-up time you go through a withdrawal period as you watch the lakes and rivers icing over one by one. Cross-country skiing and snowshoeing can help a little to ease the pain, but they won’t guarantee a complete cure."

It was an unusually long winter that year in Fargo-Moorhead. Not that that wasn't out of the ordinary. I had been there for nearly 30 years and only recall a few mild ones. At -13 below it hard to find anything but frozen water anywhere. The Red River had the look of a ribbon-thin glacier splitting the two cites in half. Historians say, they use to set up bleachers on the ice and have horse-drawn sleigh races along a section of the river. Only water trickles over the rocks of the Midtown dam producing a billowing layer of ice fog gaping between the two ice masses. On cross-country ski outings along the river, I would often ponder those paddling days.
"Winter is a time of promise because there is so little to do," said writer Stanley Crawford, "Or because you can now and then permit yourself the luxury of thinking so."

Canadian sea kayaker Harvey Chris Wittenberg, put this way, "Every year lands up being a little unique with different memories," he wrote in an email,  "In Canada where six months a year we are locked in with ice. Well, it makes you appreciate the kayaking a little more. It lands up being a time to reflect. Dream up bucket-list plans for next season as well as think about new equipment and setting goals for the upcoming season."

I'm a Californian now. I can paddle every day all year-long which I still find remarkable and almost unexpected. There is no ice or snow unless I want to take my kayak up into the Sierra-Nevada Mountains for winter paddle. The thought that had crossed my mind.

During my last winter in Fargo while in a long-distance courtship with my soon to be wife, I remember how she would send me shots along the American River, coaxing me to come to California. Folks paddling along on a sunny day, while I looked out my window saw the bleakness of winter. It was like looking at a menu and not being able to order anything but frozen fish sticks while counting the days down to spring.

"So it just sorta became normal life." said Boomer, summing up his 104 days in the Arctic with Turk,  "There wasn’t anything else, and that’s really what life is. You’re there. And I think in working through those challenges, I’m hoping to bring that into my everyday life—the adventure, the excitement, the specialness of every single day, and continually taking on challenges and having fun with them.”

ROUGH ROAD TO SERENITY

 

                              Difficult roads often lead to beautiful destinations

Up until then, we had been OK. Then the road suddenly stopped! Being a road, that is. Huge ruts and massive rocks block our way. We sat at the point of turning around, going back and finding another way. Meadow Lake Road on the east end of Bowman Lake looked more like a mountain goat trail than a lane travel.

In all my trips to the water, it has always been fairly simple. For trips to Lake Natoma or the Lower American River, stops signs, traffic and parking spots are my biggest concerns. With a little luck,  I'll squeeze into a spot at the boat ramp instead of having to park further away after dropping the kayak off at the water edge. For bigger trips,  I leave the driveway, wade through traffic to the interstate, speed along to the exit, before getting stuck a slow-moving tractor or truck on the blacktop. At the crossing, I turn off the blacktop and on to the gravel road down to the boat ramp.

"It’s the portage that makes traveling by canoe unique." said famed paddling guru Bill Mason. He, of course, was referring to hauling canoes through the northern woods from lake to lake. That's how it's done in places like the BWCA. Canoes are inserted into lakes and streams and then carried by hand to other lakes and streams in between, while whitewater extremists have no trouble transporting kayaks up mountain canyons on their backs to attempt the first descent of the waterfall. The paddling is the easy part, getting to the water is always the ordeal.

Our friend Curt Hough said it was a place we had to paddle. High in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, Lake Foucherie is an outdoor paradise. Clear water, mountain views and towering pines encompass the lake. A hidden and remote treasure that offers more that than just tranquil splendor, but serenity as well. It's so beautiful that photographer Ansel Adams might have switched to color film to photograph its grandeur. We gathered in my pickup with tandem kayak on top and looked forward to what naturalist John Muir described as an inexpressible delight of wading out into the grassy sun-lake when he wrote, "Feeling yourself contained on one of Nature's most sacred chambers, withdrawn from the sterner influences of the mountains, secure from all intrusion, secure from yourself, free in the universal beauty."

The Bowman Lake Road off Highway 20 on the northern end of California's Nevada County is bumpy but well-traveled by four-wheel drive pickup and Jeeps. It weaves and winds mostly on gravel in a northerly fashion past Fuller Lake, up to the dam site. The Meadow Lake Road begins just below Bowman Reservoir's Dam, turning off and winding up the mountain. The road is rocky and a bit unnerving with a steep drop off at ones the side. It would be a wonderful breath-taking view of the mountains and valley if I wasn't holding my breath at the sight of the depth chasm. About half way up we came to our roadblock. There was just no way my truck could clear those ruts and rocks. We regroup, turned around and went back down finding a different road up the mountain via GPS.

The first road must have been the express lane for four-wheel drivers and mountain goats, while the other road switchbacks up the hill and meets for the same view Bowman Lake. At an elevation of 5,585 feet, the lake gleams through our windshield. Its granite rock formations lining the lake buffer between the water and sky. The north side road runs parallel along the steeped lakeshore. It is slow going, however, our destination seems to be in grasp.

All the way to the end of the lake and Jackson Creek the road went from good to bad, to worse. My wife Debbie had taken the wheel now and compared the road to dried up river bed. It might as well had been an old creek bed. Washboard grooves and stones tested the truck's tires and shock absorbers while driving up what looked like an evaporated stream. I walked ahead in spots and clearing rocks and looking for even ground. At the Jackson Creek Campground, the road splits and leads to Sawmill Lake and Lake Foucherie. It wasn't any better. It was a rugged adventurous drive over a parched creek bed and a pine-lined path. When we limped into the Sawmill Lake Campground and saw the sight of Sawmill Lake, we agreed that we have to save Lake Foucherie for another day and unloaded our kayaks.

After the rigorous day of travel, the payoff came softly. Sawmill Lake cooled us in an instant. The water gave us relief, the pines refreshed us and the majestic mountain views mesmerized us with their beauty. It wasn't our original destination, however, its wilderness seems to sing to me. You made it!  It's the journey that matters, and the adventure lays in just getting here.  Now enjoy my serenity.

Naturalist Sigurd Olson thought of it that way when he said, "And that, I believe, is one of the reasons why coming home from any sort of a primitive expedition is a real adventure. Security and routine are always welcome after knowing the excitement and the unusual. We need contrast to make us know we are really alive."

OVER THE BOW: LAKE NATOMA

  The path of the paddle can be a means of getting things back to their original perspective. – Bill Mason, Path of the Paddle

 It was a quiet morning on Lake Natoma earlier last week. A slight breeze passed over the water, causing barely a ripple. I could feel its coolness coming off the water and in the shade of the trees. It was a welcome relief from the daytime heat that usually blasts this valley.
I had beaten the rush. The parking lot of the Negro Bar access was still empty along with the rest of the lake. The usual array of Huki boats, sit-on-tops and fishermen had yet to arrive and the lake was pretty much mine for my own adventure.

I wasn't lost in the wilds of the BWCA or Desolation Wilderness. I was only a couple of miles from home and could hear the hum of traffic buzzing over the Folsom Avenue Bridge. But, I might as well have been. Because with each muffled stroke of my paddle, I slipped further away into nature's domain.
Environmentalist and wilderness guide, Sigrud Olsen said  'There is magic in the feel of a paddle and the movement of a canoe, a magic compounded of distance, adventure, solitude, and peace. The way of a canoe is the way of the wilderness, and of a freedom almost forgotten."'

Alone in my thoughts and on the water, I felt a certain exuberance in this calm of tranquility. On a simple morning cruise around my neighborhood lake, I felt that same deliverance and enchantment that Olsen pontificated about his beloved northern lakes and forested wilderness.  I was minutes from the freeways, gas stations and fast food restaurants, yet the lake was still home to things wild. Ducks, geese, beaver, and deer find the same sanctuary that I do near its waters.

It was an effortless paddle for me, through and around the slough of the lake. The lake level has been a bit higher in the past few weeks making it an easy way to navigate through the tiny rocky islands without scraping the bottom of the kayak. In the stillness, I brushed past the prickly blackberry bushes tangled up against the water. The berries hang over the water like gaudy ornaments. They were a lush tempting red, far from being ripe enough to pick and very tart to the taste. The black ripened juicy ones are few and out of reach.

Up near the Rainbow Bridge, the river has joined the lake. The cold water released from Folsom Dam only runs a short way as the American River before being captured again by the Nimbus Dam, creating the lake. I felt the slight tug of the current and hear the gentle sound of water flowing over the rocks. I marveled at the three-story canyon walls embracing the narrow river on both sides. Further up the Folsom Prison cable sign lets me go no farther. I put my kayak into the current and felt it turn me back downstream.

 Over the Bow is a feature from Outside Adventure to the Max, telling the story behind the image. If you have a great picture with a great story, submit it to us at nickayak@gmail.com