Last Summer I finally filled a big item on my Bucket List. Kayak Camping the Au Sable river in Michigan. 2020 was the perfect year to cross this item up during the pandemic. We started our trip in Grayling and ended it 80 miles down the river in Mio, Michigan. We brought our own kayaks but used Carlisle Canoe Livery to shuttle our car to Mio. That way we could just pack up when arriving at our endpoint vs. waiting for someone to pick us up. We also launched our kayaks from Carlisle Livery.
This was the first kayaking trip we took with everyone in their own kayaks. No more tandem kayaking with Finn. Which was also a bit nerve wrecking… could he actually kayak 80 miles on his own? He did and he did great!
Rosie hung out on a kayak, jumped into the water and swam to the next kayak. She did this all 3 days. She is a pretty strong swimmer and the water was pretty flat, so it wasn’t very dangerous for her.
We spotted some pretty cool wildlife, such as turtles, fish, and even these beautiful does sipping some water (picture below).
We stopped for the night at Whitepine Campground. Unfortunatley we weren’t the only ones and it was pretty loud in the evening. No real secluded wilderness experience there. The kids helped us set up camp, we had dinner and Finn & Rosie swam in the river for a bit. It was a great ending to a great day!
The next day we headed out as early as we could because we had another long day of paddling ahead of us! It was another great day. The one thing that I didn’t like about this trip was that there weren’t many places where you could just get out and stretch your legs. You either had to stop at a busy boat ramp, or campground. Most of the land was privately owned or just thick forest with no where to get out. So we spent lunch at a busy boat ramp. That evening we stopped at Parmalee Campground. Finn got to jump off a bridge with a lot of other kids and in general it was a very nice relaxing campsite. But again not secluded at all.
The further along we got down the river, the wider the river would get. Day one the Au Sable was very narrow and windy and by the 3rd day we paddled along lakes. Our last day of paddling was great as well. The weather was perfect, no bugs and we all enjoyed floating down the river.
We ended our trip at Camp 10 Bridge where our car and trailer were waiting for us! Here is a map of the river with the campgrounds. All over this was a great little getaway during the pandemic. We are already looking for other kayak camping trips for 2021! Let us know if you have any suggestions.