Lake Alvin: Taking a Friend Kayaking

Lake Alvin: Taking a Friend Kayaking

One of my old pals from the Peace Corps days and beyond is visiting here in Sioux Falls and staying with us for ten days. On previous occasions, I have taken him out for a kayak ride in the area: the Big Sioux River, Grass Lake, Split Rock Creek. With a relatively narrow window for kayaking, I took advantage of the clearing sky yesterday and took him out to Lake Alvin, only a fifteen minute ride from my eastside home. The sky had streaks of black clouds along with some clear skies; the winds were moderate with only short wind waves coming out of the west. The lake was deserted in the afternoon with no sighting of either another boat or person.



As normal when I take someone else kayaking with me, I loaded up my 13 foot Dagger onto the Yakima rack and tossed my Folbot into the back seat of my Honda Civic. We put in at the public access point on the west end of the lake and made the circuit cruise around the entire lake. The skies were an interesting feature of the setting. While there was no rain during the cruise, there were large black clouds hovering around on the horizon, while at the same time the sun would peek through ribbons of blue at intervals. There was a moderate breeze coming down the lake from the west, but there was also a lee side off the northern shore. This drift of the wind provided some alternating portions of calm and light wave action.



The lake is quite full. We went up the outlet into the spillway and were able to move along without touching bottom in either kayak. There was an absence of algae growth on the lake, but there was an unpleasant odor in parts of the eastern end along with floating strips of what appear to be dead algae. Some dead fish were floating along this part of the lake. I assume that the wind had blown these strips of dead algae and fish into the southeastern bay that forms the eastern end of the lake.



My visiting friend is Bill Akutagawa, and he has limited experience in kayaking. In past years he has used my old 10.5 foot Dagger, but the 13 foot touring kayak is a step up in design. He particularly liked the ease provided through use of the rudder. He found that the moment of greatest vulnerability in kayaking is getting into the cockpit and moving out for the first strokes.



I was reminded of the observation made by my 25 year old son, Derek, regarding Lake Alvin. He told me that I was selling this lake short. It is really a fine paddling lake, has an interesting shoreline, is long enough to provide a good cruise, and is close. Perhaps I sometimes feel a little guilty in just driving fifteen minutes to put into the water. It is not a great sacrifice of time, and I may have felt that I ought to drive out to more interesting waters. Lake Alvin really is a great paddling asset for people in the Sioux Falls area, particularly those on the east side of the city. I need to get out there more frequently.

Oakwood Lakes

Oakwood Lakes: West Oakwood



Oakwood Lakes has a well deserved reputation as a wonderful place to canoe or kayak in eastern South Dakota. This chain of eight connecting glacial lakes is broadly divided into East Oakwood and West Oakwood Lakes. East Oakwood has a public access area and is a broader single body of water. West Oakwood is the site of Oakwood Lakes State Park and offers the amenities that such a status provides. Today, I visited West Oakwood and set off from the boat ramp within the park. Oakwood Lakes State Park is 83 miles north and west of my eastside Sioux Falls home. The easiest way to get there is to go north on Interstate 29, past Brookings, to the Bruce exit. From there, you can continue on for a few miles and follow the signs to the park. Finding the park is easy; returning is another matter. Like so much of South Dakota, there are few landmarks and no signs that direct you back to the Interstate. In a fog, I guess, I drove back the wrong way and wound up in Estelline, about ten miles north. This is nothing unusual for me, I’m sorry to say. I really should have a compass in the car.



One of the towers of my Yakama kayak rack has become bent and requires replacement; the part had to be ordered. My boat on this trip was the trusty Folbot, a fabric covered collapsible 12 foot kayak. Instead of securing it to a roof rack, I just tossed the two bags in which the hull and framework are stored into the back seat of my Honda Civic. This is the first time I have used the Folbot this season. I am happy to say that the boat went together in about 15 minutes and worked quite well. The Honda Civic Hybrid, without the kayak on the roof, went back to its nearly 50 mpg rather than the 35 mpg that I tend to get otherwise.



West Oakwoods Lake has a surface area of about 1,200 acres, and the name is derived from the numerous oak trees within the area. In years past, this lake was called Lake Tetonkaha. The set of lakes that makes up West Oakwood is surrounded by significant tree growth. The main body of water is pretty long and wide, and today, even with a moderate south wind, the wave action was just short of whitecap conditions. Cruising south from the dock within the main part of the park, I was experiencing head winds and waves, especially in the crossing from the east to the west side. The weather was marvelous: moderate wind, cloudless skies, and a morning temperature of around 70 degrees. This was a Thursday, so I virtually had the lake to myself. I was out for about two hours and saw only one boat, and that was during the final few minutes.



I set out from the park and headed west across the main body toward Scout Island and then continued around a point of land with an extensive sand bar out into the lake. Continuing south along the western shore, I moved through a narrow slot into Turtle Lake. There is a sand bar that extends from both ends of the slot into this lake with very shallow water. Even with my kayak, I went aground a couple of times until I got into the narrow passageway through. I doubt that a motor boat could get into Turtle Lake now.



Turtle Lake was sheltered from the wind, with nearly calm conditions. The shoreline is heavily wooded, and I saw lots of waterfowl. I kept trying to get a photo of one of the several great blue herons that I saw, but these wily birds will suddenly leap out of a tall tree and fly off faster than I can get the camera out. The trees and other vegetation along the shoreline are interesting. A slow paddle around the circumference of the lake is a great time for observation and reflection. True to the name of this body, there are lots of turtles to be seen sitting on downed trees along the shoreline.



As I moved out of Turtle Lake and back into the main body of West Oakwood Lake, I was traveling with the wind through a following sea. I headed back north and into Johnson Lake, off to the west of the boat ramp and around the point of Scout Island. In the distance, I saw a big flock of pelicans; I like coming slowly up on a big flock of waterfowl to see how close I can get before they fly off. I had my camera ready to capture the closest photo that I could get. After securing my photos at the western end of Johnson Lake, I turned back for the dock and made the crossing of West Oakwood again to the dock.





I was out on the water for about two hours – generally my limit in a kayak without getting out for a stretch. There were, however, several spots along the shoreline where a boat could be landed, even my Folbot.



Oakwood Lakes is really a wonderful place to paddle. It is good to be back in a natural lake, one with good shoreline growth, little development, and big enough to provide a variety of paddling conditions. Over 80 miles, though, is approaching the outer ring of my day paddles. I was on the road about 8:00 a.m. and didn’t get home until 3:00 p.m. Some of that time was me driving off in the wrong direction from the state park, and some was time that I spent taking a nap at the rest stop south of Brookings. Also, I should have packed a lunch for this trip. Of course, Oakwood Lakes is one of the premier paddling opportunities in this part of South Dakota, and I highly recommend it. I will return there at least once a year. I would also like to try East Oakwood Lake on a future trip.

Lake Goldsmith

Lake Goldsmith - (West of Brookings)
On the edge of one hour …

A South Dakota Kayaking Blog guest entry
By Jarett C. Bies

Lake Goldsmith is a sweet destination and yes, it does fit into the one hour from Sioux Falls parameters of this blog. It’s just north of Volga and Sioux Falls paddlers can have an entire nice-sized lake to themselves with great scenery, history and bird life, and only drive gravel for about a mile.



My wife and co-paddler Laura Bies and I recently started working in Brookings County, and with our boats on our Taurus, we decided Monday, Aug. 13 to find water right after work. We headed west from Brookings on Highway 14, and the total time between Brookings and Volga is literally 5 minutes, so we were on the water’s edge in less than 10 minutes after leaving SDSU.



To reach Lake Goldsmith from Sioux Falls, take I-29 all the way north past the first Brookings exit to the Highway 14/Volga bypass. From the exit, turn L (or west) and drive on, it’s literally 7 minutes to Volga from the Interstate.

As you approach the west edge of Volga, you’ll see a sign indicating Oakwood State Park and pointing to the right, turn right (or north) there and go about one mile to 210, then turn left. The road is gravel there, but head west about one mile and you’ll come right up to a sweet, sandy-beach put-in with room for a car off the gravel, across from the cornfield.



The lake’s girth surprised us both. We were planning to hit Oakwood State Park and paddle the eastern lake there, about another 15 minutes north of Goldsmith. But we drove down though the high corn just to see if Goldsmith was worth unloading. And here sat a lake that it’d take at least an hour to cross.

As mentioned, the put-in is a long beach with multiple entry points. We hit the water about 6:30 p.m. and a couple on a motorcycle stopped and went for a dip in the shallows to the west of us. We put in with two boats heading along the east shore around the circumference to the north.



It was still to start but the wind did pick up to make it more challenging paddle action as we reached the northeast corner. We then headed due west to an open channel in the backside of the lake. There was a tinfoil-in-your-face feeling as we headed into the setting sun at 7-8 p.m. The glare was KICKING on the surface and up into our faces.

The opening to the backwaters of this lake is tiny and to the far north; when we finished and headed back I missed the channel and had to do a bit of poling to get draft water under the boat. But the egrets, heron and pelicans were everywhere and we got quite a feathered show in the reedy back section of Goldsmith.



Back there to the west end, tossed off behind a cornfield bordering a marshy part of the lake, sit three or four old horse-drawn combine rigs, rusted and weed-ridden. We couldn’t help but wonder who dumped these antique relics into the skanky water of this lake. My brother-in-law saw the pictures and said they were old combines.



We rounded back and enjoyed the fact the main lake was wind-free as we sought the car. We noted a power boat with a tuber at the south end of the lake, near where we put in, but while this lake looks small on the Gazetteer page, we still far away enough to not hear the boat’s motor as we headed toward it. They left before we go to the put-in.

When we did approach the south shore of the lake, three little girls swimming on the rough beach shouted “WE COME IN PEACE!” as we approached. We estimated where they were swimming to be near our car but we were wrong. The Taurus actually was parked about 200 meters south of the peaceful evening swimming trio. When we found it, we had a nice take-out and end to our 2-hour sunset cruise.

The sandy nature of the take-out led us to do the old Superior style “from the water” car load; we exited normally, unpacked all the gear, then waded the boats back into two feet of water, where we sponged ‘em down thoroughly, then walked each right up to the rack to avoid hauling lots of sand home on the roof of the car. We were back in Brookings 10 minutes later.



Goldsmith is a full hour’s drive from Sioux Falls, but it’s friendly and unfettered on the northwest end, so I would recommend it for someone looking for a nice place to play around. It’s got plenty of birds, it’s nice and remote, and it’s closer to Sioux Falls than Oakwood. Plus, since it’s not a state park, you can just go get crazy sans day-pass rate or sticker. Of course, one can paddle Oakwood’s eastern lake without paying day-pass rate.

But that’s another story and another lake. Check out Lake Goldsmith for a Midwestern-Farm Country backdrop lake in the middle of nowhere, yet only 10-15 minutes from the Interstate.

Jarett & Laura Bies
Paddled 8/14/2007
Entry dated 8/17/2007