The James River: South from Mitchell

James River – August 2008

Under the leadership of Jarett Bies, a South Dakota Canoe Association (SDCA) fleet of 16 kayaks set out for a 12 mile cruise down the James River this Sunday morning. The “put-in” was at a public access point at the bridge on State Highway 38, just a couple miles east of Mitchell. An easy launching area along with ample parking is available for canoes or kayaks at this site.


Jarett Bies organized a shuttle service, and a few cars were positioned twelve miles downstream near a bridge at 258th Street, just four miles east of the bridge and three miles south of Highway 38. The highway mileage from the put-in to the take-out is just over seven miles, although the river distance is twelve miles.

There were three boats from Pierre, two from Vermillion, two from Brookings, and others from a variety of communities, many from the Sioux Falls area. The put-in is about 70 miles west of my eastside Sioux Falls home. The informal standard for kayak trips for me is “less time on the drive than on the water.” The roundtrip drive took me about two and a-half hours, and the cruise took about four hours. On this trip, there were no canoes; everyone was in a kayak. There was, however, a tandem kayak along on the cruise, one of the boats from Pierre.

The weather for the cruise was perfect; there was sun the entire day, only a little wind toward the end of the trip, and the temperature was in the high 70s and low 80s. Even wearing a hat with a wide brim, I came home with a red face. There was plenty of depth to the river along the entire course. I never went aground in my kayak, and the water in the channel was usually between five and seven feet deep. Passing under a railroad bridge, previous flooding along the river was quite evident with tree limbs caught in the bridgeworks twenty feet or so over the current level of the river.

The river was, according to the estimates of two civil engineers among us, generally about 150 feet across, and there were no hazards to navigation at all: no rapids, no sand bars, no shallow water, no deadfalls or sweepers across the river, and no fences. The shoreline is varied, but not as much as along the Big Sioux. Generally, there is a high bank on one shore and agriculture just beyond the shoreline. There are usually trees along at least one side of the river, often large trees. We saw little wildlife on this trip. With 16 kayaks moving along the river at mid-day, it is likely that birds and other critters just waited for us to pass.

The river is a little slower than the Big Sioux. One of our group had a GPS, and he informed me that our speed was generally about 3.3 miles per hour. We made one stop along the way to stretch it out.

Even with 16 kayaks on the water, we were spread out for over a mile. Sometimes I paddled along with no one in sight. Other times, I paddled along with one or two people. Conversation groups formed and dissolved as we cruised along. No one was in a hurry; we just cruised along. If someone fell too far behind, one of us would slow down and wait a little while. One of our group was on his first kayak cruise in his brand new boat; he was a novice and learning as we went along. Others were veterans of many kayak trips in a variety of waters.

None of us had been on this stretch of the “Jim” River, and many of us had not been on the James at all before today. We didn’t know what to expect of this river. All of us, though, left with a very positive image of this paddling opportunity. This was a perfect stretch of water for a four-hour cruise. Mitchell isn’t really so far from Sioux Falls, and it is also only a couple hours from Pierre. Kayakers from Pierre often participate on SDCA outings, and it was good to finally have an event within a decent drive for them (Check out Pirates of the Missouri from my kayak links). I drove out on Interstate 90 and just cruised along with no trouble. On the way back, I decided to take the scenic route along Highway 38 and drove back on the two-lane listening to “the best” of Bruce Springsteen on my car CD player.

So, as Jarett Bies would say, “ the intel for the trip was great, and this was a good op.” We all had a great time on the Jim.

You will probably find further descriptions of this cruise on the following blogs which can be accessed through my links: SDCA, Kayak SoDak, Peddle and Paddle, and Pirates of the Missouri.

Lake Herman - Mid-August 2008

In preparation for a kayak trip this morning, last night I loaded the boat on top of the Honda Civic and made sure that all my gear was ready for an early morning departure for one of the area waterways. I decided to return to Lake Herman, near Madison, SD, and about 58 miles north and west of my eastside Sioux Falls home. I left town at 7:00 a.m. and arrived at Lake Herman State Park about 8:00. The winds were calm, the temperature was in the 60s, and the lake was deserted. Although this is known as a busy lake on weekends and holidays, on this Wednesday morning in mid-August, I did not see another boat on the lake; it was completely deserted throughout my entire cruise.

Lake Herman is a good-sized glacial lake with a general north-south orientation. The surface area is 1,350 acres, or about 15 times that of Lake Alvin. The map of the lake resembles a seahorse shape, divided into a northern larger portion and a smaller southern part, with the lake narrowing through a strait at the dividing point. The distance from the northern shore to the southern is about 2.5 miles, and the lake is about 1.5 miles wide at the greatest separation, east to west. I paddled in my usual perimeter fashion and covered about 2/3 of the shoreline. I ran out of time and did not cover the northern half of the larger portion, even though I spent two hours on my paddle. My rule is to spend less time in the car than on the paddle, and I needed to spend those two hours in the boat in order to live up to my self-imposed personal expectation. My route along the lake was rather slow paced with time to appreciate the landscape and to take photos. I would guess that two hours of steady paddling would be adequate for a circuit around the entire lake.

The South Dakota Department of Game Fish and Parks manages a park along the eastern shore, and there is a very functional launching ramp, ample parking, and a vault toilet just inside the park entrance.

The park property extends from about the middle of the eastern shore of the larger portion of the lake, down south around a peninsula, and continues south toward the middle of the southern portion of the lake. Even past the park property, though, there is nearly continuous tree growth along the shore to the west side of the southern portion. I kayaked for 30 minutes or more before coming to a group of about a dozen cabins on the eastern shore of the southern portion.

Passing offshore of the cabins, I noticed a flock of pelicans hanging out on a narrow spit of land along the east side of the southern body of water. I was able to get pretty close to the flock without spooking them into flight. As I got closer to them, they began edging off their point and moving a little farther away from me. There must have been a couple dozen pelicans, along with some of their pals, the gulls.


I continued along the eastern shore, past a resort that was a 4-H camp, until I reached the eastside public access point. This launching area is across the northern portion of the lake from the park, and this is the widest part of the lake. While the park itself is a “fee area,” no park sticker is generally required at “lake access” points.

When I arrived at the lake, there was nearly a flat calm upon the water at the park launching area, and this calm extended about 100 yards off shore. The sun was low on the horizon at 8:00 a.m., so I was able to stay in the shade as I made my way south along the western side. On the way back north, however, the sun had come up higher, and I was in direct sunlight; in addition, the wind came up, creating 6-8 inch waves in unsheltered parts of the lake, especially noticeable as I headed west back to the dock.

But, again, the lake was deserted. There was no worry about wakes to avoid or concern about being run down by a maddened power boater. No one was even fishing!

I was very pleased with the paddling opportunity this morning. The shoreline of Lake Herman is mostly wooded, and there are cabins on only a few scattered parts of the lake. Much of the shoreline is ringed with large boulders to prevent erosion. There are no islands in the lake, nor much in the way of coves to be explored. This is a fine lake for paddling, with a good bit of variation in topography. The lake is pretty large in terms of prairie lakes, and wind will always be a factor when venturing out on such a large body of water.

A few years ago, I visited Lake Herman with my Folbot, but I was not much impressed by its possibilities; it did not draw me back. This time, I have a very different view. The nearly perfect conditions observed created a warm feeling in me toward this body of water. I like the tranquility of the lake, the foliage along most of the shoreline, and the variations presented by such a larger body of water. I recommend Lake Herman and will be returning.

Mid-Summer on Lake Alvin

In retirement, it seems to me that one of the major tasks is to keep fit. Each day I try to engage in a set of outside physical activities for two hours; in a given week, I will go kayaking once or twice, go on a circuit of the Sioux Falls bike trail (20 miles) once or twice, and take a long hike in one of the nearby nature areas, usually with our dog, Finnegan, the other days of the week. This was a day I had set aside for kayaking. While I most enjoy going to a new or seldom visited area, sometimes going out to Lake Alvin is my best bet, especially if there are other obligations coming during the day. A trip to Lake Alvin can be accomplished in 2½ hours, providing a good 1½ hours or more on the water. It is 15 minutes from my driveway to the dock. I go out to this body of water about a dozen times a year.

While it may seem as though this lake might become “old hat,” I nearly always find a new slant to the water, the skies, the angle of the sun, the shoreline, the birds, and the foliage. Each trip to the lake is unique, there are always subtle changes to observe, special nuances about the environment that capture my attention.

Today, I put in at the public access area and found it deserted, as usual. There was only a light breeze that ruffled parts of the lake. I considered taking my umbrella to sail a little, but there was too little wind to make that worthwhile. Parts of the lake were in the lee of the wind and were a millpond. This phenomenon creates sharp reflections, and I enjoyed looking at the foliage as it formed a dual pattern of images.

The surface of the lake was varied. In those areas touched by the wind, there were 2-inch waves lapping the side of the kayak. In those sheltered areas, there was sometimes a thin green coating of algae spread out from the shoreline. There are a number of little coves along the shore, and this was a good day to move into them to observe the still waters.

One boat was out on the lake with two guys on their first time fishing this lake. They asked me were the fish were biting, but I’ve never fished the lake. In fact, I have never been sport fishing. A couple of times in my life, I have worked as a deckhand on fishing boats in the Pacific Northwest, but I don’t know anything about sport fishing. I had no advice for these guys. I did, however, see lots of carp in shallow waters, but I doubt that this is the sort of fishing they had in mind.

I did the normal circuit of the lake perimeter, beginning at the public access area, going across the lake and up toward the fishing dock, around to the spillway, and then back down the shoreline past the swimming beach and the Recreation Area dock, ending up at the public access dock again. I did not go up into Nine-Mile Creek today. I was to meet my wife and a couple of friends at a restaurant downtown in Sioux Falls at noon, and my time was running out.

Lake Alvin is a great place to paddle for exercise and also provides a bit of scenery. I have never been able to maintain a gym membership; I prefer outdoor activities for caloric expenditure and to keep my muscles toned rather than work on machines in a gym. So, I have to remind myself that Lake Alvin is a good spot for paddling and looking at the environment, and it is not always necessary to drive so far to another lake every time I want to go out.

A guy and his dog were in the public access area as I wrapped up my little cruise today. He told me that his daughter and her husband have kayaks and have been out in the Pacific Ocean with their boats, as well as down whitewater rivers in Colorado. Maybe he was offering a contrast to my rather tame circuit around Lake Alvin. But then, he was standing on the shore, and I was out in my kayak on the lake: Better Lake Alvin on a calm day than kicking back in the recliner watching the day pass.