Reflections

I’ve spent a good bit of time kayaking on the Clark Canyon Reservoir while staying in the area.

The reservoir is pretty large and most of the shoreline is relatively benign.  However; there is an island in the middle and it has some pretty neat looking cliffs that drop off into the water.

I was out paddling recently and the lake was pretty smooth so I decided it was time to head out to the island.  Boy, am I sure glad I made the effort.

Sitting in the water at the base of the rock face was pretty amazing.  The water wasn’t glass smooth but was smooth enough for the reflection of the cliff on the water to be pretty great.  I hope these photos convey a small percentage of how neat the sight was in person!

The information I found on the reservoir says that it has approximately 7.5 miles of shoreline.  I was feeling energetic Saturday morning and it was a calm day – what else could I do but plan to paddle around the entire lake?
I very quickly learned that one cannot look backwards nor too far forwards.  Looking back can be a little depressing as you probably haven’t paddled as far as it feels and looking too far forward becomes depressing when you realize you aren’t getting there very quickly.  So, I started focusing on short range goals.  This was most certainly not a speed attempt – I just tried to maintain a steady pace.  I found a number of very neat shallow areas and spotted some monster fish swimming below me (monster = 18″??).  In all, the entire lap took nearly four hours and it sure felt great!!

Oh, that reminds me.  Several people have asked about the arm.  It is doing pretty well but was very tired after the lap around the lake.  Still a ways to go to back to full strength and full range of motion.