State Park: Proud Lake Recreation Area (Kayaking)

Place: State Park: Proud Lake Recreation Area

Today's Activity: Kayaking with Dad and Donna downriver 

Duration: ~ 2 hours 15 minutes

Time: Sunday ~11am

Cost: If you have your own equipment and park pass, then just the cost of gas (unless you want them to pick you up at the end of your trip. The other option is self-return). If you don't have your own equipment, it starts at $23/hour for a canoe and $33 for a kayak, which I find pretty expensive. Click here for all more details on rates.

The Experience: As obvious as it may seem, going to a park on the weekend means people.


And in this case, a LOT more people!


Happily, some of these people just happened to be friends of mine - we ran into them in the line for renting equipment. The Allen's are the BEST.

But anyway, that is something you may want to take into consideration if you prefer a more isolated experience (which I usually do) but it really is great fun sometimes to be around a lot of people, so it just depends on the kind of experience you want.

Important to note - When you go kayaking or canoeing here, you can go upriver or downriver, with the option of being picked up downriver (which also takes you to Kensington park, FYI) and after the first stop, the experience changes completely on your way to the second pickup site. We thought that "downriver" would mean a wee current to help us out, but this didn't show up until after we carried our kayaks over the dam and continued on to the second stop. It was a bit easier after that.

To get to the first pickup site, it takes about an hour, and as you'll see in the photos, there was some pretty heavy traffic - a lot of people were out enjoying the beautiful weather on the weekend.

Waiting our turn to get in the water - HI ALLENs!

Bye Mike, Janelle and Dan! (They went upriver though)

Dad and Donna's kayak, with the one I rented to the left.

A couple canoeing just ahead of us.

The scenery changed from being narrower...paths, I guess,
to more open, like here.

Go left to go downriver, go right to go upriver (which
means you come back yourself and not picked up)

Some more scenery going downriver. 

Dad and Donna

Some sassy swans.

For the first hour, there was usually a couple people both ahead and
behind us - the second hour was totally different.

Oh hey turtle!

More of what I was hoping for/expecting, but we got more of this
during the second half of the trip.

Poor goose got attacked by a turtle, but he got away.

After a while, you start to see homes dot the river.

There were maybe 6 or 7 bridges over our 2 hour 15 min trip. This was
one of the nicer-looking ones, some of the others were just plain with
cars passing overhead... meh.

Resting in the shade under the bridge.

More scenery on the way to the first stop.

The first stop is in Milford, where you can get out and have a picnic if you brought your own food, or you can do like us and walk 5 minutes into town and get something to eat - there was a great pizza and sub shop that we ordered subs at (and they were delicious). Some people got picked up here, but we just fueled up with lunch and continued on our way to the second stop (which was about another hour downstream):

Leaving Milford/stop 1 and about to come to the Canoe Portage...

Time to awkwardly grab our kayaks...

...and slide them down this! (it's easier in pairs)

It smelled a little fishy on the other side.

Dad and Donna passing a man fishing in a tube, where it also began
to get VERY shallow...

This was my absolute favorite part, the second hour after the first stop. It would seem that most people stopped to get picked up from the first stop or returned themselves, and so we ran into very few people the second half, which I also found much prettier:

I loved this - it got so shallow we had to get out and walk to deeper water.

I was splashing around like a little kid, it was fun.

Dad and Donna coming around a bend, about to go under the tree
(it was too shallow on the other side)

Hey Dad!

If you want to skip the first part, it seemed possible to launch your kayaks from several other locations, including the second pick-up site, but I'll let you sort the details out yourself...

Next time, I'd like to go back during the week and try a self-return and go the other direction upriver.

I suppose that's all for now.

Now go outside, have fun, and stay safe! :)

More information: click here for more information on the Proud Lake Recreation Area