• Monday-What'sUP May 17 - 10:12 am

Quality time with your children anytime, anywhere, is a good thing, but make it a trip to the Montreal River and it then becomes a great thing! Bob Gilreath and son made just such a journey and thankfully have decided to share the fun. With the rainy weekend we just endured here in the Keweenaw, folks must be feeling a bit cooped up, so I figured a slideshow of the event was in order, to start Monday off with a bang! Now, having personally made the trek in to the Montreal River, I know it's a bit of a hike on foot, so I can't imagine hauling my kayak in there too. Now, though, after several viewings, I think I may have to give it a try!

Thanks for the nice slideshow!

It looks really cold, but really fun. Beautiful scenery!: )

Great pics and slides to start off the week.

Hey Bob G - looks great! Nice to see a river where the banks don't just drop about 20' straight down to a murky trickle with no trees on the bank. Ahh, Kansas.

Thanks again for finding my keys in that snowbank however many years ago. :)

Thanks for the beautiful pictures this morning. It looks like you had a great time; wish I was there!

Where abouts is the Montreal River?

Beautiful slideshow. I was looking through Steve Brimm's gallery (another outstanding collection of photos) and noticed a comment from Taka Aoki (sp), someone who's photos I have missed around here. Has anybody heard from Taka lately?

Looks like a couple of kayakers heading towards Sharon Smith's place at Copper Harbor. Or maybe they are fisherman. It's got to be mighty cold on the water today.

I have asked about Taka many times on this site. You must be checking in here, Taka. Drop us a note!

There are areas that you can access the river with just a few steps, if your vehicle doesnt mind some bounces here and there.

Looks like they put in on the Mandan Road (Copper Harbor side bridge) and took the Copper Lake Trail back - don't know if you can drive down that road anymore or if they had to portage their kayaks back.

Taka has had his own photo web site: CutOnion.com for some time after returning to Japan. You can email him there: taka@cutonion.com

Taka still maintains his internet site CutOnion.com. It used to be a daily picture. Now he has a new job in Japan and only updates the site every Sunday.

Great view of the Montreal river.One of my favorite fishing place along with the Gratiot and Traprock for many years.

My wife and I spent a night along the Montreal River Off the Empire Mine Road about40 years ago. We intended to do some brook trout fishing. It rained all night and all we had for a shelter was an old tarp that was full of holes.
It wasn't large enough to cover us so we left our legs out in the rain, We had our hip boots on so that helped. It was still raining tte next morning. We managed to get a fire started and heated a can of Dinty Moore stew for breakfast. We fished for awhile in the morning, caught one brookie then decided to leave to go back to Lake Medora. It was a very wet fishing trip, and was one of several outdoor ventures my wife and I really have enjoyed together

What a great story, Gus! And the old stand-by
Dinty Moore stew. It pretty close to homemade anyway.

Yes, Gus ,
My husband and I have feasted on Dinty Moore
stew after nearly freezing to death while
canoeing through a snowstorm in Algonquin
Park on the long week-end in May. We lived to
tell the story, which seemed like a miracle at
the time. My husband and his friend Jim and I
kept paddling, but the guys, neither very
religious, asked me to sing hymns and pray. I
did!

Bless your heart kosk, toronto!

we actually dropped a mountian bike off at the second mandan road bridge (the one to the east)and drove back to a side road that crosses the montreal just west of breakfeast lake (4.5 miles). Rob biked back and got the truck when we finished.

Now having fished this section before, I knew most of it. The first good rapids you see above we negotiated successfully.

On my mapping program I saw that we dropped 100 feet in 4 miles. not to bad. But at one part I saw a drop of 40 feet in 300 yards. hmmm was that right?

Yes it was right. we tried to run it and I dumped first then Rob dumped trying to catch my boat coming downstream. Man that water was cold!

We may have ben able to run the second section in the proper boat, but I Took the longer boat 12.5 instead of 9.5, because it had a dry well in the back. Mistake, can't manuever that long of a boat in the rapids.

So if you go to this section, be careful, learn from our run, and portage around (south shore) of the second long drop.

Two years ago we ran the section from the where the medora river comes into the montreal to the bridge we put in at this time. it was slow water all snagged up on the first part and so shallow and rocky the second we were walking dragging the boats most of the way, but that was in august with the water down.

all in all it was a great trip.

Thanks Bob, I had forgotten about these rapids below the "middle" bridge (I remember the National Guard-Calumet Engineers rebuilding that bridge about 15-20 years ago for a snowmobile trail, at that time it was a nice place to camp) - I was sort of wondering why I couldn't quite place these rapids while looking through your gallery - I thought it was because of the high water. It would have been nice to see some pictures of the second set of rapids, there's a couple nice drops in there. There is a trail from Estavant Pines/Clark mine that crosses at the top of the rapids (no bridge) and continues to Mandan Road, if we're talking the about the same rapids.

Yes we are, and thankfully the reason there are no pictures of the second set is because I had sealed up my camera and stuffed it away in the water proof hold in the back, before I dumped.