Jason and I woke up this morning and headed straight to Lake Cushman to do some kayaking! This place is super popular in the summer with people paddleboarding, swimming, kayaking, and just generally partying so we wanted to beat them all to the parking area.  Turns out people here get started late in the day because we were there at 9 and the parking lot was deserted! Unfortunately for us we had planned on the morning being calm, but it was actually extremely windy.  So windy that the area to the left of the bridge was just white caps. Dangit, but we already had the boats unloaded so we went anyway! I really need to get our Gopro camera set up on my boat so I could get photos of the waves breaking on the bow of my kayak! It was exciting! But not really the type of paddle we were wanting.  Lake Cushman is really interesting because in the shallow areas there are huge stumps of trees that were cut and gigantic boulders.  All things that are neat to see in calm water but you don’t want to hit when it’s rough and get knocked out of your boat! Luckily the lake water is pleasantly warm, but still!

After we paddled out into the main lake, fighting the large waves, we turned around and went back under the bridge into the protected side of the lake to explore the shallow area full of large trees.  Eventually we decided to paddle up the little creek that feeds the lake.  The creek, however, is like snow melt from the mountains so the further we paddled up the creek the colder the water got.  I started to feel the cold seeping through the hull of the kayak on the backs of my calves! It was crazy how quickly the water turned icy cold!

This was such an amazing area to explore by kayak! I really want to go back when the wind is calm so we can see into the water and paddle around all of the rocks and trees.