Duck Lake on the morning of July 4, 2008

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An early morning fisherman on Muskegon County’s Duck Lake.

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This was from a morning walk early in October. Needless to say, the sun’s appearance was very brief.

The sunrise over Duck Lake looking from the western shore.

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Chris leaves a wake while retrieving a stick during a sunrise walk this past weekend.

The gorgeous clouds are the advance team for the rain which started just a few minutes after she returned with here prize.

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As is normal for our weekend mornings, Chris once again decided that life is far too short to spend too much time getting too much sleep – especially if there is a possibility that someone might be irritated and irrigated into taking her out for a hike.

With the (very) early start, we made it to the big lake in time to catch the setting of last night’s beautiful full moon.

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Don’t let those small speckles in the photo trick you into cleaning either your glasses or your monitor. They are the navigation lights of just a few of the many boats fishing off the channel this morning. So many, in fact, that it seemed as if the stars were testing the startling new concept of shining both above and below the horizon.

And not all of the fishing action was off-shore. While the boaters were out chasing their salmon, both the north and south walls of the channel were filled with anglers hoping to add perch onto tonight’s menu.

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If you walk the beach even occasionally, you realize that this size of crowd isn’t normal, but then neither are the number of perch. The schools are so inordinately large that most of the fishermen are simply doing a quick visual reconnaissance over the wall before dropping their lines right into the middle of a lot of fish. Not quite as easy as dragging them from a barrel, but it could be worse!

Lest anyone think that this sums up the pre-dawn (!) action, at this same time, on the eastern end of the wall, the crew of the dredging ship, Carol Ann, was heading out. Their work is the reason for the large black pipe that you will find stretched across the south wall. It will be moving sand from the bottom of the waterway onto the beach.

Chris was surprisingly unimpressed by all the early AM activity and insisted on heading home for breakfast. Said insistence being equivalent to a wave insisting on going ashore, we departed. Shortly after leaving the channel, the sun finally showed up and seemed no more moved than Chris by all of the action.

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We were allowed to sleep slightly longer on July 5 before being dragged right back to Chris’ favorite swimming hole. But, even this (all too) minimally later hour led to an remarkably different view at the lake.

On this trip, we arrived just as the sun appeared over the trees to the east – and began burning off of fog along the southern shore.

As you can see, Chris was surprisingly oblivious to all of these aesthetic nuances. Her far greater concern being whether or not someone was going to throw the damn stick.

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In spite of that famous section of the Federalist Papers in which Madison declared that…

…on July 4, the People of these United States shall remain in bed until such time as it is deemed appropriate to devour numerous foodstuffs of indeterminate origin, especially those which shall be named as both hot dogs and hamburgs.

When consumption of any additional alleged foods shall no longer be physically possible, the sound of the citizens’ collective groans, stomach rumbles and burps shall signal the commencement of the celebration of our country’s founding. Said celebration shall be accomplished with the expenditure of much of our nation’s treasure on really cool Chinese fireworks…

…Chris still got up early for a hike over to Duck Lake. It was just as well that she did, as we are still hoping to get out of here soon for a day trip on the Little Manistee.

The walk into the park was awfully dark, but, luckily, Chris knows the trails very well, especially the one to her favorite swimming spot. We got to the lake just in time for the dawn to start to break over the eastern shore of the lake.

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It took Chris only a few minutes of dragging me through some very tall and very wet weeds to get to her swimming spot. It was well worth the soaked jeans to enjoy the view.

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Chris decided that this morning would be a perfect time to explore the southwestern shore of Duck Lake. Her instincts couldn’t have been better.

As we turned the corner from Duck Lake Road onto Scenic, the sun finally made it’s first appearance of the day and made up for sleeping in by putting on quite a show for us.

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When Chris finished her swim, we headed down some seemingly impassable trails that she insisted were otherwise, we came upon these Dwarf Irises (Iris lacustris Nitt).

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We understand that these are endangered. This makes sense having never run across them before – and not finding many this morning either.

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According to “Michigan wildflowers in color” by Harry C. Lund, these are found almost exclusively on the sandy or gravelly shores of Lake Michigan or Huron and the boggy areas adjacent. He list it as “a threatened species do not disturb”.
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Rain clouds and their reflections frame the eastern shore of Muskegon County’s Duck Lake on June 22, 2008.

This is one of our dog Chris’ favorite places to wander. If you are tempted to try it with your hound, remember to keep an eye (and leash) out for encounters with the resident skunks. Just this morning, we had two separate meetings that worked out fine, but could easily have gone otherwise.

If in spite of that, you are still tempted, here’s more info on the park from the DNR website.

Duck Lake State Park is a 728-acre day-use park, located in Muskegon County. Featuring a towering sand dune, the park stretches from the northern shore of Duck Lake to Lake Michigan. The terrain is a mixture of open brush land to mature hardwood forest, with some pockets of open meadows mixed in.

The land was purchased by the Nature Conservancy from two Boy Scout organizations, and acquired by the state in 1974. Remains of the old scout camps were removed and access roads were constructed.

The park was officially dedicated in the spring of 1988.

A new entrance off of Scenic Drive was completed in May 2005.