By the time I make it to String Lake around midday the beach is already a mess of tots, parents, visitors, and recent high school grads attempting to tan in the middle of Wyoming like they’re on a beach in Cabo. But it looks like I’ll be the first watercraft on the lake this morning. So far.
I slide past a family with children who’ve staked their claim on a piece of silty sand that lets their kids run safely into the water a few feet before they let out a surprised shriek at the cold and run back to their young, bemused parents. Odds are this blond, curly headed family is just as likely to be German or Dutch as they are to be a third (and fourth) generation of Ohioans who’ve escaped the midwest humidity for our dry air in the mountains. They’ve come searching for a piece of freedom from their lives. Like I have.
I forget them as I push off into the mountain-cold water, with an icy shock that temporarily gives me freedom of thought. Tourists and my life in town don’t matter today. All I think about is the moment: tying my sandals to the board, starting some easy strokes, avoiding the wind as much as possible.
I navigate a rocky barrier on my knees as I paddle against the mild current towards the north end of String. Once I’ve passed the treacherous rocks waiting to grab at the boards fins, I stand up, a slim sail in the wind. I leisurely stroke my way through the sandy turquoise water and pass a canoe camp group just learning how to paddle in sync. I hit the top of String Lake and exit the water, huffing and puffing my way along the portage trail a quarter mile with the paddleboard awkwardly under one arm. I try not to trip down the grand staircase at the portage point, an unlikely piece of man-made assistance mercifully unoccupied by kayakers or Brady-Bunch canoe clans. I’ve make it Leigh Lake.
I am alone. I like it that way, up here. The vastness of Leigh Lake invites solitude, a freedom from the need to be with the crowd, an adventure in a single day. Aside from anyone camping in the backwood’s permit camps along the shores of Leigh, I am alone on a piece of water that far and away dwarfs String Lake.
I quickly strike out lake-left along a wide channel that has carved out an island; or, it is possible that the channel itself was created by the island as it tumbled off the nearby mountain range thousands of years ago. A case of chicken or egg first, and I don’t leave my mind on it for long as I make practiced, steady strokes, intent on any destination taking me away from my life at the moment.
I often come here with a need to be alone. I find the clear water peaceful along this channel, submerged rocks and boulders visible at 20, 30, or 40 feet below my paddleboard. I can’t be sure of how deep it actually is. The water plays tricks with your eyes until you’ve learned what those distances look like through the liquid medium. I pause in my strokes, steady the board and jump in, half of my mind instantly occupied by the crisp water as it shortens my breaths, the other half on the grip I have on my paddle. I kick my legs out and float, my senses blissfully clouded out by the sounds of water filling my ears, the sun blinding me as it comes out from behind a cloud. The mountain runoff that feeds this lakes and the creeks and rivers nearby is still cold. It grasps my lungs in icy hands, and shortens the attention span of my mind to single moments, feeling only my body, suspended in the blue-green glass of Leigh.
In my periphery my paddleboard is considering it’s escape – we’re out of the wind, but it only takes a moment for the current and the wind to catch what little resistance the inflated rubber will give.
I allow myself one more suspended moment of freedom in that water before it gets just too cold, and then I strike out for the paddleboard. I suddenly wonder, irrationally, what might be below me in the rocky depths that I might not see, and I long for the peace of my mind I had been immersed in only seconds ago.
Back on my paddleboard, I kneel for a moment, catching my breath, before I strike out again, farther into Leigh Lake. Measured strokes taking me foot by foot farther away from the masses, closer and closer to myself.
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I’ve seen surfboarding and plenty of skateboarding but no paddleboarding, so this was great first of all for me as a how-to about how that works. Then the local geography was fascinating, sending me straight to a Wyoming map to see those lakes in relation to what I knew before. There was the nice sense of how that area draws people from all over the world. And finally, throughout the piece, there was the clear message of personal challenge and personal satisfaction in that place. Enticing! Mary