A company owned and operated by people who care in Northern Michigan. Life is Short’s, drink it while you’re here.

Hey Short’s fans! We have a few announcements we’d like to announce, with more information to come soon:

Announcing the 2010 Short’s to Short’s paddle April 30th. Registration and details coming soon. For now, please enjoy our video from last year’s pre-paddle and a note from Joe Short from last year’s event:

The official Short’s 2 Short’s pre paddle report

Yesterday (4.19.09) Leah, Monica, Ryan, Woj and I paddled kayaks from Short’s Brewing Company in Bellaire to Short’s Brewing Company in Elk Rapids. My alarm did not go off; as I had it set incorrectly. We started the day with a late start. Our goal was to be on the water by 6:30 a.m. We were all in the water by 7:47 a.m. We launched our vessels at the Intermediate River Boat launch behind Fisher Insurance. We had lunches, water and coffee, and extra warm gear packed on our boats in waterproof containers. All of us except Monica had kayak skirts. I managed to go most of the day without mine, as it reduced your ability to access beer.

The Intermediate stretch to Lake Bellaire and Lake Bellaire to Grass River took a casual 50 minutes. There was a little chop on Bellaire and with wet hands became cold (bring warm stuff). Once entering Grass River, we enjoyed the leasurly ride to Clam Lake, which took just about an hour. We rested at the clam lake boat launch for about 20 minutes and proceeded to head down the lake toward the Dockside where we had the safety boat parked and Captain Curt waiting for us. Once we got to the Dockside, Woj rolled his kayak and we had to break so he could change into dry close (note: back up gear). It took another hour to get from Clam Lake to Torch Lake after the whole Woj incident. There we offloaded some of our gear with Captain Crut and the Ski Nautique and began our paddle to the south end of Torch at 11:10 a.m. Torch was calm and it was sprinkling a little bit. Since the water was flat, we decided to skip out on the Alden drop point and make the long diagonal paddle toward the river to save time. Shortly after we made this call the wind picked up and to our benefit was blowing south west. It likely helped the speed, but maybe canceled out due to the heavy chop. I’d say at least a foot to 18” at times. I speed up my, as I wanted to be out of the rough water as soon as possible. I arrived at Torch River at 1:10 p.m. and waited for the rest of the crew to roll in. We broke for lunch at the mouth of the river and resumed our kayak trip at 2:10 p.m.

Torch River started with a little head wind and it began to die down and change direction as we wound about and into more covered areas. The river ride took under an hour and the wind was heavy at our backs once in Lake Skegemog, with rollers trying to get into the boats. I clocked a video documentation at 3:10 p.m. at Skegemog. In Skegemong to Elk Lake was mostly riding the rollers in and having a few beers. The group was scattered all over the lake and Captain Crut continued to make the rounds. When we hit Elk Lake the chop seemed to die down a little until we reached the east arm and the wind picked up. These were pretty intense waters and still no time was recorded. The chop and wind began to die as we entered the mouth of Elk River. Leah decided she wanted a couple of short tows from the safety boat through part of Elk Lake. Being towed behind the boat in a kayak looked pretty fun.

Paddling became easier in Elk River and a great way to wind down the paddle to the finish. We landed at the Elk River Boat Launch at 5:00 p.m. on the dot. The safety boat and the rest of the paddlers tricked in shortly after. I can’t wait to do it again!

-Joe Short

Some of you may want to arrive in this fashion:

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