I drove up to Star Lake on Sunday, September 15th. I left home a little after nine o’clock in the morning and arrived at the East Star Lake State Park at quarter past one in the afternoon. I had booked a site at West Star Lake State Park, on the other side of the lake, but I had to drive past East Star Lake to get there, so I stopped to take a look, see what it was like.

There are two parts to East Star Lake State Park: the main campground, where they have the usual big open camp sites suitable for the enormous pull-behind trailers everyone seems to have now. These are perfectly fine camp sites and I have often used them when I’m car camping. Three of the sites had direct access to the lake: there’s a short path from 1616 to the swimming beach, and both 1621 and 1622 are almost right on the shore of a small sheltered bay, each with a short path to a muddy shore. I saw boats tied up to the shore at all three sites while I was there.

Across the bay, separated from the main campground, there’s a public boat ramp, and just to the south of the boat ramp a small peninsula juts out into the bay. Along the shore of the peninsula opposite of the boat ramp there are four walk-in sites. The first three sites, 1627, 1628 and 1629, are all roughly the same size. The fourth site, 1630, is on the very end of the peninsula. 1627 has a level spot for a fairly large tent, maybe 6 x 10, while the other two have only small patches of sloping ground suitable for smaller tents, maybe 4 x 8 at the largest. 1627 is the only one of the three where there are trees well-sited to hang a hammock. And 1627 has probably the best access to the water, with two places to beach a canoe or kayak. The shore is muddy but the bottom just a step or two from the shore is sandy and firm and just ankle-deep for 10-15 feet in every direction, making it very easy to launch a canoe or kayak. 1628 has a sandy bottom too, but the access is very narrow. 1629 has a mucky bottom and is also very narrow. 1630 has a gorgeous view of the bay from all sides of the end of the peninsula. There’s a pretty steep drop-off from the site to the water, but the bottom is firm sand with some rocks.

I ended up canceling my reservation at West Star Lake and camping at the nearest walk-in site in East Star Lake, 1627, for three nights. Changing my reservation was easier said than done. All the camping sites at Star Lake must be reserved through an online system. Booking a site incurs a $7.95 reservation fee, whether it’s for two nights or two weeks. Changing or canceling a reservation incurs an additional $5.00 fee. I thought changing my reservation would be worth the $5.00 fee, but hoo boy was I wrong. I tried several times to change my reservation but could only get so far before I got an error message telling me to refresh the page, which would wipe out all my changes, forcing me to start over. So frustrating!

Eventually, I got far enough to change the site number, but still ran up against an error, lost my changes, and when I started over I couldn’t choose the site I wanted because the system was holding it in reserve from my previous try.
In desperation I chose another site, not the one I wanted but good enough. This time, I got far enough to confirm my reservation, but the system wouldn’t let me because apparently I can’t reserve two different sites for the same night. The only solution for that was to cancel my reservation at West Star Lake, incurring a $5.00 fee. Additionally, I had to pay $16.00 because I canceled after check-in time, so the system charged me for the day I would have occupied the site.

When I tried once again to book a site at East Star Lake, it wouldn’t let me because my initial attempts were still in the system. I had to wait about a half-hour for them to time out! ARRGH! With nothing to do but wait, I made a sandwich and sat down to a late lunch. The silver lining in that dark cloud was that I got to reserve the site that was my first choice, 1627, but what should have cost me a $5.00 change fee and an additional $16.00 camping fee ended up costing me $76.95: $16.00 each night for three nights, a $7.95 booking fee, a $5.00 cancellation fee, and $16.00 for a day I was booked to occupy a site at West Star Lake. Scam.

By the time I finished untangling the mess of reserving my camp site, it was already late in the afternoon. I strung my hammock between a couple of trees, hung the fly over it, and laid out the quilts so I wouldn’t have to worry about that later. Then I backed the van down the boat ramp, unshipped the kayak from the roof and left it on the grass while I parked the van before going back to paddle the kayak around the peninsula to land it on the shore below my camp site. I had to fetch a few things from the van to complete setting up my camp site for the evening, but when I was satisfied that everything was ready, I plopped my butt in the kayak again and went for a long paddle around the south shore of the lake.

The Plum Lake Hemlock Forest State Natural Area stretches across most of the south shore of Star Lake. In fact, almost all the land around Star Lake is state-owned, so there’s very little development on the lake shore. This makes for a very peaceful, serene paddling experience. After I paddled out of the protected bay south of the campground, I turned south along the east shore and dawdled slowly to the south shore, then west along the south shore until I came to the first of two canoe camping sites on the lake. I landed the kayak and got out to scout the camp site, take some photos, and stretch my legs.

The site is clearly marked with a bright orange-yellow sign on a brown signpost on the shoreline. The site is wide open to the lake. There shoreline drops off sharply 3 – 4 feet from the camp site to the water. Timber steps climb the shore from the landing to the site. The ground across most of the site is level dirt, interrupted sparsely by older trees. Mostly it’s wide open and there’s room for many large tents. There’s a fire ring and a picnic table.

The landing faces a beach with a firm, sandy bottom that’s knee-deep as far as 15 – 20 feet from shore. The sandy bottom stretches at least a dozen yards on either side of the camp site. A couple of families with lots of kids who love to splash in the water could have a great time camping at this site.

It took me about 45 minutes to paddle lazily down to the camp site, and about 45 minutes to paddle back. Oh, and I made another stop along the way, at an island just outside the bay. In all, I was paddling for about two hours, so it was on toward evening by the time I got back.

I boiled some water for a freeze-dried dinner, ate it, then stretched out in my camp chair to stare at the water for a while. The sun went down at seven and by eight it was too dark to see anything without a light, but it was still very warm so when I crawled into bed I pushed the quilt aside and laid there for a while in nothing but my shorts, hot & sweaty. Gradually it cooled off enough that I covered my legs, then my torso. At some point in the night I had to pull on the pair of sweat pants I kept close by, and later still the hoodie, to keep warm.

The sky was clear and the moon was full every night I was camped at Star Lake. It rose within an hour of sunset and brightly lit up the sky all night long. I always kept a couple flashlights handy, but I didn’t have to use them. Every time I rolled out of bed to pee, I could easily find my way around the camp site in the moonlight without tripping over stumps or guy lines.

Monday morning was cool but not cold. I kept my sweat pants and hoodie on for an hour or so but after eating breakfast and moving around the camp site, I quickly got warm enough to change out of sweats into shorts. After breakfast, I left the campsite at about eight o’clock for a long paddle around the lake. I paddled straight from the bay to the first canoe camping site. I couldn’t see it from the bay but I knew about where it was and found it very easily. After landing, I got out to stretch my legs, walk up and down the long, sandy beach, and take some more photos before getting into the kayak.

From the first canoe camp site I headed west-northwest along the shoreline, looking for the second canoe camping site. Found it after paddling just 15 – 20 minutes, and that was just dawdling along. I probably could have covered the distance between the two in less than 10 minutes if I put my back into it, they were that close. Site 2 is on the western side of a wide bay in the north shore of the Plum Lake Hemlock Forest State Natural Area.

The second site is, in my opinion, a much nicer camp site than site 1. Smaller, and the beach is not as wide, which I have to say only because the sandy-bottomed beach at the first site stretched for yards and yards on either side of the landing. The beach at site two was still very wide, it just didn’t stretch forever. The site is open to the east, but the opening is not as wide as site 1. Still, it lets in plenty of sun. The camp site is smaller but not small, again just a question of comparison. There was still lots of room to set up a couple big tents or many smaller tents, and lots of trees to hang a hammock from.

A portage from Star Lake to Plum Lake runs through the camp site, but the site is roomy enough that a visitor could set up camp to one side and never be bothered by paddlers tramping through.

After scouting the camp site, I sat on log along the shore to have a light snack and wash it down with water from my canteen, then I climbed back into the kayak and paddled slowly northeast up the shore, rounded a point and continued northwest.

Star Lake is U-shaped, the open end pointing northeast. When I rounded the point I was in the butt-end of the U, crossing from the bottom of the southern prong into the bottom of the northern prong. A spit of land pokes out into the lake at the bottom of the northern prong. The spit is surrounded by a shallow, firm, sandy bottom, making it easy to land and walk ashore. Wasn’t much to see here but, since leaving the camp site, I’d been paddling for about 45 minutes and was ready to stretch my legs, so I was happy to land and walk around for a bit.

The northwest shoreline of Star Lake is bluff sand and rock, and sometimes the surface is 15 – 25 feet above the water, so there’s not much to look at when paddling along the shore. There’s a big island in the northern arm of the lake, thickly wooded, that rises up rather abruptly from the water on all sides. There’s probably a place or two where I might’ve been able to land and climb up to take a look, but I’d been paddling for almost two hours and was already starting to think about going back to get some lunch. If I’d have packed a sandwich, I would have landed on the island, taken a break to satisfy my growling tummy, then explored the island for a while. But instead I paddled around the island, crossed the lake, paddled around the point that separated the two lobes of the lake, and kept going across the rest of the lake to the campground.

When I ran out to the van to gather up food and water for lunch, I met Jeff, the guy camped in site 1630 at the end of the peninsula, and struck up a conversation while he was getting his car ready to pack up all his gear. He asked if I was staying in 1627, asked me if I liked it. I told him I did but added that I thought he probably had the best site. That’s when he told me he’d been coming to Star Lake for years, and always tried to get the same spot. He invited me to go take a look at it, so I did. All his stuff was packed up in tight bundles on a ground cloth that looked to be at least 8 x 8 feet on a side. It was a lot of stuff. Like, so much stuff that you’d need at least a pickup truck to carry it. Jeff was driving a mid-size Buick LeSabre sedan. When I went back out to my van I said, “I don’t mean to pry, but I’d really like to know how you’re going to get all your stuff in that little car.” He smiled knowingly and answered, “Oh, it’s not a little car.” A couple hours later, as he was packing the last of his gear into the car, I had to tell him, “I’m ashamed to say I ever doubted you could get that all in there.” It even looked like he had some extra room for more stuff. I was impressed.

Jeff recommended hiking in the Plum Lake Hemlock Forest State Natural Area and told me a little about it. I had planned to hike there anyway, so I listened intently & asked a few questions. Best info he gave me was to drive down Hook Road about a mile to the trail head. I was planning on walking, but driving is the way to go. Hook Road is just a boring dirt road, nothing much to see along the way. There’s a small parking lot at the end of the road, maybe big enough for 5 vehicles, and the trail head is a very short walk into the woods.

I ended up walking the path along the same shoreline I had just paddled that morning. It was an easy path to follow, in the sense that I could clearly see where the path was at all times, in spite of the fact that it wasn’t blazed, but it followed a line along some steeply inclined ground that made it rather treacherous in places. Trekking poles helped me keep my balance while I found my footing in the worst spots. I had to push my way through undergrowth for the first half-mile or so, after which the path was more open with less bushwhacking required. I stopped at the first canoe camp site for a short rest, then pushed on to the second canoe camp site. From there I followed the portage over the hill to Plum Lake. I intended to walk back on a loop through the forest but couldn’t find the trail, so I ended up doubling back as far as site 1, where I followed a loop through the woods back to the parking lot. Big mistake. I had to crawl under 5 or 6 trees which had fallen across the path, was harried by gnats most of the way, and without the breeze off the lake, the heat and humidity were oppressive. I was so glad when I finally broke through the brush and could see the parking lot.

I tried to build a camp fire Monday night with mixed results. One of the previous occupants of the site had dragged a fallen pine tree in, leaving it by the fire ring but apparently never using any of it for fire wood. I cut the lower half of the trunk into a half-dozen pieces, then broke off a couple handfuls of twigs and branches for kindling. I piled the kindling on top of a wadded piece of newsprint in the fire ring and arranged three chunks of the trunk stood upright in a teepee over the kindling. After it got dark, I set the paper alight. The kindling burned very well, setting the bark of the thicker wood on fire, but the thick trunk did not want to burn, only smolder. I added several more handfuls of kindling to keep the flames going, but each time the kindling burned down to embers, the thicker wood would only smolder. Eventually, I gave up and let it go out.

I have no notes from Tuesday, but as I recall, I did more of the same: Woke up early, ate a hot breakfast, then wedged myself into my kayak do some paddling. This morning, I paddled across the lake to explore the shoreline of the big peninsula of land that points down into the U-shape of the lake. After beaching my kayak on the shore, I strolled around in the water. The bottom there is firm sand that stretches away from the shore for a couple dozen yards in some places. I could walk in water no deeper than my knees around most of the point. There was a small island about a hundred yards off the point and connected to it by a sand bar. I could walk almost all the way out to it, but a narrow channel cut me off. I wasn’t in the mood to swim for it so I turned back.

When I’d had enough of strolling through the waters around the point, I paddled up and around the waters of the right-hand prong of the U-shaped lake, then went back to camp for a late lunch. All the paddling, fresh air, and sunshine made me a little drowsy, so I napped in the sun for a while after lunch. I spend the rest of the afternoon exploring the campground and the woods around it before returning to my cap site for dinner. In the evening I sat in the now-abandoned camp site 1630 watching the sun go down over the bay.

Wednesday was my last day to pack out and head home, but before I did, I paddled around a little bit one last time, even though it was overcast and cool.