Trip Reports

6th Annual Betsie River Sweep

Saturday, June 10, 2017

We partnered up with the Benzie Conservation District to do this fun cleanup.



This year we didn't have the troops of Scouts that we usually do.  Nor did we
have the upstream people who were there last year.  But we got a lot
done with those who did arrive.  Among the newcomers were a couple from
Traverse City (Dave and Chris Gresiek) who just wanted to help, so they ran shuttles
for us.  THANK YOU CHRIS AND DAVID!

Mike Jones and his mom did the Pancake Breakfast at the Congregational
Church again this year which was MUCH appreciated.  Ruth cooked.

The Homestead Dam section was remarkably free of trash and the
amount of fishing line and number of hooks we found was far
less than last year.   Last year we found 22 bags of trash and
fishing debris in two projects.  This year, only 3.

Removing the line and hooks from the trees remained a struggle
and there were some minor injuries in doing so.  Our knives and
wire cutters were definitely useful for removing the hooks from
the trees and from our skin, hands, clothing and gloves.



The Downstream group found more trash and fishing line than we did.

We will put more people on the downstream section next year.

A huge THANK YOU goes out to all who came today to brave the fast currents
and dangerous stuff that we removed from the ever more beautiful
BETSIE RIVER



PS.  Working around fish hooks is dangerous.

Some of the photos are more colorful than in the past reports.
If the sight of blood upsets you, do not look at the following photos.

Look for all the photos here:

All Photos From The Betsie River