In this blog post I wanted to talk about paddleboarding in and around Chicago and the Chicagoland area. Maybe you're just starting to get into paddleboarding, you just got your first paddleboard, and you're wondering where you can take it.
Unfortunately the Chicagoland area isn't necessarily the best place for paddleboarding, however we do have a few spots.
Probably the best place to paddleboard in and around the Chicagoland area is Lake Michigan. If you're in Chicago or even Chicago suburbs there's a few local spots, and within about an hour drive there's some great spots you can get out on Lake Michigan.
Let's start in the city of Chicago. You can paddleboard on the Chicago river. There's few places that are probably prettier from an architectural standpoint to paddleboard. You can paddle right on down the Chicago river and check out the buildings and architecture. Chicago has also made access to the Chicago river much better in recent years with the riverwalk. If you've never paddleboarded on the Chicago river you may want to go with a friend or go on a group tour prior to doing it yourself. The Chicago river has a lot of boat traffic from police and fire boats to architectural tour boats to ferries that run around the loop. Many inexperienced paddleboarders find the experience a bit daunting with all the boat traffic if they are new to paddleboarding and paddleboarding on the Chicago River.
Then you have Lake Michigan. Lake Michigan is one of my favorite places to paddleboard. Me personally I like less crowded beaches and beaches without life guards so I prefer heading to the Indiana Dunes or out to Michigan to Bridgman Michigan or Grand Mere State Park in Stevensville. We'll get to those places later.
If you don't feel like heading out of the city however you do have a few beaches in Chicago that allow paddleboards, keep in mind not all beaches allow paddleboards.
One beach up on the North Side that allows paddleboarding is Kathy Osterman Beach, also known as Hollywood Beach near Edgewater. Hollywood Beach is kind of known as the gay beach, it's more adults and less kids which many people like. It's a great beach, not huge, not as big as Montrose Beach but decent size. The biggest headache with this beach is parking, parking is difficult to find near the beach and you'll probably be lugging your board for a decent distance. Also, traffic tends to be bad on the North Side so if you're comming from the suburbs or other parts of Chicago that can be a headache.
Another great beach for paddleboarding is Montrose Beach. The beach is huge, and you have a beautiful view of both the Chicago Skyline and the Sears Tower, yeah I refuse to call it the Willis Tower. You also have a great view all the condos in Edgewater. There's a little break where fisherman go and the water is fairly calm within the break, you can also paddle out past there. One of the things I really like about this beach is there's tons of street parking on the street leading in to the beach near the marina. I tend to go early in the morning and stay until about lunchtime and during that time the beach is dead empty. I do notice it starts getting a bit more crowded as I'm leaving but the beach is so large there should be plenty of space for you to launch your board.
North Avenue Beach is probably one of the more popular beaches in Chicago. While they do allow paddleboards it's probably one of the most crowded beaches in Chicago and parking can be tough.
Lastly we have 63rd street beach. I've never personally been there, it's on the South Side which can be a little sketchier but it's going to be less crowded. One last area that deserves mention is the Morgan Shoal. The Morgan Shoal millions of years ago used to be one of the largest coral reefs in teh world, larger than the Great Barrier Reef. Again, this was millions of years ago when Chicago sat along the equator. Obviously the world shifted around, its now in Chicago but it's still a cool place to go snorkling or diving and you can paddleboard out there and explore Morgan Shoal, there's also some ship wrecks out there peole dive and when the water is low you can actually see a boat sticking out.
Paddleboarding in Chicago is very cool because you got the skyline and all the city has to offer, but personally I like to get out and enjoy a bit more solitude. My absolute favorite place to paddleboard is Weko Beach in Bridgman Michigan. While I like to think it's about an hour and twenty minutes outside Chicago, in reality it's probably closer to an hour and forty minutes, maybe even two hours depending upon traffic. Weko Beach is located in Bridgman Michigan. There's not a ton going on or two do in Bridgman but they are starting to get a few craft breweries and restaurants. The beach is great though, plenty of parking, it's not overly crowded, the beach is really large and they actually have some cool lookout points up on the sand dunes as well as a dog beach where a river runs into Lake Michigan, a great place of shallow water to hang out and let your dogs frollick. The main building by the beach has indoor restrooms available to use during the main part of summer and also some outdoor showers. There are no lifeguards at this beach which I really like and more recently we're starting to see some snowcone vendors and food trucks pull up in the parking lot on weekends if you want to grab a bite to eat. I really like paddleboarding here, I find the beach to be not very crowded, the water is much clearer than Chicago and cleaner as well.
If you head another couple exits North you come to Stevensville Michigan. Stevensville is a really small town, not a lot going on, though there is a great brewery called Watermark Brewery. The actual indoor area has garage doors which swing up and are open air, leading to an outdoor area with beanbag toss games, outdoor furniture, a large lawn, and you can bring dogs. I believe 7 days a week they also have a different food truck outside so you can grab a bite to eat. Just a bit further down the road is Grand Mere State Park. You pull up into what looks like a forest preserve with no water in sight. After about a half mile hike down a trail you come out to a clearing where there's a large sand dune in front of you. You then have to hike about a quarter mile over a couple pretty large sand dunes. When you go to this beach your definitely not going to be bringing umbrellas and big coolers, it's quite a journey to haul all that junk. Me personally I have an inflatable Bodly Glove 11' Performer which folds up into a backpack and weighs about 25 pounds so it's a tough hike but not undoable. You can definitely make the hike with a hard board but may be a bit more of a hassle. Because it's such a hike to get there the beach isn't crowded at all which is nice, there's some cool trails through the woods and dunes you can walk, and while the beach is long and runs forever it's only about 10 to 20 feet wide before it gets into the dune grasses.
Now one more spot on Lake Michigan to talk about before we explore other waterways in the Chicagoland area. On occasion I'll go up to Illinois State Beach, I believe it's in the town of Zion just past Waukegan. This area is a pretty depressed area which kind of reminds me of Detroit. Driving past all the factories and steel mills and industry it doesn't really strike the sense of nature and clean waters but whatever. The drive up there is only about an hour which is a bit shorter than Michigan, although my girlfriend prefers to spend the extra 30 or 40 minutes in the car to get to Michigan which is much nicer.
Illinois State Beach is a big forest preserve and campground. When you enter the park you go through a lot of parks and camping areas before finally winding around to the beach. When you pull up to the beach there's a beat-up and rundown wood building which looks to have been a concession stand or something during brighter days in the area. The beach is a little rocky and not huge, but it doesn't get that crowded. I'm not sure if it's that particular day I went or the area but it was much wavier which was fun.
Now aside from Lake Michigan paddleboarding in the Chicagoland area is pretty limited. Pretty much every park district, Dupage County, Will County, and I believe Cook County consider paddleboarding to be swimming and will not let you paddleboard on any forest preserve lakes. This basically leaves you with some rivers, mainly the Dupage River and the Des Plaines River. The Dupage River is broken up into three branches, the East Branch, the West Branch, and another area called the Greenway which runs a bit further towards Shorewood. I'm not a huge fan of paddleboarding rivers, or at least these particular rivers. These rivers are more streams or creeks than rivers. Sometimes the water is higher than other times, but it's never deep. The particular day I went I don't think the water ever got more than about knee high. There's a lot of moss and waterbugs and junk in the water, and for a good portion of the 8 miles I went down the river the water was not even high enough to stand on the board without my fin bumping rocks and throwing me face first onto my board. I hear the west branch is a little deeper but probably still not a great place to paddle.
While I havn't been on the Des Plaines River, I've heard it's pretty similar to the Dupage River.
Anyhow, that's kind of my experience with paddleboarding the rivers and lakes around the Chicagoland area. I think Lake Michigan is your best bet, and if you don't mind a little bit of a drive I definitely recommend heading out to Michigan. I do wish there was a spot a bit closer so after work I could go out for an hour or two and get a nice little work out in and paddle, but unfortunately I havn't really found any spots aside from Lake Michigan that allow it.
If you have any good paddleboarding spots in or around Chicago please drop a comment and let us know about them.