Cave Point Paddle & Pedal Blog

If you live in the upper Midwest and you’ve been Googling sea-cave kayaking, two names come up: Cave Point in Door County, and the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore on Lake Superior. They’re the two real sea-cave destinations between the Rocky Mountains and the Atlantic. They’re also very different trips. We run tours at Cave Point and we’ve paddled the Apostles. Here’s the honest comparison so you can pick the right one for what you actually want. The 60-second answer Pick Cave Point if you want a beginner-friendly day trip from Chicago, Milwaukee, or Madison, you have kids in the group, or you want to do this as part of a Door County weekend. Pick the Apostle Islands if you have multi-day paddling experience, you want bigger and more dramatic sea caves, you’re willing to do a longer drive and a…

Most Door County wildlife guides are written for hikers and birders. Fair, that’s how most visitors experience the peninsula. But the kayak view is its own thing. From a sit-on-top boat at water level, you see fish, birds, and shoreline mammals at angles you can’t get from a car or trail. After 23 years of guiding paddles, here’s the honest list of what you’ll actually spot, when, and where. What you’ll see in summer (June through August) Six animals you’ll likely see on a Door County kayak trip in peak season: Bald eagles. The peninsula has a healthy bald eagle population. Look for them perched in tall pines along the shoreline or circling on thermals over the bluffs. We see eagles on roughly half of our summer tours. Cana Island has a nesting pair some years. Door Bluff Headlands almost…

If you Google “best Door County photography spots,” you’ll get a list of 25 places written by someone who came up for a long weekend. The list will include every single town on the peninsula. We’ve been on this water with cameras for 23 years and we’d argue 9 spots is the right number, ranked. Three rules first: this list is for visitors with a camera (any camera, including a phone) who want to come home with images that don’t look like every other Door County tourist’s. We’re not ranking by what’s most-photographed (that’s just the parking-lot list). We’re ranking by what actually rewards the time you spend there. 1. Cave Point cliff edge at golden hour The 30 minutes before sunset, when the limestone cliff face goes copper. Stand at the bluff edge above the main cave, frame the…

Whitefish Dunes State Park is the 867-acre Wisconsin state park immediately south of Cave Point County Park, on the Lake Michigan shoreline. Most Door County visitors who go to Cave Point either drive past Whitefish Dunes without knowing what they’re missing or hit the beach for an hour and call it done. There’s more there than that. We’ve been pointing kayak guests at the state park for 23 years. Here’s the version of Whitefish Dunes you’d want to know if you’re planning a Door County trip. What Whitefish Dunes State Park is Whitefish Dunes is a Wisconsin state park covering 867 acres of dunes, beach, hardwood forest, and limestone shoreline on the Lake Michigan side of the Door County peninsula. The park preserves the largest sand dune system on the Lake Michigan side of Wisconsin, with the highest dune (Old…

Most Door County itinerary posts are written by people who’ve spent a long weekend on the peninsula and call themselves experts. Fair enough. We’ve been running tours from the same shop for 23 years and watched roughly 50,000 visitor weekends come and go. Here’s the 3-day plan we’d actually build for first-time visitors and what we tell our regulars to do differently. One ground rule: this is for visitors driving in from Wisconsin, the Chicago suburbs, or Minneapolis. Most of who we paddle with. Adjust if you’re flying in. Where to base yourself Door County is a 70-mile-long peninsula. Where you stay shapes everything else. Three honest options: Jacksonport / Bailey’s Harbor (mid-peninsula, Lake Michigan side). Best for first-time visitors and families. 10 minutes from Cave Point, 15 minutes from Cana Island Lighthouse, the food scene in Bailey’s Harbor handles…

Most Door County visitors see Cave Point in July. They walk the bluff, take the photo, eat ice cream, and leave. They miss the version of Cave Point that, on the right cold-snap weeks of February and March, is some of the most spectacular ice scenery in the upper Midwest. Frozen waterfalls down the cliff face, ice draperies hanging 20 feet off the limestone, the lake itself sheeted in green-blue ice that grinds and pops like something alive. We’ve watched Cave Point change every winter for 23 years. Here’s what you can actually do there in the off-season, when to go, and what to know before you drive up. What Cave Point looks like in winter The transformation depends entirely on the temperature pattern. Mild winters, you get rocks with patches of ice and a frozen-over picnic area. Cold winters,…

Asking “what’s the best kayaking in Door County” is like asking what’s the best restaurant in a city you’ve never visited. The honest answer is “depends on the day and what you’re after,” and the better answer is a ranked list with the trade-offs explained. After 23 years of paddling every viable launch on this peninsula, here’s our ranking. One ground rule: this list is about kayak experiences a typical visitor can actually book or self-organize. We’re not ranking remote stretches that require a 30-mile trailer-haul of your own gear. 1. Cave Point sea caves (the obvious one) The flagship paddle and the reason this peninsula has a kayak tourism economy. Niagaran dolomite cliffs, sea caves at water level, the cliff jumpers above (you’ll see them), the echo of waves inside the cave, all of it. We launch our Cave…

If you’ve already kayaked before, you have a launch you like, and you’d rather pick your own pace, kayak rentals are the move. We rent kayaks and paddle boards from our shop on WI-57 in Jacksonport, and we’ve been doing it for 23 years. Here’s the practical guide: how rentals work, where to launch, what they cost, and when a guided tour is the better call. How rentals work You pick the boat type and the rental window. We give you the paddle, life jacket, dry bag, and a basic conditions read for the day. You drive the boat to your launch (we don’t transport for rentals, but Schauer Park is 5 minutes from the shop). You paddle. You bring it back at the end of the window. Rentals are by the hour and by the half-day. Boats and gear…

Everyone knows about Cave Point. It’s on every Door County brochure and every Instagram post tagged with the peninsula. The other sea cave on this side of Lake Michigan, the one tucked into the bluff at Peninsula State Park, gets a fraction of the attention. We’ve been paddling to it for 23 years and we’d argue it’s the better cave on the right kind of day. Here’s the case for the Eagle Bluff cave, what makes it different from Cave Point, and how to actually get there. What and where it is Eagle Bluff is the high limestone shoreline that runs along the Green Bay side of Peninsula State Park, near the village of Fish Creek. The bluff is taller than Cave Point (about 150 feet at its highest), and the rock formations are different. Where Cave Point’s caves are…

If you’re going to launch a kayak anywhere on the Lake Michigan side of Door County, Schauer Park is the answer. Free, public, real boat ramp, parking right there, and three miles north of Cave Point on the same shoreline. We’ve been launching tours from this ramp for 23 years and it’s still the best small-boat launch on the peninsula. Here’s the case, plus the comparisons that prove it. Where it actually is Schauer Park is on the Lake Michigan side of Door County, on Highway 57 in Jacksonport, about three miles north of Cave Point County Park. The address is roughly across from our shop. GPS will get you there if you search “Schauer Park boat launch Jacksonport.” The park itself is small (a few acres of grass, a pavilion, a pit toilet, picnic tables), but the boat ramp…

The wardrobe question we get most often: “What should I wear?” The honest answer depends on the month, the wind, and whether you’re going to commit to getting wet or fight it. After 23 years of watching guests show up in jeans and flip-flops at the launch, here’s the version that actually works, broken out by month. Universal rules first Five things that apply every month: No cotton. Cotton holds water, stays cold, and gets heavy. Synthetic athletic gear, polyester, nylon, merino wool, anything quick-dry. The cheap fast-dry shirt from a sporting goods store works fine. Skip jeans entirely. Shoes that won’t fall off. Paddling shoes, water sandals with heel straps, old running shoes you don’t mind getting wet, neoprene booties in cold months. Anything without a heel strap (flip-flops, slides, slip-ons) is wrong. Pre-applied sunscreen. The water reflects light…

Cana Island Lighthouse is the postcard most visitors have already seen before they get to Door County. Eight-and-a-half-acre island, 89-foot tower, working light since 1869, connected to the mainland by a stone causeway you can sometimes walk and sometimes wade. The kind of place that shows up on every Wisconsin tourism brochure. What’s less obvious is how to actually visit it. There are three ways to do it, they are not the same experience, and the choice depends mostly on weather and what you’re already up to that day. Here’s what 23 years of pointing guests at this lighthouse has taught us. What Cana Island actually is Cana Island sits off the Lake Michigan side of the Door County peninsula, in the Bailey’s Harbor area. The island is small (8.7 acres), the lighthouse is the second-tallest on the Wisconsin Great…