El Dorado Platte River Access

El Dorado Platte River Access is a small launch and landing about a mile upstream from where the Platte reaches Lake Michigan. It’s the last landing before Platte Point, and a handy put-in for an easy one-mile float to the lake. You’ll find a boat ramp, a deck overlooking the river, parking, picnic tables and a vault toilet. No food or drinking water is listed at the landing, so arrange those before heading out. If you’re finishing at Platte Point, leave a vehicle at its lot at the end of Lake Michigan Road before you launch. Local outfitters rent tubes and rafts; book ahead for the height of summer.

The Platte here is shallow and clear, moving at a good pace with no rapids. From late June through August, tubes, kayaks and canoes can crowd the river. Early summer or September tends to be quieter on warm days. The deck is an easy way to watch the river if you’re stopping without floating it.

The Platte River weir is upstream from El Dorado and is a separate stop. Its gates hold migrating salmon in fall, when the state harvests fish and collects eggs for its hatcheries. During the weir’s usual mid-August-to-October operating season, people floating downstream need to portage around it.

A flat paved path connects the parking area to the wooden observation deck, which is about 15 feet wide and 10 feet deep at its deepest point. The site is listed as wheelchair accessible, with an accessible parking space and one picnic table on a concrete pad; the second table sits on grass. The boat ramp has open-grid paving, and the deck has no railing along the water, just a low wooden curb. From here you’re looking at the river; the broad view across Platte Bay toward Empire Bluffs and Sleeping Bear Dunes is at Platte Point, about a mile downstream.