Thursday, May 19, 2011
Red triangles, green squares
The rain started gentle enough last night to make me think it would pass over and not be a problem. Boy, was I wrong! Put a paddle in my hand and point me down river and it was a sure bet it would pour all day long. Not to worry, though, the wind took away what little resistance to misery I had left in me. At one point the wind was blowing so hard that white caps were forming on 1-2 foot waves blowing upstream on a current running about 8 miles and hour.
Actually, it was a very nice morning of eating breakfast and packing to leave. Just as I was finished and ready to load the canoe a huge barge appeared at my "doorstep." It was quite the site and a real contrast with my little yacht. I gave it a wide berth as I started down river. It seems nearly everyone I've run into on this river has some story about a person getting sucked under a barge or dock and spit out the other side. Those are wonderful conversations for a guy in a canoe in a rapid current.
My goal for today was mile 377 and English Park Landing, just shy of 42 miles total. Today was my day to pull out and take a rester and repack and review my options for traveling downstream. Brian had been following my progress on my SPOT tracking map and was there to meet me just as I pulled into the landing. Later, he showed me the track map on his computer and it has enough detail to show when I switch from one side of the river to the other. Pretty cool.
Navigation on the Missouri River is pretty easy. I have the maps from the Corps of Engineers on my iPad and I look at my daily mileage goal and then determine what landings are in that general area on the river. The river is mapped from the confluence in St. Louis and the actual river miles are tallied upstream. Thus, when you pass a day beacon you know it will have a river mileage on it and how much further to St. Louis. That comes in handy when determining how much further until your destination. As I get closer to that day's goal I switch to the side of the river where I'll pull out and start looking ahead to the landing and how I'll make the final maneuver.
The Corps has a mandate to provide a navigable channel that is 9 feet deep along the entire river course from Montana down to St. Louis. To do so they use wing dikes to divert water into a narrower channel. Since the river bends and twists the navigation channel switches from one bank to another. When the channel is going to change to another side you will see either a red diamond (left side of river heading downstream) or green diamond (right side of the river) telling you to cross over. A red triangle means continue on the left side of the river and a green square means stay to the right bank.
All of this isn't real important at this high flow stage. The water is high enough over the wing dikes that I don't have to worry about staying in the navigation channel. The problem is that as water passes over the dikes it "piles up" and creates what I call roilers of swirling water that threaten to tip over the canoe. The other big issue is that the Missouri is so high that every time I pass a large eddy the water at the downstream exit is also roiling. The same is happening where rivers and creeks meet the main river. At those places the water is actually flowing up the tributaries.
All of the above reminds me of running the fast rivers in Alaska when I was in college working for the BLM. This water is pretty smooth in comparison and doesn't demand any high level of paddling skill but there are a few of the big roilers that I've paddled across the channel to avoid which takes some anticipation because of how fast my canoe is moving.
Actually, the biggest threat today was about five minutes from my landing. As I was paddling in the eddy approaching English Landing I was nearly knocked out of the boat by an Asian Carp. They are an invasive species that gets over a foot long and hates noise in the river. Every time I dipped my paddle in the river the damn things jumped over the canoe. One smacked me hard and for a second I thought he wanted me to join the other fish.
We've been looking at stream gauges down river and it's clear this is a Nebraska to St. Louis Canoe Quest 2011. My final mileage will be about 600 miles, about half of what I was hoping. On the up side, I'm sitting in a warm and dry house sipping a cold beer after a great ride down from Nebraska City. I won't fret much, however, as the world is supposed to come to an end in two days and I wouldn't have made my final goal anyhow!
Cheers!
JB
Sent from Jerry Bricker's iPad. Oooooh!
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Today was a very good and productive day
Collin Fletcher wrote the Backpacker's Companion back in the 1970s. He once said that every time he left on a trip he got what he called the Fletcherisms. The blues from what you will be missing, what you don't know what's to come, and the transition between. He said it always surprised him when it happened and should have been of a different mindset. Well, I get the Fletchers every time I leave on a trip too, this is just the first time I've blogged about the experience. The good thing is by day three things are looking up and you move into a new groove and I got mine today.
I woke to blasting trains at 4:17 a.m. and then dozed for 30 minutes the rest of the night, just the exact time a train took to reach my location. I did get up for good at 6:30 a.m. I checked email (this still amazes me) and posted a notice to the MR360 website, a site dedicated to racing the Missouri River from KC to St. Looo-eee. I got a tip that if anyone could give me a solid answer about the likelihood of continuing on from St. Louis up the Mississippi that group could. I haven't checked the message board yet but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
I ate and packed as fast as I could but it was still 9:00 a.m. by the time I departed from Nodaway Island landing. That was a barren site if there ever was one. The one good part was a nearly abandoned vacation home next door that I borrowed their pier and water supply to sit and watch the river and replenish my stock. The stretch of river down to St. Joseph, MO was very pretty. About fifteen minutes into the day I saw a strange site, two deer swimming across the river. The current was pretty strong but they made it easily. I knew deer did such crossings but it was my first eyewitness account. About 500 years down the river I came across two more deer that had done the same but they had come ashore at a site with 6 foot banks and they were exhausted from trying to climb over the edge.
It was a quick trip down to St. Joe, my first major river town. It is clear that the city turned its back on the river at some point as nothing is happening along the shores except dredging and heavy industry. I was hoping for something more appealing but I guess that's life. I did stop for lunch at Jenteel Brees, a Lewis and Clark site for lunch. There were two college aged chaps there staring at me as I was trying to find a good foothold in the big muck at the landing. It was like they had never seen anyone in a canoe. It became clear that I had interrupted a black market deal in action. The had arrived in separate cars and had the trunk open and where speaking in hushed tones. Needless to say, I ate quickly and headed back on the river.
The water below St. Jo got very bellicose and lazy and I didn't make very good time down to Atchinson, Kansas, my goal for the day. When I arrived in Atchinson it was clear the city had turned its attention back to the river. They have a beautiful new river park but the downside is no place to camp. The river rats in Rulo had told me Atchinson was a boater friendly town but that's evidently changed. I stopped in a bar and grill just up from the landing and asked about camping. Of course, I asked the wrong person, a gal that didn't know what canoeing or camping was about. She did call the City Clerk for me (she looked up the number on one of those plastic covers on the small phone book, ah I remember small town life!) and was told no camping in town, send him down river. Great, I could either get thrown in the clink for loitering or I could paddle another three hours with no hope of finding a camping site.
My only hope was a park on the map two miles downstream. After I had paddled three miles it was clear it didn't exist or had no river access. I was in a foul mood when the most beautiful of camping sites appeared. It's a fishing camp that hasn't seen use this season, and yes I'm a squatter, but it's my home for the evening. I'll be out of here in the morning and no one should be the wiser.
This site has me thinking about the energy I've seen expended to live on the river. I've passed house after house and many mobile homes that were destroyed by flooding, most likely in the last few years. There is so much debris in the river it's hard to believe. I actually saw a block of styrofoam today with seedlings growing out of it. I don't know where the foam is coming from but I've come across probably 100 of them, some blocks as long as 4 feet. I guess it will float to New Orleans and then out to the ocean to join the Texas size plastic zone in the Pacific Ocean.
Oh well, not much else to report. I'm a day ahead and I expect to be able to meet the Vacca's tomorrow evening. I hope they get my messages that I'm ahead of schedule.
Cheers!
Sent from Jerry Bricker's iPad. Oooooh!
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
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