Topic: Howdy – paddling from Minneapolis to the Gulf

This topic has 11 voices, contains 36 replies, and was last updated by BWCAJohn 438 days ago.

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November 2, 2009 at 6:33 pm #30912
BWCAJohn	I’ve been lurking in the forums for awhile after following AdventureCanoe via twitter. Looks like you guys have a good paddling forum going! As my handle implies I have cut my paddling teeth in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area of northern Minnesota. I was lucky enough to spend lots of time on the water this summer as trail staff for Wilderness Inquiry canoeing and kayaking and got a chance to paddle on the Missouri, St. Croix, Namekogan, and Mississippi rivers as well as a number of trips to the BWCA and Apostle Islands. On Wednesday I am leaving with one other team member to paddle from Minneapolis to the Gulf of Mexica on the Mississippi. We will be doing some blogging along the way for those of you who are interested in following our adventure. Here is the address: http://www.uwca2gulf.blogspot.com Thanks for checking it out and I look forward to posting on here more when I am off the water.
November 2, 2009 at 7:07 pm #30913
Dennis	Sounds good. Let us know if you need any promotional stuff done when you come through St. Louis. I’m sure James would like to do a ten minute interview and I would really like to get some photos of you guys next to the statue of Lewis and Clark down on the levee below the big shiney Arch. If you’re lucky we may even feed you. Are you guys are carrying GPS units or smart phones that will let us track your progress online?
November 2, 2009 at 10:12 pm #30914
BWCAJohn	Thanks Dennis! We’d be happy to do an interview for you. I’ve heard mixed reviews about paddling through the St. Louis area, namely problems with canoe thefts. We will have a Spot along and our progess should be updated daily. What’s the best way to get ahold of you once we reach the area?
November 2, 2009 at 10:50 pm #30915
Dennis	Send James an email so he can forward you a list of contact numbers. jdixson@atomicdust.com We don’t have any Somali Pirates around here but I wouldn’t leave anything unattended for long in high traffic areas either. If you are looking to spend a few hours in the city proper we can probably come up with a truck or garage to store the gear in where it will be out of harm’s way. I’m pretty confident that people will get behind your effort once they know about it, so keep us updated. I’m looking forward to hearing about the logistics of the trip.
November 3, 2009 at 5:59 am #30916
natecanoes	It’s going to be a cool trip! Both in weather, and the other kind of cool. Starting in St Paul cuts the slow portion of the river off, so you should make great time. St Louis in 3 weeks probably, barring any misfortunes. Wish I was going with. I’ll be following the blog.
November 27, 2009 at 10:06 pm #30917
James	These guys are going to be in St Louis Sunday.
November 28, 2009 at 9:52 am #30918
Dennis	Any plans to meet up? Any idea of their schedule?
November 28, 2009 at 10:41 am #30919
MotoMike	John Dang, I picked up on your post too late. You passed by Savanna, my home town a week or so back. I would be interested to hear you discuss locking through and any interesting experiences in doing so. Is your load too great to portage around the locks when the wait is 2 or 3 hours? kind regards, Mike
November 28, 2009 at 11:04 am #30920
James	Check out the blog http://www.uwca2gulf.blogspot.com They should be in St. Louis tomorrow.
November 29, 2009 at 3:58 pm #30921
Bryan Hansel	Hi Mike, I know John didn’t answer–it’s so hard to keep track of all the threads when you’re on a long distance trip–but when I paddled a portion of the Mississippi I only portaged 1 of the 13 or so that I paddled through. I only had one long wait, which was on a cold day. Twice the lock masters held up upstream traffic so I could make it to the lock and wouldn’t have to wait. The L&Ds were fun to go through and broke up the day. Plus, the employees would come and talk. Great fun.
November 29, 2009 at 11:52 pm #30922
BWCAJohn	Mike- I have had very limited access to the ‘net since we left. We are actually staying with James at the moment so I can finally get online! We have quite a bit of gear so we are not very portage friendly and as a result we have locked though every time. At times there as been no wait and at worst we have had to wait about three hours or so. We are definitely glad to be past all the locks so we can really start to make some good time. We have also noticed quite a nice increase in the current so that should really help us as well. Hopefully we will be in New Orleans by New Years. Thanks for following the blog and hope you are all getting in some good end of the year paddling!
November 30, 2009 at 10:35 am #30923
crow	Good luck on the trip, guys! How long is it, in miles?
November 30, 2009 at 6:27 pm #30924
James	Cate and I met John and John in Grafton and took them to The Rotten Apple. After they paddled into St. Louis from Grafton we invited them to spend the night at our house, do some laundry and drink some beer. They packed up this morning and got a bit of a later start than normal. Here are a couple photos of them loading up and shoving off. Taking the canoe back down to the riverfront Lewis and Clark under the Eades Bridge Getting the canoe back into the water. Car full of gear These guys are not traveling light. The canoe is all loaded up and ready to head down to New Orleans 1000 miles left to the Gulf. Good luck guys.
November 30, 2009 at 7:55 pm #30925
Dennis	Very cool.
November 30, 2009 at 9:48 pm #30926
Bad	WOW! Very Very Cool! Good Luck!! Stay Safe!