MPOC offers a variety of outings for the slightly less avid but still enthused outdoors person. Outdoors enthusiast or not, we have plenty of get-togethers that include picnics, community service opportunities, bonfires, and educational programs. Outings may occur on short notice, and are often not included in the newsletter. Join the Yahoo email Group to receive email notification or consult the calendar for planned

Continued... Click here for next page

trips in the making. It is important that you contact the trip leader if you plan to participate in an outing as a leader may not show up if no one has contacted them in advance to confirm attendance. In addition, some trips are contingent upon weather conditions the abilities of those in attendance. If you are ever in doubt of the destination and the skills required to paddle.

 

Current Articles

 

"There Could Be Some Down Trees"
by Brand Frentz

As we put in by the bridge, mentioned to Tom that we might find some blockages on this trip. That wasn’t news, of course, since we could already see a tall cottonwood lying fully across the Big Cobb’s 30-foot channel about 100 yards downstream. And we had some experience with the upper reaches of these prairie rivers in Blue Earth County,  on one eight-mile stretch of the Maple last year we had to negotiate 26 places blocked by down trees, logjams, and huge multiyear conglomerations that were, for all practical purposes, dams. That trip was a killer. But we survived, and it gave us confidence. We felt pretty sure that we would never see anything like it again.

 

We pushed off on a warm Sunday in July 2003. The visible sweeper turned out to have a narrow opening against the left hank. Tom grabbed a small branch as we approached and guided us through. We both ducked the bigger branch angling off about three feet above the water, and hardly slowed down.

 

It was a pretty morning, with the sun coming through the woods on the banks producing a dappled effect on the water. The river had a surprisingly lively current for flat farmland, the Southern Minnesota ocean of corn and beans through which it flowed. We paddled along easily. It was a pleasure to be out.

 

In a couple of minutes we saw another down tree in the channel, and again found an opening to slip through. The next one, which I thought came a little too quickly, did not appear to have an opening. We slowed up and studied it. Tom said, "If we can get past the first big trunk against the right bank, then pull out to the middle and angle through the smaller branches, it’ll work." It did.

 

In a few more minutes we came to a different challenge: a huge trunk, at least three feet thick, but not quite flush across the channel. It had lodged a couple of feet up on the left bank, leaving a gap. Would the canoe fit under? You could see it’d be close. We edged up to it, backpaddling hard, and found that the how scraped, hut with Tom pushing it went under. He flattened out and I let the current pull us through. I said, "You’re clear," and Tom lifted up as I ducked. Not quite enough, though, and I got a little bump on the spine.

 

"Looks like we were right about the down trees," Tom said cheerfully as we picked up the pace again. Before I could answer, he added, "Here comes another one." It was a series this time. We could see three sweepers across the channel, about 20 feet apart, each with some special feature. But portaging was out - steep muddy banks and a woods full of hungry hugs encouraged us to pick our way carefully through the first two.

 

There was no opening at all on the third, but it was possible for Tom to climb out onto a big branch of the tree. Then from the stern with the bow raised I paddled the boat onto the branch. Tom grabbed it, I got out too, and we pulled it over. It’s a familiar routine for us. The tricky part is get­ting back in the boat, especially if you are the stern paddler. You have to lift or push the canoe off the branch, at which point the current grabs it and you need to hop quick - and carefully too because the boat is fast departing

 

By now we had been out for half an hour and had passed nine blocked places. "I’m going to count them" I said "I can’t believe that we could beat that record of 26 on the Maple last year, can you?" Tom smiled and shook his head: no way.

 

But by the time we got to 20 we were counting out loud, and since we hadn’t even come

Click you browsers “back” button to return to site

 

halfway it was clear that the record was in danger. Getting by block­ages in a river channel is hard work, but on this morning we were able to keep it enjoyable. For one thing, we managed to stay in the canoe, on the water. For the first two hours, as the count soared into the 30s and then 40s we were amazed that we did not have to portage once. Then we came to No 47.

 

The river bent left along a sheer muddy bank. On the right it spread into an impassable marsh with no bank. The channel itself was blocked by several big trees, with many smaller branches and loose pieces wedged in. There was simply no way around, no way through, and the trees were too small to climb out on. We had to go a fair distance back upstream to find a way to land. A small tree grew out over the water there. Tom got a hold on a low branch and pulled himself up the vertical bank, holding on to the painter. I did the same, and then we hauled the canoe up.

 

Once on top I checked for a put-in downstream of the blockage. Sure enough, there were two more impassable places in quick succession. We portaged past all three. In this case, by the way, "portaging" means dragging the Penobscot through the woods, one of us on each side of the bow, bouncing it over fallen trees, dodging standing trees, banging into dips and over mounds, through shoulder-high weeds - you just put your head down and bull ahead.

 

It was a warm July morning, and that made it better when Tom fell in. It was one of the toughest blockages we saw. Two giant cottonwoods on river left lay across the channel, forming a "V." We pulled alongside the first one at the point of the "V," kind of "parallel parking," and Tom climbed onto it. The canoe was bouncing a lot in the water as the current pushed it into the other tree. I stepped gingerly up to the bow and got onto the trunk too.

 

While the boat banged against the trunk behind us we studied our next move: pull the canoe over the first trunk and set it in the water in front of the second. We turned, Tom took a step, and whoosh- -- he was waist deep and going down! I grabbed his arm and held - he couldn’t touch bottom. With his free hand he took hold of the canoe, and it tipped dangerously toward him. He let go. We stopped and studied this situation, him shoulder deep in the Big Cobb, holding on to me. Then I got myself seated and well braced, and Tom climbed out using my arm for a rope. The rest of the pullover was routine.

 

In a way, the whole trip - all 64 block­ages - was routine. Long before we got to the last one we felt that we had seen everything, every possible way that down trees could block a river channel. As an estimate I would say that we picked our way through the branches of 30 channel-blocking trees, got out on trunks in the water and pulled the canoe over 20 times, and ducked under 10 big trunks. And we portaged once.

 

It was a college education in blocked river channels and somehow - it seems impossible - we did not get discouraged, angry, or sarcastic. We just kept picking through branches and ducking and climbing in and out of the boat, and after four hours or so we came to the takeout and chalked up another interesting river trip on the Southern Prairie. Looking back, it was fun! It was a trip I am glad to have made and like to talk about.. .but I don’t plan to do that stretch of the Big Cobb again any time soon.

 

 

 

WINTER? SOONER OR LATER...

 

There were signs that the Southern Prairie might be in for a real winter this year. Or maybe not. Cold weather arrived in late October, then 3-5 inches of snow on November 3, followed by even colder temps. The Minnesota River froze up very early, on the morning of the 8th.  The paddling season appeared to be over. But no, a second Indian Summer came on and three days later I was paddling my kayak on the river again, in sunny, 66-degree weather.

 

WINTER OR NOT THEY PADDLE.

 The Indian Summer rehash broke on Friday, Nov. 21. It was freezing cold, with a big snowstorm moving in from the southwest by midnight. Plus the Minnesota River was low. But Peggy Kreber and Warren Wagner decided it was still paddling season for them and took a 10-mile jaunt down the Minnesota. They put in at Jordan. went through Carver Rapids, and made it to Chaska (but not before dark --with almost no current, the trip took much longer than normal - 4 hours). By the next day we had 6-10 inches of snow and soon the river was frozen again. Was this winter for good? Who knows? Too bad that HUT! articles have to be submitted a month ahead - all I can say is that in early December the odds of a White Christmas looked better than the odds of paddling on Christmas Day.

 

LOW WATER, BUSY BEAVERS.

 All our local rivers were at near record low levels in the fall of 2003. That made paddling very limited, hut it offered a family of beavers a rare opportunity. They took it. They dammed the LeSueur River, at a point where it is about 50 feet across. On shore we found a huge maple, three feet in diameter, that the same bunch had started to chew. They think big. The dam is a couple of feet high, and forms a nice pool. The river is too low to navigate by canoe, so no paddler will be breaking the dam. But the LeSueur is a fairly big river, with a normal spring flow of 1,500 cfs and floods of 5,000-25,000 cfs. The dam doesn’t have a chance of surviving. So are the beavers valiant and daring engineers, or dopes? The dam should serve them for six months, through the winter. They know what they’re doing...

 

BIG CANOES.

 The MPOC played an important part in the History Fest in October again this year, giving canoe rides to the school kids and their families. The Minnesota River at Land of Memories Park had just enough water for us to paddle the big canoes (32 and 25 feet), tell the kids a little about river travel and its place in local history, and - the main idea of the festival - give them the actual experience of riding (and paddling, if they wanted) in a canoe on the river. Eleven MPOC members volunteered, there were plenty of passengers, and everyone had a fine time for two and one-half days. Even when a downpour washed out the last afternoon, we had a tarp to sit under and tell stories until the festival was officially declared over. (The rainfall of 0.5 inches that
day was the total for the month of October.)

 

LEWIS & CLARK BICENTENNIAL.

 Leaving Pittsburgh in the newly-built keelboat on August 31, 1803, Meriwether Lewis started down the Ohio River. He picked up William Clark in Indiana Territory, and by mid- October they passed the falls of the Ohio (present-day Louisville). After a break near the confluence with the Mississippi on November 11-20. they arrived at St. Louis in early December. By December 9 they had chosen the Wood River area on the Illinois bank opposite the Mississippi-Missouri confluence as the site and began setting up their winter camp, preparing to enter the unknown lands of the Louisiana Purchase the next spring. They were there 200 years ago now.

 

And that is where our November speaker, John Christenson, began his own expedition in June 2003 at Lewis & Clark Park opposite St. Louis. John traveled in a Dodge pickup, and before the month was out he stood at the mouth of the Columbia River in Oregon. He followed the Expedition’s route closely and visited many of the landmarks that they saw and named - the Gates of the Mountains, Pompey’s Pillar, and others. He found several excellent Lewis & Clark museums, including Great Falls MT and Sioux City IA. The route was well-marked in general and detailed guides and roadmaps were available. In a few places he could even camp where the Corps of Discovery had camped. A crowd of MPOC members and guests enjoyed the presentation, a good start for all the Lewis & Clark celebration and remembrance there will be in the bicentennial years.

 

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

 Hope for the best, and - if there is ice in the water, or the snow doesn’t quite cover the ground - remember the wisdom of MPOC sage Warren Wagner: "Bad conditions are better than no conditions." Off we go!