August 10th, 2002 St. Croix Day Trip
The storms had pushed through the area about 5 AM, making a beautiful Saturday for a paddle on the St. Croix. Five of us met at the Osceola put-in; by 9:30, our planned arrival time, everybody was ready to launch. Wow, is this really an ISK paddle? Yep.
We waited until 9:50, just in case there were any surprise late arrivals that had not signed up. The water level was fairly high, so we decided to go paddling through the backwaters. Topo maps showed that a route upriver into Lower Lake would connect to Clase Slu. The Slu rejoins the St. Croix just below Franconia Landing, one of the possible lunch stops, so that became the chosen route.
Just about everybody found the sand bar just north of the Osceola bridge, but the high water just meant shallower paddle strokes instead of the usual scraping against the bottom. We paddled into Lower Lake, and only had one misstep finding the right channel into the Slu. What a wonderful, picturesque place to paddle. There was a doe and two fawns drinking out of the water as we came around one bend. We saw at least one bald eagle, numerous turkey vultures, blue herons, egrets, and many smaller birds. Since the birders of the club weren't with, we just called them "small birds".
As we exited the north end of Clase Slu, everybody felt strong, so we continued to paddle up the St. Croix. Just before noon we found a nice sandbar that used to be a campsite, and stopped for lunch. The aluminum hordes from the Taylors Falls canoe rental were really starting to show up - in fact the next sandbar over seemed to be the party spot for the day as more and more canoes pulled in while we ate.
About halfway through lunch, a familiar red kayak appeared coming upstream. Another ISK member! He had kept the tradition of showing up at the last second (10:05!). After introductions, we finished lunch and discussed the afternoon paddle.
Everybody still felt energetic, so we continued upstream through Interstate Park. The wind was slowly building, providing assistance against the current. By now we were into the canyon that is the heart of the park. What an amazing place to paddle! Very few canoes were upriver of the campground on the Minnesota side. It was all too soon when we rounded the last bend and were blocked by the rapids under the US Hwy 8 bridge.
So here we were, six sea kayaks playing in the current. Most of us surfed on the standing waves; one of us even had thoughts of paddling up into the traditional whitewater rodeo area! However, the outside world intruded as both tour boats that ply this stretch of the river came upstream, dislodging us from our playground. We sat in a side eddy for a bit, loath to turn around.
Oh well, time to go back. The wind that had helped us upriver was freshening even more, making things a little more difficult going downriver. There were a few stretches that had a bit of a chop; the cooling spray was quite welcome. Some of us were even searching out the higher waves rather than stay in the wind shadow along the shore. We decided to return through Clase Slu going downriver to gain a respite from the increasing wind; by now we were getting gusts up to about 25 knots.
Again, the Slu was a magical paddle. Somehow going downstream we missed the one shallow place where we had to wade about ten yards in the morning. Lower Lake arrived all too soon (and that really was the recurring theme of the day). The last couple of miles pushing downriver against the wind started to turn into a bit of a slog.
We reached the landing a little after 3:00. Everybody agreed that this was one of the best day trips they'd ever been on. Also, it turns out we'd paddled something over 16 miles in just over five hours, including a long lunch break. Folks loaded up, changed clothes and said their goodbyes.
If you want to locate this trip on a map, go to
www.dnr.state.mn.us/maps/tomo.html?col=350&row=638&layer=24k&size=7
(enter all the above on one line). Scroll north twice to get the full picture.
- Paul Meyer
P.O. Box 80331 ~ Minneapolis, Minnesota 55408
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