I had some vacation time I needed to use and as this is a holiday weekend anyhow, it seemed like a good time to take a long weekend. So, Nik and I decided to get out for a bit of river paddling today. I have always heard that the stretch of the
St. Croix River National Recreation area that runs from
Taylor's Falls in
Interstate State park is a good day trip. It's only about 90 minutes from my house. The best part is that a
canoe outfitter rents both canoe's and kayaks right at the boat landing in the park and as a benefit for me, they also run a shuttle service from two take out points so we could leave our car at Interstate Park and them get a ride back once we were off the river. Chris really appreciated this as she is usually the one that has to drive me out and drop me off at the launch site and then try to find me at the take out site. Not always an easy task.
We put in around 1:45 on a mostly cloudy, cool summer day. Temperature was 75 with a 10 mph wind from the north. The current was a slow but steady 1-2 mph. Not fast by any means but nice enough to allow us to drift through some of the more scenic parts of the trip. I was amazed at how may people rent boats and do this trip. There were always at least 3 other canoe's in view, although usually not close enough to feel as though you were being crowded . The geography we paddled through was heavily wooded, with gentle hills rolling outward to form the St. Croix River Valley. There were several small islands with nice sandy beaches where many people landed and picnicked or just relaxed in this beautify setting.
We went through one gorge that had 30 foot granite cliffs on the
Wisconsin (eastern) side of the river. We even saw a guy dive off one of these large cliffs into the river! Not something I would have done, but when asked he swore he didn't hit the bottom. Nik and I did land once on a sandy beach once to stretch our legs, take a few pictures and cool off in the water. This time of year, the water is not quite warm enough for swimming, but by the end of the month it will be. Our final destination of the
Osceola landing was reached after about 2 hours and 40 minutes of padding. There we cleaned up the boat and waited for the ride back to Interstate Park were I retrieved the car and drove back to pick up Nik and our gear. What a fun day on the water, I'll be back soon!
I had some vacation time I needed to use and as this is a holiday weekend anyhow, it seemed like a good time to take a long weekend. So, Nik and I decided to get out for a bit of river paddling today. I have always heard that the stretch of the St. Croix River National Recreation area that runs from Taylor's Falls in Interstate State park is a good day trip. It's only about 90 minutes from my house. The best part is that a canoe outfitter rents both canoe's and kayaks right at the boat landing in the park and as a benefit for me, they also run a shuttle service from two take out points so we could leave our car at Interstate Park and them get a ride back once we were off the river. Chris really appreciated this as she is usually the one that has to drive me out and drop me off at the launch site and then try to find me at the take out site. Not always an easy task.
We put in around 1:45 on a mostly cloudy, cool summer day. Temperature was 75 with a 10 mph wind from the north. The current was a slow but steady 1-2 mph. Not fast by any means but nice enough to allow us to drift through some of the more scenic parts of the trip. I was amazed at how may people rent boats and do this trip. There were always at least 3 other canoe's in view, although usually not close enough to feel as though you were being crowded . The geography we paddled through was heavily wooded, with gentle hills rolling outward to form the St. Croix River Valley. There were several small islands with nice sandy beaches where many people landed and picnicked or just relaxed in this beautify setting.
We went through one gorge that had 30 foot granite cliffs on the Wisconsin (eastern) side of the river. We even saw a guy dive off one of these large cliffs into the river! Not something I would have done, but when asked he swore he didn't hit the bottom. Nik and I did land once on a sandy beach once to stretch our legs, take a few pictures and cool off in the water. This time of year, the water is not quite warm enough for swimming, but by the end of the month it will be. Our final destination of the Osceola landing was reached after about 2 hours and 40 minutes of padding. There we cleaned up the boat and waited for the ride back to Interstate Park were I retrieved the car and drove back to pick up Nik and our gear. What a fun day on the water, I'll be back soon!
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