Clearwater Outfitters
River Mile - 915.5
Daily Miles - 31.9 miles
Total distance - 426.4 miles
Waking up in the guest bedroom at the Bergstroms was a real pleasure. Even though we stayed up late on a school night, I felt really good. After a mug of Peet’s coffee (my favorite) from the Kureg, Lee made us a delicious egg, sausage and peppers scramble that really hit this spot.
Lee agreed to help us make the second portage at St Cloud, with allowed us to start our day with empty boats for the first 12 miles and portage at Sartelle. The weather was pretty much cloudy all day and highs 70’s with minimal wind. We had a half dozen periods of light rain, that just made for a gloomy day.
Two portages in a day, now mater how big or small is a challenge. Add to that an ambitious 29 miles and you have the recipe for a tiring day. We had the choice of a river camp (Boy Scout Point) at 27 miles, or continuing to CW Outfitters, where we needed to buy some gear anyway. We chose the latter.
The most exciting part of the day was paddling through Sauk Rapids, which as listed as anywhere from class 1 to class 3 rapids. I will be the first to admit, I’m not an experienced white water paddler, so this section was a bit nerve wracking for me. I made it through this 2 mile section, but did take on a bit of water in a small class 3 section. I guess even though I knew it was coming, I really didn’t think it was going to be that wild. If I did I would have put my spray skirt on!
The water level ever since Blanchard dam, has been noticeably low. In fact our Angel Lee has seen the water level at his house is down almost 3 feet. There is a draw down to attempt to clean up a back channel off the river that is getting grown over my nasty weeds and muck
We landed outside CW went inside and chatted with the team for a bit. One of the guys, Bill offered to give us a ride to Burger King which we jumped on.
We made the half hour walk back to camp after dinner so I could finish up my blog and Jon could get caught up on some work.
We are tentatively looking to pull out at St Anthony Falls around 6 pm on Wednesday. More to come on that.
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