Sharply at 3:30 am I was awoken by a whirlwind blasting sand into the tent and covering me from head to toe in the course and fine abrasive I so hated. Little did I know the impending storm would be much worse….
This is the story of how I came to decide that kayaking 300 miles on the Missouri River, solo, and inexperienced, would be a good way to celebrate my graduation from college. It is also the story of how many people tried to talk me out of it. Lastly, it’s the story of an epic adventure that I’ll never forget and probably repeat pretty soon.
Sometime in early April I sat down to figure out my summer plans. I knew that I had two weeks before Blueberry season home on the farm that I could utilize for roving. The original idea was to actually spend that time portaging and floating the Boundary Waters, but that proved to be too much planning and specific gear needs to meet my two week time frame. So after a brief chat with my friends Devin and Tristan, who have floated the Missouri before, and an encouraging email exchange with a source to sea Missouri River floater, I decided that the Big Muddy was proper for my adventure…and that was pretty much all the planning I put in till two weeks to go.
After graduating from college, I found myself with two weeks to go and zero idea of what I was actually doing. Here is a list of challenges I encountered that I very quickly had to deal with: psychological challenge of long term expedition with little prior experience, peer pressure from family and friends to abandon the adventure, lack of significant gear, and concern for athletic ability. For the sake of time, I won’t dive into all the little quirks and challenges but rest assured for the 14 days before I got on the river there was a non-stop flow of attacks on my self confidence and issues trying to even get on water. For example: the canoe I was going to use turned out to be bent in half so I had to hastily buy a kayak or my father who doesn’t know how to kayak and has not floated the Missouri thought I was actually going to die. It was very stressful…but thanks to the eternal advice of my friend Joe: “You’ll be fine. Bring sunscreen and lemon Oreos and you’ll have a good time” and I was off to the races.
If you read the Denver post, you know how this’ll go. Here is a day by day breakdown for the entire trip.
Day 0: Arrival in Kansas City
I arrived on Friday at Devin’s house and found the place in total chaos. Devin had basement flooding and I quickly found myself press-ganged into excavating his foundation with 5 other guys. Not to go on a tangent, but I was pretty proud of the fact that we were able to suspend the AC unit for excavating instead of unplug it and saved like 500 dollars. I have a degree in engineering…it’ll work.
Around 7:00 PM I got an email from REI that the kayak I order was available for pickup so I snagged that and a ton of other missing gear and proceeded to start my gear check (something everyone should learn to do.) I was feeling really really good at this point and then Devin dropped on me that he didn’t pickup the emergency GPS SOS transponder which was my safety net….so I ended up buying two phone charging packs and just winged it. Whew….time for bed after a very long day.
Day 1: The Grand Depart [Mile 660-649]
The day got off to a legendary start. Devin, Gavin, and I drove up to Omaha and crashed Bobby’s cousins highschool graduation party for some free food and beer. After an Irish goodbye, we head out more north to the put-in location. A lovely and off the beaten path boat ramp that I found on a map. Now I don’t want to get too much into the weeds so I’ll just say this: 300 miles is what I thought reasonable for a two week trip down the river to KC based on expert advice (20 miles ish a day as “easy”)
At promptly 4:30 PM I hit the river and the lads wished me well! It was fairly windy and the water she was a white cappin’. For the first hour I was quaking in my boots and very scared but then everything seemed to fade away and I thought “Huh, I’m finally on the water and its really not that bad.”
The rest of the day went by fairly quickly and without much fan fare. I made camp on a small sand bar just off the shore and north of Blair. There was a very annoying owl that was out seeking a mate making a whooping sound , but other than that and a brief rainstorm the night was peaceful.
Day 2: Memorial Day Weekend [Mile 649-627]
I pulled into Blair early and parked the boat to hike into town. It was a nice morning so I really enjoyed the roughly 3 mile stroll to St. Francis Borgia for Mass. The priest was epic and gave a great homily about inviting the Holy Spirit into our lives to heal the unity of Christians. I hiked back to the river and that’s when the fireworks began.
Tons of speedboats where blowing past me, I got offered a solid amount of beer from strangers, and I ended up getting dinner at a riverside honkytonk that served fried chicken on a boat dock. It was wild.
Day 3: This Is Serious [Mile 627-611]
Sharply at 3:30 am I was awoken by a whirlwind blasting sand into the tent and covering me from head to toe in the course and fine abrasive I so hated. Little did I know the impending storm would be much worse….Around 4:00 am I heard the first crash of thunder over head and the lite ‘pitter-patter’ of rain droplets on my tent. The rain quickly developed into a massive rainstorm with serious gale force wind threatening to rip my tent out of the sand. I was encamped quite close to the water line so I was wide awake worried about flash-flooded. Lightning even crashed right next to my tent at one point. After many Hail Mary’s and a few honest to goodness confessions that I thought the whole “don’t build your house on sand” was a metaphor from Jesus…the storm subsided around 7:00. I was never worried about death, at worst I was going to get wet and sandy if something catastrophic happened. It is important to keep your head about you in these scenarios.
The bad weather stuck around. When I finally got underway, I found it so windy that it was difficult to make any progress. Just outside the airport in Omaha I encountered such sustained winds that the swells made it impossible to continue and I was stuck on some rocky shoreline for a few hours. Eventually I was able to observe that there was a band of water about 10 feet from shore that was not flowing into the embankment and yet not deep enough to have swells so I riskily continued floating. The fish must’ve not liked the water either, because 5 giant Asian Carp tried jumping INTO MY KAYAK as well!!!!I reached a park with a grocery store nearby and resupplied while the wind lessened.
Back on the water and chugging toward Omaha, I moved back into the center of the channel for maximum speed…this proved to be a fun mistake. Just past downtown Omaha, the wind reappeared and the channel choked up. This could only mean one thing: choppy water and giant swells. Caught in the midst I had no choice but to rapidly learn how to ride out the waves and survive. It actually was quite fun! The kayak was rocking to and fro and taking on tons of water, but I learned to read the waves and go with the flow. I stopped at a jetty to pump out some water and a nice guy with 4 gold teeth offered me some weed. I got back in my kayak really quickly.
Once I made it out of Omaha, the wind quit all together and the water became easy. The industrial landscape also gave way to beautiful woods and sand bars. I selected one of the more appealing sand bars and made camp for the night.
Day 4: First BIG Day [611-568]
I arose early in the morning and bathed in the actually quite clear water of the Missouri River. The weather was cool, calm, and inviting. After a slow breakfast I got under way and boy was I flying. I made almost 6 miles per hour. By noon I had reached the junction of the Platte river and the Missouri. There the turbulent waters were ripe with Asian Carp jumping for fun. I decided it was high time to declare war on the Carp for assaulting my water vessel in precious days. Taking a para-cord rope, I tied off and waded out into the waters to catch a Carp with my bare hands.
After a fruitless hour of waiting but no action, I ceded victory to the fish and returned to my life behind bars (oars.) I soon passed my first barge and learned: they are so fun. Barges make a wake that is tall and spread out so you can ride them like a rollercoaster. Around 8:00pm I landed at another beautiful sand bar and made camp for the night. After punching in some numbers on my calculator-watch (very chic now) I i found out that I did 43 miles!
Day 5: Second, Even BIGGER, Day [568-520]
This morning I arose to find it overcast and 55 degrees. Thank goodness I had the forethought to bring my fleece with me. I got on the water by 6:00am which was quite early to previous days so that I could make Mass in Nebraska City. St.Mary’s proved to be a beautiful church and the priest said a very reverent Mass. Afterwards I stopped at a nice dinner and topped off the proverbial gas tank. Then I hit an Ace hardware to get some supplies. The gentleman who owned it was really nice and helpful, he even offered to sell me a legit blunderbuss.
Once I got back on the river it was again smooth sailing. Good cloud to sun ratio and a gentle breeze to keep me cool. Along the way I recalled what sea-shanties and folk songs I knew plus googled a few more. Turns out singing really makes me happy and passes great time. The only thing I explored was brownville…everything was closed. It was useless to me.
Nature was on full display for me this day. I saw eagle and kingfishers out on the hunt for food and later in the evening I observed a giant catfish playfully exploring the bay in which I camped. I made a giant fire and called a few friends before turning in for the night. All was calm till shortly after sundown I heard some coyotes howling on the opposite banks…and replies from my side.
Day 6: Starting to Drag [Mile 520-482]
I started to make a few bad decisions today. I wasn’t feeling very good. I stopped in a town and got a jalapeño burger. However I did make a good decision by stopping off in Rulo to visit the Catholic Church there. It was a super beautiful classical stone church and I spent about an hour there. After getting back on the river I eventually stopped to nap and recover from the zapping heat.
There was slim pickings for camp and I ended up stopping on a…well…very steep sand embankment. My phone said it was 15 degrees. That is almost half of halfway vertical
Day 7: “Boy, I don’t feel so good Mom” [Mile 482-462]
I awoke quite late and stayed in bed. My body hurt, I felt tired even though I slept almost 12 hours. Around 11:00am I mustered the will power to force feed myself and get on the water. After a short phone call to my mom I decided to take it easy and just easy float.
During my extended lunch break I did a lot of reading, watched some videos (yes, such a technocrat but I needed to pass the heat.) While I was paddling, my body felt like it was just not producing energy. I could not push anything. So I phoned it in around 6:00 at a nice little abandoned house with a useful concrete deck overlooking the river.
Day 8: Cookies to Save the Day [Mile 462-425]
Early in the morning I was awoken by company! My good friend Victoria lived about 35 minutes away and she drove down to give me some homemade cookies and a hug from a honest to goodness human being. I found that in 8 days of solitude (ish) on the river that I really missed people and was desperate to converse with someone close to me.
After break camp and getting on the river, I absolutely plowed through all the cookies she gave me and immediately felt better. The day went by easily with good weather until I hit lunch time. Then the clouds moved in and along with it the wind. I was left grinding against a stiff wind, choppy waters, and actually quite cold temperatures. Every stroke counted and if I was not paddling then I was going backwards.
Eventually I arrived just outside Atchison, KS and decided to just call it a day. I was so dog gone tired from non stop paddling into the stiff wind.
Day 9: St. Benedict and Surprise Trumpets [Mile 425-392]
Since Mass was at 11:00 and I was about an hours stroll away, I slept in. Hard. While my body was recovering, I was sleeping a lot more to keep my energy up. St.Benedict, attached to Benedictine College, turned out to be a gigantic beautiful church and the Mass was super reverent. Afterwards I took a stroll downtown to grab a sandwich and some groceries. Atchison is really pretty! It is full of historic buildings and very clean.
Once I got on the river shortly after lunch, I was FLYING. I calculated a nearly 5.3mph average over the entire day. God was smiling on me today because I found out my buddy had gotten engaged, a fisherman caught a 15 pound catfish when I passed him and gave me some waters, I heard taps from Fort Leavenworth on the water, and I found the perfect sand bar to camp on for my last night!
Day 10: The Grand Finale and Lots of BBQ [Mile 392-360]
I woke up early and checked the weather: sunny with a little cloud cover and a gentle breeze. Perfect. Today was the day I estimated arrival in Kansas City, 6 days ahead of schedule! Two weeks (including the previous weekend) adds up to 16 days. The water she was a moving. The channel down near KC has much more flow than the northern and skinner sections of the river so I was able to hit some 6mph splits!
Closing Thoughts..
Overall, I’d say that physically speaking this was not that hard. Sure, grinding into the headwind took a lot of energy but it was more of mind over body. I never woke up with a sore back and I don’t particularly have a strong upper body. Also, when in doubt, you can easily just float around 20 miles a day with reasonable weather.
From a resource perspective, there were plenty of river towns and parks to keep me topped off on food and water. I packed food for around half of the days I actually floated and just bought stuff along the way. It seems nerve racking, but honestly very very easy.
Nature is really beautiful but can kill you with zero hesitation. Getting caught in really bad storms and dancing with numerous water moccasins is never a fun time. A healthy respect though for how things can kill you is good so long as you remember that mentally and physically preparing for this will keep you safe. Learn first aid, how to use your gear, and think out the response you’d have to emergency. For example: I had my location constantly shared with numerous people, had a great first aid kit, knew the nearest town, and knew the limits of all my gear. That being said, I learned something new actually: nature is playful. I saw a wide variety of birds, fish, reptiles, otters, coyotes, deers, and little raccoons. All of them were so playful! Fish jumped around, birds played games, otters and deer frolicked, and coyotes sang some songs. I really enjoyed just slowing down and watching the beauty around me.
I did find ways to keep myself entertained. Let’s be clear: time alone and in quiet solitude is really great for the soul. I did not want to do that for two weeks. I did a lot of quiet thinking, but I also brought a great travelers companion: a book. Yes, I know how to read. After taking two classes on it and writing three essays about it, I have finally opened the cover of Fellowship of the Ring. It is the best book I have ever read. JRR Tolkien has got to be the best author I’ve ever read!
Lastly, if you don’t know this about me: I hate sand. “I don’t like sand. It’s rough, course, and irritating. It gets everywhere” - Anakin. Like a banjo bouncing down a mountain I’ve changed my tune. I now love sand. On the river you have four choices: mud, sharp rocks, sticks, or sand. That’s it. There are no snakes hiding in sand. Sand dries and brushes off, while mud cakes on. Sand is soft and will not cut up your tent like rocks can. You can wade out into water with sand to bathe or cool off, while in mud you just sink straight in. Therefore I practically forced myself to love sand because it is optimal for camping and taking breaks on.
I’m currently working on writing a song to commemorate my float trip and I ordered a banjo. Here is my current working chorus (let me know what you think)
Like a river rat or a mountain man
I grew my beard and left the land
300 miles on the water I sought
Living in a kayak That I just bought
So closing thought for everyone: quit your job, buy a kayak and Lord of the Rings, and hit the river.
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| Little Oddy’ photo shoot after the float with my friend Catherine |
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