Missouri Locations Featured

River Revival

Posted at July 23, 2007 16:23

By Brett Dufur

As day turns to dusk, the restless winds subside, leaving me afloat on an undulating river of liquid glass.

My paddle strokes provide a soft soundtrack as nature’s evening performance begins. Barn swallows and chimney swifts descend in orchestrated chaos to harvest the invisible layer of insects close to the river’s surface. Soon, the silent, darting shadows of grey bats appear from Rocheport Cave to join in the feast.

The paddling is effortless, a comfortable cadence that flows through each bend, leaving me to enjoy the scenery and the simple pleasures of guiding my canoe down this endless river.

With the towering limestone bluffs to my left and the saturated green banks of the Big Muddy National Fish and Wildlife Refuge to my right, I enjoy the last light of day. On a nearby wing dike, a great blue heron takes flight and quickly fades into the grey light.

Turkey vultures circle high above, wings outstretched, catching the day’s last wave on an invisible moving tide of air. The haunting coo of a mourning dove echoes through the bottoms.

Soon we will finish our day’s ten-mile paddle from Rocheport to a few miles below Huntsdale, but not just yet. We stop at a sandbar to rockhound a bit. We find quartz, mozarkite (Missouri’s state rock), petrified wood, and red and deep green granites, all rounded smooth, from some time unimaginable, all slowly working their way from the mountains to the Delta—like postcards from another place, another geologic time.

We return to the river’s edge to paddle a bit more, as a familiar orb crests the horizon. It rises slowly, until the entire valley is bathed in the full moon’s mercurial glow.

What we knew by day becomes new again. The blues, greens, and browns become one under the moon’s silver brush stroke. The river is calm, no longer teased by the afternoon winds and the sun’s glare. A familiar sandbar appears around the bend, and our group of six sets up camp, starts a crackling bonfire, and enjoys good conversation late into the night.

This is as close to floating through life as you can get.

World-Class Float

Exploring the Big Muddy by canoe is something you’ll never forget. It is an adventure that is beginning to draw travelers from around the world.

Yet here in Missouri, the longest river in the United States and one of the greatest rivers in the world manages to meander largely unnoticed across our state. Daily, it slips by more than 4.5 million Missourians who live within a few minutes’ drive, from St. Joseph to Kansas City to Columbia and on to Hermann, Washington and St. Louis. It’s a feat no magician could match.

It has become Missouri’s number one underused natural resource, according to Bryan Hopkins at the Missouri Department of Natural Resources. It is as though the Missouri River has developed the “Grand Canyon Syndrome.” People drive up to see it, get out of their air-conditioned cars, and photograph it. Then they get back in their cars and drive away.

Yet the river abounds with recreational opportunities, such as houseboating, motorboating, fishing, and hunting on selected adjoining Conservation Areas. First-time paddlers on the Missouri are often surprised that the river feels more like a slow-moving lake than a fast-moving river.

Missouri is well-known for its safe, scenic, and easily accessible float streams. The Current, Eleven Point, Huzzah, Jacks Fork and many others have long been staples of summer vacations. While a single canoe outfitter on an Ozark stream may rent out three hundred canoes in a weekend, there are only two outfitters on the Missouri River, and there aren’t enough paddlers on the entire 450-mile stretch of river to fill a large shuttle bus on any given weekend.

But the Missouri River is also safe, scenic, and easily accessible, thanks to the abundance of Conservation Areas, state parks, federal lands, and city parks adjacent to the river, maintained by various state and federal agencies, including the Missouri Department of Conservation, Missouri Department of Natural Resources, and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Many of these areas offer access points and camping opportunities. (See www.missouririverwatertrail.org for a complete guide.)

A Psychological Barrier

The Missouri River has a psychological barrier along its banks. And no wonder. A fearful vision of the river has been honed through years of the worst public relations any river could have.

In the early days of settlement, it developed a deserved reputation as dangerous. The Missouri River of 1804 was a maze of dangerous snags, shifting sandbars, and collapsing riverbanks.

A wide, shallow, slow-moving wetland buffered the edges of its unpredictable and meandering main channel.

Then by 1819, the first steamboat was plying the Big Muddy. The river was a captain’s nightmare—downed trees with root balls still intact had a nasty habit of lying submerged right below the water’s surface. Nearly three hundred vessels met with disaster on the river in the 1800s.

Today, the only time the Missouri River makes the news is when it’s at flood stage and has escaped beyond where we think its banks should be.

But just as there is no boogeyman under the bed, we need to cast off the notion of the Missouri River as a no-man’s land. Let’s cut loose that heavy anchor.

Surf Before You Paddle

In 2006, Missouri Governor Matt Blunt and a coalition of Missouri agencies, including the Department of Conservation, the Department of Natural Resources, and the Division of Tourism, designated the Missouri River as the Lewis and Clark Missouri River Trail, the country’s longest river trail. A water trail is simply a specified route for recreational watercraft to explore.

This coalition developed a new web site, www.missouririverwatertrail.org, which makes it easy to plan your paddling adventure. The site offers trip maps, mileage charts, and other interactive tools to help you get on the river.

The Missouri River Trail offers an unforgettable, easily accessible afternoon or multi-day river trip. Whether you choose to float for an afternoon or paddle the entire state from St. Joseph to Kansas City and on to St. Louis, you can enjoy miles of paddling in what will appear to be remote wilderness. Paddlers can choose to camp on a sandbar or stay in a nearby bed-and-breakfast and tour a historic river town.

You can experience spring’s dazzling dogwood and redbud displays in front of blue cloudless skies, white bluffs hugging the river’s edge with faint glimpses of ancient Native American pictographs, summer’s refreshing stops for a cool dip at sandbars, and fall’s firework displays of amber, red, and burnt orange hues. Then winter brings its own allure, offering an entirely new face with its icy embrace and crisp solitude.

A big river puts us back into our proper scale with nature in much the same way mountains do. We become a dot, a blip. We dissolve into the grander view, where the Great Artist’s canvas is alive and ever changing.

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote of undisturbed horizons feeding the soul of man. Indeed, there is much here for the spirit.

Roughing it Redefined

Perhaps if Lewis and Clark were to travel the trail today, in addition to the overwhelming number of references to “butifull” and “mosquitors” would be an equally misspelled nod to the fine inhabitants of the trail today. Whatever you need, a helping hand is never too far away.

Many key elements have come together to set the stage for the success of this water trail. Call it “roughing it” redefined: gourmet food at a local cafe, a hot shower at a bed-and-breakfast, and a bottle of an award-winning Missouri wine.

During the recent Lewis and Clark commemoration from 2003 to 2006, many communities revitalized their riverfronts. As a result, there are now many new city parks, access points, and viewing areas along the river’s edge.

In addition, the Missouri Department of Conservation greatly improved river access by expanding the number of boat ramps on public lands along the river corridor. These areas offer wildlife a chance to thrive and allow visitors more public sites from which they can enjoy the river by bird watching, hunting, fishing, launching a boat, and camping. There are more than forty boat ramps and almost fifty Conservation Areas along the river.

The Katy Trail State Park, the nation’s longest rails-to-trails project, more or less parallels the river for 150 miles, from Boonville downriver to St. Charles. Many of the services that have sprung up along the Katy Trail are at perfect intervals for paddlers as well.

On this section of river, a paddler can float in solitude in a wilderness setting during the day and still explore charming small towns, eat heartily at cafes or wineries, and sleep in air-conditioned comfort at night.

The Katy Trail has helped spawn many privately run campgrounds, bed-and-breakfasts, unique shops, restaurants, and many other services along its course, all close to the river’s edge. With towns evenly spaced every ten to twenty miles along the river, it is easy to connect the dots when planning your trip. Visiting local museums and interesting historic sites is a bonus.

Even some of Missouri’s famed wine country intersects the Missouri River Trail. Octoberfest in Hermann by canoe, anyone? Rocheport’s Les Bourgeois Winery and Washington’s La Dolce Vita Winery are easily accessible from the river’s edge. Many others are just a mile or two away.

Up north, St. Joseph’s new river walk offers a change of pace from paddling.

Several shuttle services that cater to cyclists can serve paddlers too, such as the Rocheport Ferry and Transportation Company (573-698-2001). Amtrak provides a scenic and inexpensive way to get back to your car at your put-in point. Or stow your bike in your canoe and pedal back on the Katy Trail, then run your own shuttle back to pick up your canoe or kayak.

There are also several commercial boat clubs, marinas, campgrounds, and bait-shops that cater to river traffic where you can obtain supplies or find a place to put up your tent for the night.

For paddlers close to Kansas City, just twenty-two miles downstream near river mile marker 343, is the River Refuge at Alligator Cove, where you’ll find camping and other services (816-750-4695 or www.riverrefuge.com; by reservation only).

Cooper’s Landing, at river mile marker 170 near Easley, is a river rat haven that has it all: friendly locals, riverside camping, showers, great Thai cooking, resupply items, and live music most weekends (573-657-2544 or www.cooperslanding.net).

Nature Rebounding

You won’t see the buffalo, black bear, elk, or the bright green-and-yellow Carolina parakeet that Lewis and Clark saw, but much of the nature they observed and many of the panoramic views they beheld can still be appreciated today.

Nature along the Missouri River is on an incredible rebound, thanks to the Department of Conservation and other state and federal agencies that are restoring crucial wetland and river bottom habitat.

The Missouri River today is not as it was in the time of Lewis and Clark, more than two hundred years ago. The Corps of Engineers began removing snags as early as 1824. In 1912, the Missouri River Bank Stabilization and Navigation Project began. Over the course of the next century, a permanent channel for navigation from St. Louis to Sioux City, Iowa, was created.

The project removed oxbows and straightened out the river—shortening it by fifty-seven miles just within the state of Missouri. Wing dikes and rock piers diverted the current, resulting in a channel nine feet deep and three hundred feet wide.

Then in 1987, Congress authorized the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Mitigation Project to restore some of the lost fish and wildlife habitat. The Corps bought land in the Missouri River flood plain from willing sellers for this purpose.

In addition, the U.S. Department of Agriculture created the Wetlands Reserve Program to help farmers provide seasonal wetland habitat for migrating waterfowl. Landowners participate through easements or restoration cost-share agreements.

Occasionally, the Missouri River still shows its untamable nature. Heavy rain throughout the entire Midwest created the Great Flood of 1993 along both the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. Flooding forced more than ten thousand people from their homes. Dozens lost their lives, and property damage ran into the billions. The flood breached levees and damaged thousands of acres of farmland. Then the river repeated its rampage in 1995.

In the wake of the disaster, Congress authorized the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to buy flood-damaged land. Many landowners opted to sell. This and other programs allowed federal agencies to give landowners relief while also setting aside areas for fish and wildlife habitats and public recreation along the river. In central Missouri, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service bought riverside tracts to form the Big Muddy National Wildlife Refuge.

The flood resulted in change on some Missouri Conservation Areas as well. When no public property would be affected, some damaged levees on areas like Marion Bottoms and Lisbon Bottom were not rebuilt. As a result, thousands of acres of public land can now absorb floodwaters to protect private levees and farms. The flood also cut a chute on Lisbon Bottom between Arrow Rock and Glasgow, which has been allowed to mature into a backwater channel that provides river edge habitat for fish and wildlife.

Although these efforts were made to protect wildlife habitat and private property, another benefit is that the public can now explore more diverse river habitats.

Today, a river traveler can meander into backwaters and find wonderfully diverse areas, created as floodwaters rise onto and then recede from these public lands. You can also leave the main channel and explore many tributaries for miles on end.

The two big floods also prompted communities, farmers, and commercial interests along the Missouri River to form the Missouri River Communities Network. This group works to reconcile the interests of navigation, agriculture, recreation, tourism, and other interests. The group even organized a Missouri Department of Conservation Stream Team to coordinate cleanups on the big river.

Today, due to the combined efforts of many state and federal agencies, such as the Missouri Department of Conservation, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, and others, nature is rebounding along the Missouri River. These agencies manage thousands of acres of Missouri River bottomland to allow the river room to breathe once again, to prevent communities from being flooded, to protect farms, and to preserve and restore habitat for fish and wildlife.

At the same time, close to half a million tons of commodities move by barge annually on the Missouri River.

You can explore the diversity of wildlife and nature in Missouri in many of the Conservation Areas along the river.

One with special appeal is Eagle Bluffs Conservation Area, along the river near McBaine. It is designated as an Important Bird Area by the Audubon Society. In the spring and summer, you can spot shorebirds like American avocet, black-necked stilts, white-faced ibis, American golden plover, and phalarope. The river timber attracts migrant and resident songbirds like the rose-breasted grosbeak. Each fall, the area serves as a feeding and resting spot for more than half a million waterfowl migrating through the state.

More than 260 different species have been spotted in this area, including a pair of nesting bald eagles.

The Beautiful River

In many ways, now is the best time to paddle and explore the Missouri River since Lewis and Clark.

Perhaps the river has been overlooked and forgotten because the beauty of the Missouri River valley is so sublime. It rewards idle moments of contemplation as the sun crashes into the horizon in a fiery blaze, trailing striped skies of vivid blue hues and subtle pinks. The river doesn’t take your breath away in an instant like the first time you see the Rocky Mountains. The beauty of the Missouri comes on slowly as the light shifts and the geese alight. The beauty here lies in its perfect painter’s palette of saturated blues and greens. The river can be as grey as a city park pigeon or as blue as a newborn baby’s eyes.

The beauty also lies in the silence. Thousands of cubic feet of water rush by every minute with the force of a hundred freight trains, yet the river is quieter than a sleeping infant.

The Big Muddy appears to stretch to infinity. Look to that distant point on the horizon, where the line blurs between river and sky. The river stretches right up until it kisses the sky, and they dissolve into one.

• Take a guided tour.

Going on a float trip guided by one of the two canoe rental businesses on the river offers you an easy and safe way to first paddle the river. Guides explain how to read the river and tell about area history, early explorers, local geology, and how the river has changed. This is a great way to expand your comfort zone.

Missouri River Paddling Co., based out of Parkville, offers guided floats on the Missouri and Platte rivers (www.missouririverpaddling.com or 816-352-1765). They offer customized floats and shuttle services.

Mighty Mo Canoe Rental in Rocheport offers afternoon trips floating seven miles past Mid-Missouri’s scenic Manitou Bluffs (www.mighty-mo.com or 573-698-3903). You can climb up to the Katy Trail and see an ancient pictograph painted by NativeAmericans, stop on sandbars, and take out at Huntsdale. You can then be shuttled back. Or, you can bike back on the flat Katy Trail on your own bike, which can be dropped off by the shuttle.

• Float elsewhere to learn the basics.

The lower Missouri River is really not an appropriate river to learn to canoe or kayak for the first time. The Missouri State Water Patrol offers an online boating course for free. Even though much of the information is targeted to powerboaters, the safety principles apply to all forms of boating, and there is a section on paddling craft. Visit www.missouririverwatertrail.org for a link to the course and more safety tips.

• Give yourself plenty of time.

The current on the river is typically around three to five miles per hour, and this can help your craft travel down the river. Given ideal conditions, an experienced paddler who keeps moving and does not stop anywhere too long could cover ten to twenty miles in a day. Expedition paddlers may paddle forty miles in a day with favorable conditions.

Shore signposts every mile or two have the river mileage posted on them. These are usually given as miles from the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers near St. Louis. By watching for them and knowing the mileage of your take-out point, you will generally know where you are.

But beginners should start with small trips and work their way up. A trip between five and fifteen miles is ideal, allowing time to loaf and picnic on sandbars and to let the current do the work. Night paddling on the river is for experts only.

• Allow for the wind.

Winds often blow up the river valley. That’s why Lewis and Clark were able to use a sail to go upriver. At times, wind speeds can be greater on the river than on the surrounding land. An upriver wind can substantially slow you down. During high winds, you may have to “work” your boat down the river, regardless of current.

If your canoe is perpendicular to the current and you get caught by a strong crosswind, the canoe will tip more easily. If you get the least bit “tippy,” point your bow downstream.

• Don’t float in fog.

A fog can build up on the river any time of year, especially on autumn mornings and evenings. It is not unusual to wake up on a sandbar and find the river socked in with fog. You may have to wait several hours for the fog to lift.

• Check that your boat has flotation.

This might be foam blocks in the bow and stern of a canoe or an enclosed area on a kayak. The current on the river is strong and could easily take full control of a capsized boat that does not have some type of flotation.

• Learn the navigation system.

The U.S. Coast Guard maintains shore-based beacons or signposts and river buoys marking the channel for the entire lower Missouri River. This will tell you where the river channel is located. Find these navigation guides at www.missouririverwatertrail.org.

• Take river charts with you.

The Army Corps of Engineers provides charts of the river, and someone in your group should have one. Visit www.missouririverwatertrail.org to print maps.

• Stay away from navigation buoys.

They bounce around, and the wake can tip an unbalanced canoe.

• Land pointing upstream.

Having a swift current at your back can make landing tricky. Head upstream before going to shore.

• Stay alert.

While paddling the Missouri can be like paddling a big lake, there’s one big difference. At high water, the current could be carrying big logs and even entire trees. Currents are often strong around them.

Especially when the river is rising, debris can end up in the water. Wait until the river begins to drop again, as much of the debris will hang up on shore or wing dams, making travel much better.

• Prepare for wilderness.

It’s a remote river. It allows you to get away from the crowds. But that also means access points can be ten or more miles apart. The surrounding bottomlands are largely agricultural or undeveloped, and one can paddle miles without seeing other people.

Tell family or friends where you’re going and when you’ll return, just as you would going into any wilderness. Take your cell phone in a waterproof case; coverage on the river can be surprisingly good, although there are stretches where service is not available. Take walkie-talkies to stay in touch with group members. Take a set of dry clothes in a water-tight bag, too.

For floating and camping, take the same wilderness gear, including a first-aid kit, that you would take for backpacking.

• Steer clear of barges.

Look over your shoulder every now and then, and make sure a large barge isn’t sneaking up on you. Barges traveling downriver are quiet. They won’t be looking for you, and they have no ability to steer around you. In fact, a barge needs almost a mile to stop. However, if you learn to read the location of the river channel indicated by the navigation markers, you will know where the channel is and where the barge is headed.

When you see a barge, move to the side of the river, point your bow into the wake, and wait for the barge to pass and the waves to settle down. The best place to be is behind a wing dike or out of your canoe on the shore.

Steer clear of barges moored on the river, too. Water rushing under the vessel could pull a small craft under.

• Make sure you are visible.

You will also share the river with the occasional fishing boat, houseboat, powerboat, or jet ski. If your craft isn’t a bright color, wear bright-colored life jackets. Turning sideways to the current also makes a bigger display.

• Camp on public sandbars.

Sandbars between the river’s banks are typically open to public use. The lands beyond the river’s banks are mostly private unless marked as public Conservation Areas. Keep in mind that the river can come up fast; a good rainfall can bring the river up several feet in a few hours. Be prepared with an escape route up the bank if the river wants your sandbar back.

• Is the water safe?

As with any body of water in this country, pollutants do exist and are highest after a strong rain. But swimming is as safe as at the Lake of the Ozarks. The murky color is due to silt in the water. The amount of soil in the water today is actually less than during Lewis and Clark’s time.

• Respect the river.

It is far more powerful than you are!

Know the river level

River trips are best at low water levels. The river level determines whether wing dams will be visible or hidden under water. When the tops of the wing dams are out of the water, the current is often more predictable for paddling, with the water behind or below the wing dams typically slower than the main current.

A series of gauges on the Missouri River provide real-time river level information. When the Boonville gauge reports fourteen feet, it does not mean the whole river is that deep, but rather, it’s fourteen feet deep at Boonville. Every stretch of the river is different, but as a general guide, when the Boonville gauge is ten feet or lower, many sections of the wing dams are exposed or near the surface.

Higher river levels often will overtop the wing dams and result in stronger eddy lines, currents, and boils. Lower river levels expose more sandbars, especially on the stretch of river from Glasgow to Weldon Springs at river levels below seven to eight feet on the Boonville gauge. These sandbars often have fine white sands that rival a Caribbean beach and offer ideal campsites.

The web site www.missouririverwatertrail.org has information and links to the river gauge data for the Missouri River. Actual depth of the river channel can range from ten to twenty feet, but the main channel only makes up a fraction of the river’s width. Paddlers may be surprised to find that much of the river outside of the channel is very shallow, one to four feet deep.

CANOE OR KAYAK?

Each boat has its own advantages. Canoes are easier to get in and out of, your gear is easily accessible, and a canoe can carry an incredible amount of weight, which is handy for multiple days on the river. Canoes are more prone to being blown off course by the river’s winds, which are generally stronger in the morning but can blow all day.

Kayaks have a much lower profile and are unaffected by wind. Kayak paddles make for easy paddling, and most kayaks have solid back support.

Short recreational kayaks and canoes often sold for use on lakes do not track well on the river. If your boat is twelve feet or shorter, you could spend your entire outing correcting your boat’s course. A fourteen- to seventeen-foot boat will track much better in the river’s current.

High-end composite and wooden boats are fine for the Missouri River. Plastic boats can be both cheaper and hardier.

Floating the Missouri River in an inner tube or small inflatable raft is truly a bad idea. These vessels have severely limited directional control required to safely avoid barges, recreational boats, or other hazards in the river.

If you live in the St. Louis area, consider attending one of the Alpine Shop’s paddling seminars or river outings. (Visit www.alpineshop.com or call 314-962-7715.)

You can also try out a variety of boats on an organized float with one of the two Missouri River canoe rental companies.

CONSERVATION IS ALL ABOUT THE NEXT GENERATION

Each generation uses the Missouri River to make better lives for themselves and their children. Today, the public also recognizes that each generation is also challenged to sustain the river’s natural wealth for the future.

The Missouri Department of Conservation has crafted a plan that anticipates the challenges of managing the state’s fish, forest, and wildlife resources and identifies ways to meet them. This strategic plan, titled Next Generation of Conservation, outlines nine goals.

The first is conserving plants, animals, and their habitats. Although Missouri is blessed with a rich variety of land and wildlife, the landscape has changed dramatically since settlement. While many plants and animals have been restored to sustainable populations, Missouri continues to lose habitats, leading to the decline of other species. Clearly, to sustain or even boost Missouri’s natural diversity, habitat has to be protected and carefully managed.

To meet this goal, the Conservation Department is increasing the variety of natural habitats on public lands. The department is dedicated to managing these lands, which represent less than 2 percent of the state, in ways that both promote more plant and animal diversity and provide easy access and comfortable facilities for the public.

To find out more about the plan for conserving Missouri’s natural diversity, go to www.missouriconservation.org /12843.

THE WORLD’S LONGEST NON-STOP RACE

Later this summer, the wide banks and gorgeous tree-lined shores of the Missouri River will welcome both novices and seasoned paddlers to the annual Missouri River 340—though those in it to win won’t have the time to enjoy the scenery. West Hansen, last year’s winner, from Austin, Texas, covered the 340 river miles in less than fifty-four hours.

Last year, the first race attracted Missourians and visitors from around the country. Requests for information about the second race have come in from Australia, Malaysia, and Canada.

Bryan Hopkins from Columbia, who is an environmental education specialist with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, finished second in the men’s solo division and third overall last year.

“I felt like a pickup truck in a NASCAR race,” he says. He anticipated having the home-court advantage, but he later realized his handmade wooden kayak couldn’t compete with the “long sleek Kevlar specialized racing canoes and kayaks,” he says.

Another racer last year, Katie Pfeffercorn, who was a senior at the University of Missouri at Columbia, took second place in the women’s division and ninth place overall. She was pleasantly surprised at the way participants helped each other and was grateful for the hospitality of people along the way. The Missouri River Communities Network organized volunteers that assisted paddlers at each of the checkpoints.

Scott Mansker, the man behind the idea, pioneered the event to increase interest in both paddling and the Missouri River. An idea ten years in the making, he “figured it would be an informal event, maybe only four or five people, including myself, involved.” The race was publicized mainly by word of mouth, and fifteen paddlers competed. So far this year, two dozen have signed up for the second race scheduled for July 24-28.

The hundred-hour race starts at Kaw Point Park in Kansas City at 8 am July 24 and ends at noon July 28 at St. Charles. Participants must check in at each of the nine checkpoints, follow all contest rules, and propel themselves “exclusively by paddle power.” You can read competitors’ trip logs and get more information about the race at www.rivermiles.com. For last year’s results, add /resources/2006Results.html. –By Glenna Parks

June 2007

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