6/10/2017 Black River Falls to Irving

What a day.  We had some really nice conditions for the 4 of us that made the trip today.  Jack Miller, Bill Peters, Tom Hundt, and Myself paddled all day into a 35 to 40 mile per hour wind.  It was like paddling against a wall all day.  If you dared to stop paddling, the wind would blow you upstream or spin you around and not allow you to correct your course.  On some of the bends in the river, when the wind would hit you, it would almost roll your kayak over and swamp you.  The other conditions for the day were 94 degree heat in the air, 73 degree warmth in the water, and a 4.2 foot River Stage (OK to Low) but very high steady winds,as we made our 12.7 mile journey from the City of Black River Falls to Irving Town Hall.  We were pestered most of the day with Eagles toying with us, but as you can see in one of the videos–even they had trouble flying and certainly landing.  We saw a small family of Ducks  (about 7 ducklings) and the Mother taking them for a little swim.  The trees were blowing out pollen all day like puffs of smoke–big puffs that covered the air and in many places the entire river.  We finished our day’s journey in a record slow pace of 5 hours and 40 minutes, pretty bad, but if you consider paddling uphill all day long–the fact that we made it at all was terrific.  We earned every foot of the trip today.

See the “Puff” of pollen being blown out of the trees?

Some group of inconsiderate S.O.B.’s had a party before we got there and did not invite us but somehow they expected us to clean up their mess.  This is a prime example of how an “As@h@le” acts –no consideration for the anyone and lazy — can’t say enough about how low life this type of person is.

Here we go running the rapids–the video shows Jack and Bill coming through them with flying colors and a smile on their face.

We discovered where the “Tent City” people from La Crosse moved to–or maybe it is a tribe of Aborigines have moved from Australia–not sure??

See how wild the water is?  This picture does not give you enough perspective–until you are sitting in that kayak.

See the Eagle sitting on the tip of that branch?

 

 

Ride along with us on the water for a minute to see what it is like with the wind–just beautiful.

Now watch the Eagle trying to fly straight–not real clear, but that is what is happening.  Hard to hold the camera steady when the wind is blowing the kayak all around.

 

Jump Out Public Beach — the only direct access to the river along this stretch.

Another good example of the wind that we paddled through all day.

Tom had to test the water today to be sure the temperature was proper for swimming–he approved it in the end.

Eagles flying overhead.

Coming in for a landing at the end of the trip–it was just as bad at the end as the beginning for wind and wild water.

Tom coming in and trying to hit the Flight Deck–a good landing.  Cross current did not even sway him.

The end of a good day, in spite of the circumstances–but they did really earn the refreshment.  A bad day on the river is still a GREAT DAY!!!