5.15.2021 Upper Iowa River: Kendallville to Bluffton (4.1’/mile)
Trip Number (21-5) This is the first time in my 20+ years of kayaking that I am leaving a less than desirable report on a kayak day. We endured terrible conditions on this river today—it is my fault for not reading the stats better. This river should be paddled — they say — from 150cfs to 850cfs so we started and the conditions were 182cfs. so knowing it will be low, but not too low, we tried the paddle. I endured the most damage to my fiber glass kayak in one day than I have ever caused in several years of paddling. All day long I was “puckering my butt” to keep from scraping the rocks. It does not work. I am posting the minimum conditions for this river for all to see. It requires a MINIMUM of 250cfs. and 3.75 feet of water—we had 3.36 feet. I am a large paddler, but even the runts of the litter were scraping today. Enough bitching. The rest of the story–the day started out 57° and cloudy with a chance of rain, but turned out sunny with 68° temperatures. Our tolerant group for the day included; Bill & Teresa, Tom, Steve, Pat C., and Me. The water temp. was 56°, so that was acceptable, for our 17 mile trip down the river at 3.6 mph. We completed our paddle in 4 hours and 33 minutes with only a 35 minute stop. It was probably the coolest of the day with winds, when we stopped—the rest of the day was comfortable and even got quite warm near the end when the sun was shining brightly.
We had a plethora of wildlife today. Geese, Eagles, and even a Deer at the waters’ edge, but in the picture he is very camouflaged, so can’t be seen well.
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Another 5”star production Bill!! You continue to raise the bar.