1999
Dubuque or Bust!! (Well, ...)
by Shirley Kysilko
The June Messabut on Lake Pepin gets us thinking of traveling farther down the Mississippi. Last year, Rhett proposed that we paddle down to Dubuque after the Messabout weekend. His wife has cousins there, and I have college friends not far away, so the trip was on. Pete and Adrienne Madsen, Bob Brown, and Ray Klebba signed up to go also. We figured that spouses and friends would pick us up in Dubuque at the end of the week, we would do some visiting with relatives, then head on back to the Twin Cities.
On a rainy Thursday afternoon, Tom dropped me off at Harriet Island in St. Paul, and I kayaked solo down to Janette Sweasy's in Bay City. We drove the rest of the way to Hok-Si-La Park near Lake City for the Messabout weekend, where everybody had a great time trying out boats and sharing meals around the campfires. Sunday afternoon, our group of kayakers set off down the River, escorted as far as Pepin by Dave Kassube. Bob and Ray had decided to go as far as La Crosse. Pete, Adrienne, Rhett, and I planned to get to Dubuque by the following Saturday.
Traveling down the Mississippi is not a tricky exercise in navigation-one can simply follow the green and red channel markers and never get lost. However, we wanted to find good campsites and to spend at least a little time exploring side channels, so we had three sets of maps to help us out. The DNR (blue) maps show the general course of the river and locations of likely camping areas. The Mississippi River Guide booklet (also DNR) shows a bit more detail plus the locations of wing dams, channel markers, marinas, and access points. The Army Corps of Engineers maps show incredible detail and were a help in weaving our way through some of the complex side channels.
For the most part, we stuck to the main channel for speed, but a number of times we took side channels that either cut off a big bend in the river or just looked interesting. We did find more wildlife in the side channels - an eagle's nest with two chicks, a big heron rookery, deer. Campsites were easier to find on the main channel. There aren't established sites, but there are a lot of sandy islands formed from the dredging of the channel. My favorite was a high sandy spot just upriver from Fountain City where we had a sandy swimming beach and a great view of the sunset. My least favorite was the one with fist sized rocks on a ten degree slope next to a pile of channel markers, but that's another story.
Since we had six and a half days to travel 190 miles, we were figuring on about 30 miles each day, which didn't seem all that difficult going downriver. We had counted on the delays at the locks, extra time for stopping at riverside cafes for lunches, and extra travel time that a group takes, but we had not counted on numerous storms, upriver winds, and the tail end of a tornado. Just up from Lansing, Iowa, we saw storm clouds coming over the bluff and had less than five minutes to get off the water before torrential rains, lightning, and wind hit. Two days later, we slogged into Guttenberg and met up with Maureen McKessey and Tom Kysilko, about 32 miles shy of our original goal. But the town is lovely and the people were very friendly, so we felt happy with where we ended up.
In mulling over our trip, we came up with a couple of alternative ways to set up a trip in this area. One would be that instead of setting a destination and a time limit, we could set a time limit, then call our transport the day before the last and let them know where we will be. Another would be to stick to one of the "pools" between dams, then paddle down one side of the river and back up the other, giving us more time to explore side channels, no lock delays, and no need for shuttle vehicles.
This is a beautiful stretch of the river, with lots of variety in bluffs, sand bars, marsh areas, and side channels. We did see some wildlife, especially eagles, but no bears raiding food packs. The commercial barge traffic is interesting, especially at the locks, where we were treated to a behind the scenes tour by former lock operator Bob. Some of the towns along the river are quite picturesque and would be fun to explore. Riverside cafes were a nice break for lunches and water. There are also plenty of side channels with virtually no other boat traffic. What really surprised me was the number of decent swimming beaches we found. The best part is that all this is close to home.
