Over 1300 miles down!

Sorry everyone for the lack of updates, we've been pretty busy ontop of me being pretty sick I was running a high fever and had a swollen upper jaw but we are back in business and through St Louis! The river has picked up substantially, we are covering 60 miles in what use to be. 45 mileage time. Trash and debre has picked up making it kind
Of tricky to navagate. In addition to all of the asain carp have started jumping which means the water occasionally explodes with large flying fish! Kind of scary. Ciaro, IL tomorrow... Memphis, TN in 5 days... home in two weeks or less!!

>800 miles down

We are closing in a St. Louis just another 300 miles. Things have been going great the people here in Iowa are some of the nicest yet. After beaching for the evening around the 666mile marker we were fortunate enough to meet jerri, nat, kelsey and some of their friends, their kindness is unparralled. In the short time we made known them they gave us cold beers, food for the evening, our first taste of Wisconsin cheese, and invited us over for breakfast the following day. That night it rained and we all got pretty wet followed by a disagreement the next morning with Chad and Gage which sent Chad off for a few days and me and Gage to breakfast with our new friends which was absolutely amazing. After a leisurely morning and a few packed groceries packed away from them we exchanged contacts and said our goodbyes and set off on our next mission to pass Chad who
Had a 3 or 4 hour jump on us. Me and Gage paddled through the
Night completing 90 miles in just 24 hours. The next day we pushed on the create more distance between us and our rogue comrade only to find. 12 hour wait at the next lock. I walked around til I found a Corpsman who offered to have some if his employees use a tractor to transport our kayaks to the other side. he then got down in the water with us and helped carry the heavy kayaks up a rocky side. The next day upon our guilty caunchase we let Chad catch up to us to his disbelief. That pretty much is the last week in a nutshell, enjoy the photos

We're outta minna-soda...don't cha know!?

...Gage...
We hit Minneapolis the night before last. Pretty cool city. We pulled ip in some park and hid our kayaks, took a river bath, then got a bum to walk us to the laundry mat a mile away....which turned out to be closer to 6. First time we've had clean clothes since we began tuis trip, close to 20 days now. Smellin fresh! We went and grabbed a few beers in celebration of being in Minneapolis, our 500 mile marker. Then we went back to the park where our kAyaks were and slept on the ground by the water. Woke up and went to resupply. We went in the coolest grocery store. Everything was organic and locally grown. They had tons of awesome stuff. Could've spent days in their. Anyways we dipped out and kayaked a short day, aboutto miles. We pulled up to a nice beachy lookin area to camp, which turned out to be a huge dog park. We camped there anyway and had tons of dogs and people around for awhile. We looked pretty odd sittin under our Hammocks cooking food on this dog park. Not a bad spot though. The sand was very well fertilized with dog urine and shit so it was all soft and nIceto walk on...today was very trying for us all. Straight up hurricane winds all day, which makes huge wake, which makes Gage wet and pissed off. Pretty tough 35 miles today, had to work for every bit of it. But now we officially have 1 state under our belts...hello Wisconsin! And peaceout Minnesota.

Portage hell and Minnesota nice! 400miles down

The last three days have been quite enjoyable, yesterday We arrived in breynard where we walked into town to resupply the walk was long at the day was hot after our 6 mile trek a resupply and lunch we got a taxi back to our kayaks and we continued for a few miles before setting up camp. The following day the current had picked up substantially helping us knock down 30 miles before 1 pm, that day we stopped and had lunch with some soldiers from camp Ripley a staff Sargent, specialist, and a lovely Sargent, lovely PFC ranked according to Chad. They gave us some Mre's before we departed, much appreciated! Today was quite the day we paddled 15 miles before we came to the first dam with a 300 yard portage which we cut short by hopping in close to the dam with some pretty intense rapids. After another 10 miles or so we came to the next dam with a portage that was close to a mile long full of steep hills narrow paths and loose dirt, "hell". After that we paddled another 5 miles or so and came to this camp ground to resupply on water. After Asking for permission to use this mans fossit next to his camper he offered us a hotdog next thing we know we are sitting down with his family for a meal of two hotdogs, slaw, beans, cookies, and a mixed drink thank you Mark, Nancy, Isaya, and Owen for the wondeful time. Here's a few photos sorry soldiers your photos are on my camera still!

Delicious weather

...Gage...
The past few days have been pretty amazing! The weather has finally taken a turn for the better and has been sunny every day. Makes paddling so much more enjoyable. The night before last we chilled in a really small town, if you want to call it that, called palisade. Soon after we pulled up another kayaker, Greg from new Zealand, came up and we talked with him for a minute and walked in town together to resupply. All they had as an overpriced gasstation so we didn't buy much. Greg was a pretty cool dude, I think he said he was 65. Pretty cool that he's still out doing exciting things. He told us abou an Australian that would be paddle boarding the Mississippi pretty soon. Pretty intense! Dude is supposed to be doing 25 trips of over 1000 miles using a different form of non mechanized transportation, pretty inspiring! The next day we did 30 miles to aitkin. Since we didn't get much in palisade we had to get some more foOd, so we took the 4 mile walk to the grocery store and walked back. I would walk 20 miles to get to a grocery store. It's so amazing to be able to go in there with all that food, so many options. I jus wanna camp in the grocery store. We got some burgers and brats that hey made in store, soo fire! So it was grilling and beers last night. Nice havin some meat other than canned shit. Our campsite neighbor, David I think it was, was a pretty nice guy. He hooked it up with a fire log and some coffe this morning. We pushed out 40 miles today. It was extrely hot so we ended up jumping in the river to cool done. Took advantage of I and got a much needed shower too. My rudder strin ended up snapping toward the end of the day but I was able to repair it pretty quickly. Hopefully these nice days last awhile. I think galens gonna throwsome pictures up.

Just what the doctor ordered

So it's been a few days since I've updated mainly due to the crappy cold, windy, and wet weather. So a few days ago we arrived at pokegama dam which was our next resupply point after talking with the park ranger Jeff who was intesipating our arrival thanks to a phone call via bubby, Jeff gave us a ride in town so we could get what we needed. Over the following days we have struggled to cover decent distance because of the weather until today which was sunny not a cloud in the sky with a cool breeze! Our camp site today sits on top a cliff which is perfectly positioned over a deep bend in the river so we each took a few jumps off which was worth a few much needed laughs and swim. After that it left us all time to get a few things done like laundry and minor repairs. Time to relax with smoothly fishing and some s'mores later tonight here's a few photos of Jeff, the lumber yard, an our setup for the evening
Until next time!

Trials and tribulations

The days follow bemidji have been full of bitter cold and none stop light showers that in addition to the choppy waters of cass lake and the labyrinth of bogs in route to lake Winnibigoshish have equated in some of the more testing times of my patients and preservation in my adult life. I've managed to keep optimistic and it's made all the difference! Aside from the weather we came across a pleasant change in luck, we stop to have lunch on this boat landing at Beckers resort camp ground after a little small talk the owners Doug and Nancy Andresen offered us hot showers and a ride around the lake for a small fee. Upon ariving at the new camp ground we talked to the host Bubby who offered us the tent we are using as our shelter for the night along with anything else we need because his camp ground was full, Chad said it best "this trip has restored my faith in people" thank you everyone, heres photos of us in our cold weather get ups, the Andresens, and good ol' bubby!

Lake bemidji

...Gage...yesterday was our first day of sunshine, and what a beautiful day it was! The view kayaking down the river is amazing. So many hills and the greenest grass you will ever see. Since it was such a nice day we decided to make it all the way to a town called bemidji, a 30 mile trip. After all the turns down the river and battling huge wake in two different lakes we were pretty exhausted when we got to our destination. And come to find out we when we got thier, the place we thought we were going to camp at was still another couple of miles across the lake. Nobody was feelin doing that, so wefound this tiny patch of woods right behind this university and neighborhood. There was also a little trail through the stretch that people went walking through, which we slept about a foot away from. Pretty sketchy. All night I was waiting for a bum to try to jack me for stuff. We tied our kayaks up to some trees and left them in the water. It turned out to be pretty straight. Me and Galen walked into town and grabbed a burger which was amazing! I'm talkin waiters mushrooms,cheese, thick bacon, and onion rings on the burger. Incredible! Ranger danger Chad stayed behind and did his things and watched over camp. We Grabbed a few beers, drank them at camp and went to sleep. Woke up and resupplied in town, then hit a quick 5 miles up to another camp site. Might storm starting tomorrow through the weekend so we might be chillen at this spot for a couple days. Should be interesting. We would all liketo thank Eric at the university's kayak shop for helping us find a place to sleep and watching over our kayaks when we went get some things on town. Got a few pics below of some statues in the town, ole big blue!

Hey everyone sorry between lack of service and decent weather I haven't had a chance to update. Day one was wet with scattered showers and overcast, today was cover cast and freezing! Despite the weather challenges it's been pretty fun between the tunnel and rapids I feel like it's an amusement park ride. In other news Gage was the first to flip that is all for now here's some photos!

Maidan voyage

It's official we are in route! First stop reliance, TN for big mountain run motorcycle festival, tomorrow up to Chicago, and then finally lake itasca. Here's a few pics of us getting all packed up. Before After .

05/09/11 Intro/Dry run

Hello my name is Galen Bowles, me and two friends Chad Smith and Gage Hearn are kayaking down the Mississippi river starting in Lake Itasca, Minnesota and ending in Nachez, Mississippi. This blog will document our adventure down the river.

Me

Chad

Gage

"Dry Run"
Yesterday we took an over night camping trip to shell Island to get a real taste of whats to come and test out some of our equipment. The Trip was a blast and gave us a good opportunity to bounce ideas off each others heads. Heres a few photos from our camp site.