Today started out a little later than normal because Sam and I wanted to make sure we got my food count correct but once I got on the water, I made great time. The winds were fairly calm all day and the river had a great flow.
It’s interesting to see the change of birds and change of greenery as I continue to head south in Minnesota. I was followed by 100 small birds, all eating the insects flying just above the water. They were incredibly nimble and didn’t worry about me at all and often times with flew within 5 to 10 feet batting back and forth.
The river started to get much wider, but in many parts, still incredibly shallow sometimes only 10 to 20 inch’s deep in the really fast rapids and then other times I’m sure incredibly deep as the current continued to boil as the top of the water danced and often looking like giant mushrooms.
As it got closer to Little Falls, I started looking for places to camp for the night, scouting the shore for an easy spot to secure my boat, that didn’t have too much walking, but I didn’t really have much luck above the dam. The sun was dropping quickly and I needed to make the decision to portage tonight or in the morning. I stopped to talk to a gentleman on the side of the river who had a great yard and thought maybe he would offer but he didn’t and told me the public campground was about 10 miles further down river, but that I needed to portage the little Falls dam first.
My cell phone was on about 4% battery life so I dug in deep picking up my paddling pace and got to the little Falls Dam as quickly as I could to avoid the quickly approaching darkness. The signs for the portage were not very well displayed, and it took me a minute to figure out the portage was after the small bridge with the signs “DANGER DO NOT ENTER”. Once I found the portage, I realized that it was three or four large concrete steps, which meant I needed to completely unload my boat and carry it up to the highest level, but needed to wait until a young man finished taking his semi sunset photos of his electric scooter bike for his Instagram page. I’m assuming.
Once I got everything out of my boat and carried everything up the steps, boat loaded on my two wheel dolly and everything placed back in my boat I then walked down the sidewalk for the hundred yard walk to the lower portage area only to discover it had more stairs incredibly fast current and a gigantic dead Canadian goose floating circles in the current, making it a less than an ideal attempt to get back in the water. I walked by a few homeless people as I continued down the riverbank another couple hundred yards only to find that the majority of the bank was river rock, and incredibly hard to work with. I got lucky and found one spot that I could get my boat down and all my gear down and get back into my boat and headed down River. The only downfall was this spot was in a whirlpool of foaming slurry. All of the gross things the bottom of the river pulls up. Just as the sun was setting I paddled into the current expected to have another several mile long hunt for a campsite in the dark. A short distance down river on my river right I found a house with a hammock and a small boat dock but more importantly it had a spot where I could get out of the water safely so I decided I would knock on the front door and ask if I could camp on the river bank out of pure necessity. It was quickly getting really dark and I was definitely cold. Just as I walked up the river bank a gentleman “Scott S” walked out of his back door and in 10 seconds or less said that he was a paddler and that I was more than welcome to use his riverbank and his picnic table for the evening. As I unloaded my boat, he went inside and came back out with a cinnamon roll some cookies a banana and an orange. I was very grateful and thankful and I look forward to talking with him more in the morning as they are planning a two day trip down River later on this week.
There is a full moon tonight, I can hear the train in the distance and know the river is flowing south towards the sea. I will continue to follow the same path tomorrow!
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