Day 12 Mississippi River
Another solid day on the river with more good folks met!
Today started off slow...a late wake up, 2 cups of coffee, oatmeal and some morning relaxing lead way to an 11 o'clock start time on the water. A beautiful hot sunny day helped me recognize how lucky I am to be on this trip.
For most of my wilderness camping trips I try to refrain from bringing speakers or music along. For most of us, our lives are constantly filled with artificial noise. Cars, air conditioners, TVs, music, sirens, horns. For that reason, when I do get into the backcountry it's refreshing and replenishing to take in the sounds of our natural world and nothing else for a few days. However, on this trip, which is less of a wilderness trip and more of a grand adventure, I do have my phone with, and boy have I enjoyed bumping music while cruising the river. For the first half of the day I jammed all kinds of tunes- a bunch of bluegrass, a Dylan album, a live Marley shown and some late great Jimmy Martin. Perfect way to spend a few hours.
Around 4pm, as I stopped for a moment in an eddy and grabbed a handful of cheese its, two kayakers pulled up behind me. I joined the crew, the Dad Wade and his son Clyde for the rest of the afternoon. They had put in at a public access just upstream, only a few miles from their house. A bit weary of me at first, Wade and I hit it off after the topic of hunting came up. For most of the afternoon and evening we shared hunting stories and spoke of bucket list trips we both wanted to check off. Mine, an Alaskan Moose hunt, his an Alaskan Brown Bear hunt.
Turns out that Wade hunts black bears (along with everything else) in this neck of the woods. I knew black bears were around, but didn't realize how common they were.
The campsite we were both shooting for was called swimming bear camp, and after talking bears for the past 2 hours, as if on cue, I spotted a black blob moving on the bank of the river about 70 yards downstream. After pointing him out the three of us quietly paddled closer.
After walking the shore for a bit, the smallish (Wade guessed about 150 pounds) black bear leapt into the water and swam across the Mighty Mississippi, now about the width of a four lane highway (but still rather shallow and slow moving). After getting to the other shore he struggled to navigate a down tree, clumsily barreling over the logs and making a dart for the woods and thicker cover.
So far, that takes the cake for best animal encounter of the trip.
The three of us continued to paddle toward swimming bear campsite (the folks who named it must have known something...) with Wades son starting to get a bit tired. As we arrived at the site, it was taken by another kayaker who yelled down from the bluff that the camp sat on that there wasn't much room left. We paddled on and found a sand bar about a half mile from swimming bear camp.
After making dinner (chili for me, stew for Wade and Clyde), we each put in for bed just as a storm was rolling in. Neither Wade nor Clyde had a tent with them, so they prepared a tarp and slept underneath. The lightning was putting on a show as I retreated to my shelter, thankful to have a tent over my head! The rain and flashes came down hard for about an hour. Warm and dry, I hit the hay, not particularly looking forward to what the weather forecast says is in store for me the next few days....cold and rain. Yeeehaw.
