Maybe last canoe outing for the year: On October 4, I hit the Fox River from Burlington with three goals: Go boating in October for the first time ever, roll my log mileage to at least twice what it was at the beginning of the year, and least important but most tangible, reach to Rochester Dam. Total mileage, 11.3; it took just under three hours to reach the dam, and just under 90 minutes to get back to the ramp. The trip uphill was WORK; the trip downhill was a ball. As usual, there are comments with each of the individual photos.
The route. The Rochester Dam is the northern limit of unobstructed boating on the Fox going north from the Chain O’ Lakes. There IS a formal portage way, and any boat that can cover the last half mile south of the dam can also be portaged, but at least the dam stops the fish.
Most of the pictures I took on this trip were of bridges, because they were clear landmarks, and the time stamps on the pictures would help me figure out details after the fact. The first bridge was a (to me) very pretty iron suspension affair, but none of my pictures of it came out. On the other hand, this fellow sits on the east pylon, looking north, and no doubt feeling very lost.
As I came up on this fellow, I thought that he must be REALLY used to humans. And then I realized that he wasn’t moving AT ALL, and was in fact made of plastic.
A rather cool ghost tree.
The last half mile of the trip, when things got ugly. The first hundred yards north from the footbridge at the bottom of the photo almost beat me; the center was too shallow for me to take full strokes, and the current eventually stopped me dead. I backtracked, tried the west side, and ran aground. Back again, up the east side, and JUST managed to get up into calmer water, but it was a LONG slog. And once I was clear of that mini-rapid, I still had the worst current of the trip to fight with.
Looking peaceful at the south end of the portage way.
And this looks rather less peaceful. There is an eddy off the main spillway, so the current off the landing is actually northbound, and wants to drag you across the shallow, rockstrewn bank and into the worst of the spillway. I tried to avoid the whole mess by working my way south, but the had to repeatedly make choices between water too shallow and rocky to float the boat when I was in it, and water deep enough with WAY too much current to board safely. I got it figured out, eventually.