Daily Stats
Start: 10:10 AM- Gafton Illinois
Finish: 3:00 PM - Alton marina - Alton Illinois
Time: 4:50
Daily dist: 15 miles
Total dist: 105 miles
Companions: Jason Cummings
Weather: Overcast with drizzle becoming steady rain after dark
Notes: David Diederich met us at the put in and offered his sailboat to stay in. Thank you so much Dave!
Start: 10:10 AM- Gafton Illinois
Finish: 3:00 PM - Alton marina - Alton Illinois
Time: 4:50
Daily dist: 15 miles
Total dist: 105 miles
Companions: Jason Cummings
Weather: Overcast with drizzle becoming steady rain after dark
Notes: David Diederich met us at the put in and offered his sailboat to stay in. Thank you so much Dave!
As I write this the wind is driving a cold rain that is pushing across the area in a fast moving weather system. All day long I paddled in and out of rain showers thinking that it was going to be a long cold night camping in these conditions. Thankfully, I’m not out there. Instead I’m warm and dry inside a cozy heated sail boat.
Me with David Diederich
At the put in this morning in Grafton Illinois we were met by David Diederich who is a local paddler and general river enthusiast. David showed up at the put in with a huge banner that said “Good Luck Jake” as well as printed charts highlighted to show key landmarks in the area. Two of those landmarks included the location of his cabin on an island a few miles above Alton or his small but heated and cozy sail boat in the Alton marina along with an invite to stay at either if the necessity should arise.
Sign that Dave made
It was a bit of an ordeal to get all of my gear loaded into the Ikkuma for the very first time. Loading all the gear in a kayak for a long trip always seems to go through an evolution. On the first go it’s a tedious pack and re-pack process where you end up all but standing on the hatch covers to get everything in the overstuffed hatches. The second time around you fill little nooks and crannies you missed the first time and gain a little more room and everything starts to fit. A few more times and everything seems to have a place and you can load up and get underway almost with room to spare in a timely manner. Today was the “stand on the hatches” stage of boat packing and it took quite a while for me to be ready to launch. So it was that finally at 10:10 AM I pushed off from shore and was underway once again.
As luck would have it, just as I launched a local paddler, Jason Cummings, paddled up in the beautiful strip built kayak he built himself. Jason paddled with me for the first five miles back to a boat ramp near the town of Portage Des Sioux where he put in earlier this morning. As he noticed as we paddled along he did a bit of a Portage to Portage paddle of his own.
Jason Cummings
After leaving Jason off at the landing I burned twenty minutes fussing with my camera which had just decided to start taking green pictures again which is a problem it had earlier this summer. It was a problem I needed to have sorted out before I passed St. Louis by completely as it would be the last chance to go into down to get a replacement camera if, god forbid, it was necessary. The wind was a factor today as it blew directly upstream cancelling out any help the flowing river would give. Because of that, it was a bit slower go than I expected and I crawled the sixteen miles to Alton in about four hours. I stopped at a park on the south shore opposite town to eat lunch and take one more try at fixing the camera. Luck was with me and the camera finally quit taking photos that make everybody look green.
My daily plan now is to pull off the river by 3:00 to allow enough time to set up a comfortable camp before dark. It was 2:00 and I was about two miles above the first lock which meant that by the time I got done with that I wouldn’t have much more time to paddle before it was time to set up camp. The red circle showing the location of the cozy heated sail boat was just across the river so in the sputtery cold rain I decided to trade 4 or 5 miles of down river progress for a warm night out of the rain. With the cold rain sputtering against the deck of the boat I know that was one of the best decisions I’ve made on this trip so far. And once again I’ll be eternally thankful for the kindness and generosity provided me by almost total strangers.
Warm and dry inside Dave's sailboat
Tomorrow I’ll be getting a nice early start and will have the new experience of locking through two different locks before I get to the free flowing river and paddle past down town St. Louis. With luck my camera will keep taking good pictures and my blog won’t include photos of a green tinted arch.
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