Lilly's first float trip! The first of many this year.
There's a river that runs through our town.
The
Meramec River begins at a large, beautiful
spring in St. James Missouri and winds it's way through 229 miles of Ozark hills all the way to the Mississippi River. You would not believe
how clear the water is at the head. As it gets closer to the Mississippi it begins to look much, much more like the Mississippi though. It's not a huge river. I might be biased because I grew up almost literally living "on" the Missouri River, which is one of the largest rivers in the world. But it is a relatively large and substantial river. It's the 9th longest in the state (which includes the behemoths, the Missouri and Mississippi) and varies from knee to hip deep in some very, very wide swaths, to holes that can be as deep as 30 feet or possibly more. At places it'll be a quarter of a mile wide, and at other places it'll be a mere 50 feet of gushing current. There are boatramps and campgrounds scattered every so many miles from tip to tail. You can find
one of the country's finest managed trout parks at the spring's crystal waters. Some of the largest
gar caught (and shot) in our state are found in the lower Meramec. We have plenty of
catfish,
carp,
bass,
drum,
perch, beavers, deer, and even a few bald eagles when the season is right. We've also had occasional reports of mountain lions (including myself). Oh, and we also have some of the largest, healthiest freshwater
mussel beds in the US.
We live about half way down the river. It's pretty muddy here in Pacific, but you would not believe the fishing, hiking, floating, swimming, boating, hunting, and all kinds of other activities that go on, on the river, in our area. I went fishing very nearly every weekend this past year and only came home empty handed once. If the weather is even remotely warm, the long, gravel beach at the Conservation Area outside of town is packed with swimmers and partyers. During the summer months, from noon till sundown, there are constant trains of floaters. You'd do yourself a favor to not go hiking around the Meramec during deer season as well. The place is crawling with them, and hunters too.
I grew up on the water. My earliest memories are of swimming and playing on the beach in the Gulf of Mexico in White City, Florida. When we moved to Missouri, when I was 5, the outdoors didn't end for me there. All through my childhood my father and grandfathers and aunts and uncles took me fishing and swimming for weeks at a time all throughout the summer. My fondest memories from my childhood are of camping and fishing at Stockton Lake with my gandparents. Other memorable events in my young life were the many float trips I took with my uncles and aunts, and grandparents.
I want my daughter to have those experiences and memories too. I want her to know how to swim in a river. I want her to know how to fish and how to float and boat. I want to pass on to her that same love of the outdoors that my family passed on to me.
With that in mind, I mapped and plotted out the entire stretch of the river that runs though our town, from its crystal beginnings at Meramec Spring, 125 or so miles downstream to our town, Pacific Missouri. I have a decent amount of experience floating. I know my own limits. So I looked for all of the public boat ramps and campgrounds and divided the stretch from here to there into approximately 15 mile chunks, which is about a good day's float for me.
I also bought a decent raft, the
Mariner 4, by Intex. From all the reviews I read, the Mariner 4 is the cheapest "serious, entry level, white water raft" available. It's about 10 feet long and 5 feet wide. It is made of three layers of very thick, very durable material. And then if you do happen to ram a sharp rock, it has 5 separate chambers, so if you pop one the boat doesn't just deflate and dump you in the middle of a rapid. It'll keep floating, at least to the nearest shore to make repairs. It also has a hard floor insert, which makes it unique for it's price range. Most rafts that have hard floors are around 500$ more expensive than the Mariner 4. After taking it out several times just to get used to paddling with oar locks, (*which are fantastic compared to rowing twohanded by the way*), and then floating it 12 miles, running up on occasional logs and debris, I'm very, very pleased with this boat.
One problem with a 250 pound guy like me rowing a raft is weight distribution. My daughter weighs like 50 pounds. And I have to sit a ways back in order to comfortably row the boat. This doesn't make the front of the boat tip up
that bad, but any lean makes it harder to row, especially against even the lightest waves or headwind. Putting all the gear, and in fact extra gear, up front remedied that problem for me. Along with the cooler with extra food and drinks, the raft bag, Lilly's seat, her toys, and herself, I brought a blue tote with all my camping gear too, even though we wouldn't need it. It's kind of nice to have all that just in case too. There was
a father and his two little sons who froze to death in our area, just a few weeks back, when they went out on a hike on a very warm day in January. The weather dropped very suddenly and they were caught, lost, in the middle of the woods, in the freezing rain, with no cold weather gear. It's comforting to know that should something go horribly wrong I'll have an air tight tote with a tent, cooking gear, and fire starting materials.
I decided we'd float the very last leg of our planned trips because it's one of the shortest portions and this time of year we don't have much daylight, I've floated and fished that stretch countless times, and because I was unsure of how the boat and Lilly would hold up. I had taken the boat, and Lilly, out a few times to get used to paddling this new craft, and because Lilly is interested in fishing and boating, but I'd never taken either on such a long, possibly dangerous trip.
There are no real rapids on the Meramec River. I've read that it never gets over a
Class 2. But it is a river that is prone to sudden, violent, flooding, so it is pretty full of debris. And although it isn't as wide or as deep as many large rivers, and although people do swim and wade in it all the time,
a couple of people die in this river every single year. We had
a 12 year old boy drown literally at the very spot we planned on ending this float trip just this past summer. We did run into our fair share of fast currents and debris on Lilly's first float. Once, I don't know how I didn't see this because I'm pretty careful about looking way ahead for ripples in the water that mark logs and the like, but I totally didn't see this gigantic log, just barely beneath the water's surface, until it was about 10 feet in front of us and far too late to do anything about it. We ran right up on top of it, which stopped us dead in our tracks and lifted us up a bit in the middle of some fast current and debris.
Normally, this kind of thing is no big deal. I've experienced it before. Worst case scenario my vessel flips and I swim to shore, then swim downstream and get my boat back. But this time, I'm stuck on top of a log in the middle of the current with my 5 year old girl asking "Daddy what's going on?" She had her life jacket on, but I didn't want to scar this kid for life.
I stayed calm so as not to worry her, and tried shoving and pressing off the log with some spare oars. Nothing. I tried standing up and paddling as hard as I could. Nope. I tried spinning the boat around by paddling. Wouldn't turn. Finally, I tried paddling as hard as I could and rocking and shaking the boat. It finally slid a few inches forward, and then came free. Thankfully she wasn't that scared.
I was convinced that I must have ripped a gaping hole in the bottom of the raft though. The way it's designed, should you rip a hole in any one chamber, the rest of the chambers will not deflate. So I could have ripped one in the bottom and not even know it at first because the sides of the boat and the top of the floor would be just fine. But I didn't notice any difference in the floor, there was no water leaking in from below, and in fact, when we finally ended the trip I flipped it over and checked it out and there weren't even any scratch or stretch marks. This boat is made of some pretty good stuff. Plus it has a very tough rubber/plastic skid plate that runs the length of the boat right down the middle, that's about 4 inches wide. I'm pretty sure that's what we hit on.
We saw some pretty fantastic sights on our river adventure (as she likes to call it). We passed under 3 bridges, saw numerous bluffs, saw bald eagles several times, and the fluffy tails of some deer running along the ridges. I was surprised that, as cold as it still was, we did see a few "Vs" in the water, and I thought we passed over top of some very lazy, very big Asian Carp in a shallow part of the river. I also heard, but did not see, several beavers slapping and jumping in the water as we passed a couple of beaver dams at the mouths of a couple creeks. We were most excited to see the bald eagles. I've fished and hiked and floated on the Meramec for years now and have never seen a bald eagle out there. We saw several (or maybe the same one several times). She kept asking if it was big enough to ride on.
I cannot explain to you how tired I was when we finally finished our 12 mile trek. You'd think that in a river, with all the water moving downstream, that it wouldn't be so tiring to get to the end of the float. But we didn't have that many hours of light, so I had to push it in some areas in order to get to the end in before sundown. We made it just fine though, and actually a full hour faster than my fastest time in a kayak. I was expecting it to take much longer in this bulky raft, but apparently the oar locks, and using 2 oars at once really does improve efficiency.
Lilly had a ton of fun. When putting her to bed last night I asked her what her favorite parts were, and what she liked the most. She talked about a few different things like the birds and when I let her paddle a little. But the very first thing she mentioned was seeing her mommy when we pulled up to the boat ramp at the end.
It was a pretty long trip and she did great. I'm looking forward to the next 113 miles throughout this spring and summer.
