Tuesday - September 29th: Minneapolis to Sandbar south of Muscoda

I’m back. We had a great trip to Branson. Played some golf and saw some very good shows with the Oakridge Boys being the best. Only down side was the $200.00 LuAnn and I lost at Terrible’s Casino on the way. Good thing is Lu got $170.00 of it back on the way home. Although I lost $30.00. Not good.

Well, we got back to Minneapolis last night. I stayed at my sisters and left this morning for Muscoda. This time rather than leaving my car in Muscoda and coming back I did the opposite. I left my gear in Muscoda and drove down to my finishing point and left my car at Wyalusing State Park. Again, in two rides I was back in Muscoda and still had time to do a little paddling.

This section of the river, the 90 plus miles from Prairie du Sac to Wyalusing has been designated a wilderness river. There are no dams and much of the shoreline away from towns is public land. The river itself is very wide, many places close to a quarter of a mile with a current estimated at 3 plus miles an hour. Everything makes for good paddling except for one thing. The water level is very low and you must stay in the main channel or you eventually will be stuck on a sandbar. Most times I could do this although the channel keeps winding back and forth across the river and on more than one occasion I found myself turning too late and ending up stuck and dragging my canoe.

I only went about 5 miles today and set up camp early on a sandbar. I figure with the current I can easily make it to Wyalusing by early afternoon.

So I will take it easy and lay back and do a little reminiscing.