North Fork Flambeau River, October 2013

Thursday, October 3--Change in Plans

I was in the middle of packing when I got a call from Craig. He sounded a little perturbed and asked him if he was OK. He insisted he was but immediately dropped the bomb: the shuttle service we had lined up for the Namekagon had called him a short while ago and told him that they had been flagged down by National Park rangers who had warned them that they would lose their outfitter license if they’d facilitate anyone getting onto the Namekagon. The Namekagon is part of the St. Croix National Scenic River Way and—as I had to find out after I picked up Wednesday’s Star Tribune—off limits to visitors, along with National Parks and National Recreation Areas for the duration of the federal government shutdown. Craig and I had a quick huddle and made some quick decisions, switching from the Namekagon to the North Fork of the Flambeau. We were disappointed but at the same time we were glad that we had a fallback option. I alerted Joel and Ben, urging them to be a little earlier because of the added distance and kept packing.

Friday, October 4--Deadman Slough to Oxbo Camp

Parting shot at Deadman Slough Landing.

We left on time at our house, around 11:50. Lynn was home and saw us off, warning Ben and Joel of my propensity to boss everyone around and urged them to use the facilities one more time because otherwise they would have to go in a bottle.

Nice to leave at a reasonable time, traffic was reasonable to non-existent. Beautiful fall colors in evidence along the way. I love that trestle bridge between Barron and Cameron.

As we arrived at Deadman Slough around 15:15, we noticed Craig’s car, it turned out that he had beat us by just five minutes. What timing! Craig had been able to line up a shuttle from 9-Mile Tavern, a local resort, bar and canoe rental, which he expected any minute. We quickly unloaded the van and Craig hopped into his vehicle, Joel into the van, and off they were en route to our take-out point. Ben and I packed the canoe, hoping that the shuttle would indeed stick to the estimated 45 minutes. They certainly did, an old truck pulled up and disgorged Craig and Joel. It turned out that our shuttle driver had somewhat of a weighted foot, which facilitated our timely departure greatly at around 16:30. A parting shot with self-timer and off we were. Since mosquitoes were in evidence, homing in on my hands, I applied some DEET. I had just heard that some researchers, going through millions of natural substances by testing them on luminescent fruit flies had found a handful DEET substitutes that were wholesome, inexpensive and without any of the unpleasant effects of DEET. Can’t wait for this new class of insect repellents.

Craig estimated about a one hour paddle and we were close. The skies were gloomy but major rain held off, some light misting was all we had to contend with. The water moved swiftly and we were not bothered by irksome winds so paddling was very easy. Craig had done this stretch with his Indiana group over Memorial Day and the water had been extremely high at that time. Craig, Ben and I had done the same trip in October of 2012, with extremely low water. I had been a little worried about a pectoral strain I had contracted a few weeks earlier but the paddling seemed rather therapeutic.

We arrived at Oxbo Camp at around 17:30. Joel was kind enough to set up the tent while I collected firewood, remembering that when we had been at this camp site in 2010, I had encountered a couple hunting for grouse. After I had enough wood I began with dinner preparations. Just as I had a nice little fire going, everyone seemed to be done with their camp chores and started to drool over the nice rib-eye steaks I had marinating in some olive oil, garlic, lemon juice and soy sauce. After I had enough embers, I threw the meat on the grill and kept Mellie at bay who would have loved a piece of the action.

Steak sandwiches are almost done!

The rib-eye turned out to be excellent, some of the best we’ve had. We washed it down with some individual-sized bottles of wine that Joel had brought along. My blackcurrant Aufgesetzter was not as popular. I think it must be too much cinnamon and vanilla, will cut on this back next year. But if they just realized how healthy blackcurrant are … Actually, Joel insists that he liked it just fine. The meal was rounded out with some chocolate-covered pretzel crisps from Costco and another beer and some conversation.

I turned in around 21:00 and closed my peepers almost immediately. This must have been one of the mildest nights of any of our fall trips. It rained a little but not too much. I woke up only once but went right back to sleep.

Saturday, October 5--Oxbo Camp to Mason Creek Camp



I got up around 6:30, driven by an overfull bladder. I needed to wake poor Ben to find the coffee and pretty soon everyone was congregating around Joel, who was fixing his delicious blueberry pancakes and bacon. I guess the cowboy coffee in the French press must have been a little too strong, both Joel and I suffered later from caffeine jitters.

How about some for me???

Smell of coffee and bacon. Breakfast's almost ready!

Hard to believe that there are arachnids this size outside of the tropics!

While we were breaking camp, we discovered a good-sized wolf spider which had decided to make Ben’s tent her abode. In hindsight I am not so sure what caused Joel’s jitters, caffeine or a bout of arachnophobia.
We had an early departure at around 9:30 for the fairly short paddle to Mason Creek Camp, which we completed in less than two hours. Even so this morning’s trip did not go without a few adventures. When I tried to reign in the sleeves of my parka which were dragging in the water I bumped my hat over board. And during one scary moment Joel and I broadsided a submerged boulder in one of the many swifts and took in a couple fingers of water. Not much in terms of wildlife. I did see a pileated woodpecker, the obligatory bald eagles, Canada geese and frogs. No mammals but one fun sight in various locations along the river were swarms of which I am pretty certain to be riffle bugs (Veliidae). The reason for my identification is their small size. Unfortunately, I did not take a photo. They were busily running about the water surface. We did have a few showers but nothing too bad.

There goes my hat!

A very easy morning on the river.

We disembarked dry at Mason Creek Camp but did not have a chance to set up our tents when it began to rain quite heavily. This was the heaviest rain we encountered while awake and we quickly erected Craig’s gigantic Noah’s Tarp. Even folded over to half  its size it covered the picnic table and some additional area and we huddled underneath until the rain let up. Fortunately it took not too long before the rain stopped and we erected tents, set up kitchen and collected firewood.

The worthwhile team effort to get out of the rain. 

After chores we did some resting and reading and then went for a walk along the grassy service road that connected our camp to the outside world. We met a couple, they were on the way to the river for some fishing. The woman really enjoyed Mellie, she had lost her chocolate lab  in the previous year and was just thinking about getting another dog. Her husband told us about paddling opportunities on the Chippewa River Flowage. Might be another good fallback option for emergencies.

Always important to have a good book along!

Craig working on his Reuben Soup

When we returned, I started the fire and Craig began with dinner prep. He was making Reuben soup, a delicious concoction of Reuben ingredients. I will make this a staple in my kitchen, easy to prepare, hearty and delicious! For dessert, we had gourmet marshmallows with Ghirardelli dark chocolate. Joel and I were the only takers.

Starting to rain, time for bed.

As we finished dinner with some wine and blackcurrant liqueur it started raining again and we made a quick retreat to our tents. The rain increased in intensity and did not let up until early morning. I was glad for the liner tarp on the inside of the tent because even a good tent seems to never protect perfectly from water seeping through from the bottom. Joel did have some issues with a Chinese water torture-like drip right where his head rested on his pillow and needed to move some. As far as we could tell the rain stopped after 2:00. Other than the sound of heavy rain drops and the chorus of snorers the night was quiet though both Ben and Craig insisted that they heard heavy footsteps in the woods and something crashing through the underbrush. But neither was 100% certain since the rain noise made sounds hard to distinguish.

Sunday, October 6--Mason Creek Camp to Hwy W Landing

The aftermath of  a rainy night

Joel and I got up around 7:00 and Ben and Craig soon followed for a strong cup ‘o joe. Ben made a fantastic sausage omelet with toasted bagels for breakfast. Since everything was too wet to lounge about or to light a fire we broke camp (see funny time lapse) and departed around 9:30.

We were on the river for only another hour. I had the camera running the entire time. Unfortunately, the lens fogged up. Initially I thought that water had entered the “waterproof” camera but I stumbled over the fact that waterproof cameras have an issue with moisture condensing on the inside of the lens if outside conditions are cold. The moisture appears to be evaporated by the warmth generated by the camera’s electronics and condenses on the cool outside surfaces.

When we approached Hwy W landing, Joel and I noticed a boy with bb gun stepping out of one of the cabins. He looked up into one of the trees, took aim and shot. Then he pumped up his air rifle vigorously, which caught Mellie’s attention since this can only mean one thing: squirrel! The boy’s swagger cracked me up, I felt like he was putting on a show for us.

Landing at Hwy W was easy and we quickly loaded up everything. A quick farewell to Craig and off we went for the non-stop trip back to St. Paul.

At Joel’s we were able to congratulate Anne on her Twin Cities Marathon finish. She was still overwhelmed by the experience, bringing back memories of my only marathon in 1988.

During the week following the trip I removed about 20 ticks from Mellie. I did not find any on myself.