Day 41 on the Mississippi River

October 1, 2021

Friday

North Bank of the confluence of the Minnesota River and the Mississippi

RM 843.5

498.5 miles completed

The forecasted rain didn’t materialize. We had a dry night. The weather continued to be warm and sunny until midday. The temperature got to a high of around 80 degrees.

We paddled about 6.5 miles from Durnam Island to the portage for the upper and lower St. Anthony Falls Dams. We were expecting our longest portage ever, but it was even longer than we expected. Two blocks into the portage the path was closed for construction on a bridge. We had to backtrack two blocks and go around through city streets. The portage turned out to be three miles.

The portage ended at Bohemian Flats park. We had lunch, replenished our water, and rested. Pulling loaded boats three miles was quite a workout.

We reached lock and dam number one (Ford) around 1:00 pm. We didn’t have to wait. We passed through the locks with a County Sheriff’s boat.

Just as the gates opened for us to enter the lock we heard Al and Melissa Neibacher calling to us.

Al and Melissa are friends we met at The Pines Resort on the east side of Lake Winnibigoshish. They live here in St. Paul. They had driven over to the dam in hopes that they would see us.

They then went downstream a ways and waited for us. We stopped and had a nice reunion on a sandy beach. We finalized our plan to meet at The Mississippi Pub marina the following day and spend the night at their house. They had already made arrangements for us to leave our boats and gear at the marina.

We paddled on a few miles to Ft. Snelling State Park. We intended to camp on the end of the Island, but it was posted “No Camping”. So we found a place to camp on the other side of the river. We cooked chili on a sandy beach right where the Minnesota River joins the Mississippi.

Thunderstorms were predicted for 9:00 pm until Midnight, but all we got was one little sprinkle. The tents didn’t even get wet.