Paddle Mo. 2023

[jeff clawges]

SOME REALLY COOL CONSERVATION STUFF!
Last week I spent 5 days on the Missouri river on the Paddle Mo. Trip put on by Stream Teams United. Capitol to Capitol. Jeff city to St. Charles about 115 river miles.
Paddle Mo. Is a major fund raiser for ST United and the Stream team program. Take a look her for an overview of the program. About — Paddle MO .
On this trip we had a total of about 70 people. There were three options 5day, 3day or a weekend trip. Really nice for people whose time schedule doesn’t allow the whole trip.
Putting in at Jefferson City along the way we saw Monarchs and Pelicans migrating, Beautiful bluffs and scenery, jumping carp and barge traffic. Saw the Hydrofoils at the Gasconade navel museum. USS Aries Hydrofoil Museum | Gasconade, Missouri.
I really enjoy the learning opportunities on these trips (this is my second Paddle Mo.) We had Wild Bill and Jody Miles from Earths Classroom (Earths Classroom ) leading the on water portion of the trip. Along the way they taught big river navigation, the history of the Missouri river and the Lewis and Clark expedition, We learned how to tell the sex of Monarch butterflies, Some Native American history and sign language, We stopped at the Hydrofoil museum and visited an old steamboat wreck.
We stopped at the historic river towns of Hermann, New Haven (if you haven’t yet stop by the Paddle Stop brewery in New Haven) Brewery New Haven | Paddle Stop Brewery | New Haven Paddler owned and a great place for a beer. Had lunch in Washington. Rested on sandy beaches and camped at Mokane, Hermann and Klondike park in Defiance.
Putting on a trip of this size and scale is an enormous undertaking Mary Culller along with Ashley of Stream Teams United Home (streamteamsunited.org) put together the food, the camping, boats and supplies. I was very impressed with the food. We were fed 3 meals a day and at every meal there were options for every diet, Vegan, Gluten free, dairy free and even food for good old meat eaters like me. Two thumbs up! Most nights we had a guest speaker or some sort of entertainment (nice little bluegrass sounding band at Mokane) Amanda Hoenes Amanda Hoenes Paddlers Q&A (missouririverpaddlers.com) Missouri river thru paddle, Marine and Author Paddled and spoke with us the entire trip, We met an MDC fisheries biologist on the river and she spoke and showed us the various species fish in the river. The speaker on the last night was a farmer from St. Charles county whose first name escapes me but his last name with Machens. He spoke about sustainable farming and cover crops. I was pretty blown away by his passion and knowledge. (Cover crop – Wikipedia) on the subject. I wish I had video of his presentation it would be worth watching.
I apologize for the long rambling report but it was a long rambling trip. 115 miles, most people paddled a touring kayak 14’ – 16’ long. 1 guy (me) paddled a big red boat with a leak in it. 😉 (got to fix that today)
Anyway on this trip we had a tremendous amount of support getting gear, boats and us to the right place at the right time. Bernie Arnold mostly took care of the gear and boat shuttles. If you don’t know Bernie you should! He is a force of nature. We had Brian Waldrop the Eastern region Stream Team director. Sarah Wright from the DNR 2 of my favorite people doing some of their favorite things educating people about our rivers. (btw all 3 of these people showed up at our “ Giving the Saint some love clean-up” ) Our lunch, water and safety boat was captained by Steve Schnarr and Jeff “Boots” Barrow of Missouri River relief. MO River Relief – Missouri River Relief another stellar group of people doing good things on our rivers. Perry Whitaker and the Alpine shop | Alpine Shop provided boats and equipment along with on water safety. Eric Otto from Mo. State parks was there running safety and hauling boats.
5 stars. I’ll do another one for sure. Maybe one of the Ozark trips
SYOTR
Jeff

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