She said yes! "yes to what?" you may ask. The question was the same as it had many times in the past..."hey honey, what do you think about taking the boys on an overnight canoe trip?" Finally she said yes. I think the fact that I asked her a week before fathers day worked in my favor. I quickly decided on the North Fork of the Flambeau River near park falls Wisconsin. The Flambeau has many options for overnight trips with numerous access points and campsites on the river. I chose a route that we had paddled in the past, for my wifes peace of mind. I reassured her that it would be fun and began packing.
I packed the van friday night for the much anticipated (by me) saturday departure. We were on the road by 6am. After a couple of pit stops along the way, we arrived at Nine Mile Creek landing at 10 am. We unloaded the canoe and our gear and I left with the van and my bike for the takeout. We were heading to Dix Dox landing, just down from the oxbo resort. It was a 6.2 mile bike ride on hwy 70 through nice rolling hills back to nine mile creek. In the ditch along the road was a deer carcass being picked over by a couple of crows and a turkey vulture.in the 23 minutes it took me to bike back, my 5 yr old son caught a sucker on a worm he found under a rock. This is funny if you know how much my wife hates taking off fish. She held it down with the canoe paddle and took the hook out. We got on the water at about 11 am under gathering gray clouds. IT was 70 and breezy.
The river was high for this time of year which was good for me since I brought the kevlar champlain instead of the roalex legend.(bad idea) The water was very dark brown as always with a touch of red.Due to a poor seating arrangement We paddled through about an hour of "hes touching me" and "stop doing that" before reaching barnaby rapids.This is not a difficult rapids but we did put a few more beauty marks in the kevlar. We continued on, fishing a little and watching the merganzers, mukrats and the eagles along the way.
We arrived at the county line campsites at about 130. We made some ramen for luch but decided while eating to put up the tent and tarp because the clouds were getting darker. We got a brief 5 minute sprinkle and then went in search of firewood while the clouds broke up.my 5 yr old and I decided to try fishing some more before dinner while my wife and oldest son told stories in the tent.The fishing was slow but at least I had good company.At about 5 pm my son and I watched as a man and his son approached the second, and last, campsite at county line. The man and his son were followed by 2 very tired looking couples only about 100 yards behind. The 2 couples looked quite dejected when i told them it was another hour and 15 minutes to the next site. I bet they will find a site earlier next time.
Orange chicken over white rice was our main course for dinner with a side of liptons rice. I think camping is the only place where this is allowed. After dinner we went for a hike for about and hour down the service path near our campsite. We found a couple of makeshift campsites that people had along the river. We got back to camp around 730 and started a fire. The fire lost out to the tent at about 930. The skies were clearer so we slept without the fly on the tent. I woke up about 630 to clear blue skies and my ears filled with bird songs. I rolled over and stared in awe at the 3 people I love the most in this world and felt very lucky. We got out of the tent at about 730 and had some oatmeal and took our time packing up and playing in the river. We decided to head out about 945. I changed the seating arrangement around so that the boys were separated this time which was a lot better for everyone. Xander just read his book and Ayden pointed out cloud shapes. It was a short but very nice paddle to our takeout at Dix Dox landing.
All in all it was a great way to spend fathers day weekend. In total we had 30 wood ticks and 4 deer ticks between us. We even found one in someones belly button. The mosquitoes were not bad at all. Now if I can just get her to the boundary waters :) maybe next year.
Outfitting
1 wenonah champlain kevlar
2 bending branches paddles
2 55L seal line dry bags
1 30L blue barrel and nrs paragon harness
1 kelty classic 4 tent
1 10x14 cca tarp
1 ENO doublenest hammock
1 jetboil
2 800g down lafuma bags
2 synthetic the woods bags
2 downmat 9 dlx pads
2 thermarest trail light pads
1 anchor and outrigger
bunch of other little stuff
Lots o fun
-- Last Updated: Jun-21-10 11:11 PM EST --
Great way to spend Father’s Day
Very nice, detailed trip report, mrgreen. Got a kick out of your comments about seating arrangements. Sounds like a nice place to paddle. One of these days we’ll get over and paddle around the Flambeau River and Flowage area.
Great report. Though the other pnet
forums usually host such.
Nice report
And a coincidence…We were on the section just above you on Saturday. GuideboatGuy, SisterRena, myself and a few folks who don’t often post here did the Turtle/Flambeau dam to Agenda landing.
Nice river, nice weekend, and a very nice report.
Whenever I see kids out on a trip like that I think how fortunate they are to have parents such as you. And what a great way to spend time with your family…good deal all round.
Thanks!
oops
sorry for putting this on the wrong board. This was my first report. I will do better next time.