Serious 2013 Outdoors Thread: (or "mattj posts a bunch of river bluff pics")

[mattj]

I appreciate that infomative advice so very, very much, and will be picking up the stubbier Mora fishing knife very soon. I've had poor luck with longer, thinner fishing knives because I catch a lot of gar:

Which have ridiculously tough scales. In fact, the scales are so hard that once you have the skin completely off, it's as hard and rigid as a PVC pipe. And believe me, you can't scale them like a normal fish. Every time I've tried to use a long, skinny fillet knife, the knife just kind of bends. But when I use something stubbier, like a thick pocket knife, it "POPS" right through the skin, like cutting plastic.

Thanks so much!

The Second Leg of our Meramec River Journey: 12 miles, River 'Round Conservation Area to Robertsville State Park

Instead of writing a lot, I think I'll just let the pictures tell the story.

64 or so page-wide pics, you have been warned

I've been watching the hourly forecast like a hawk for weeks now. Every forecast said no rain. Woke up to rain. Even while we were driving there in the downpour, the weather on the radio said "No rain today!" >_>

I was sure that with as much rain as had fallen the river would be way up. It has a habit of sudden, violent flooding.

But it wasn't. And surprisingly, other than the white sediment coming from the parking lot, down the ramp, the river was more clear than it usually was last summer.

It had all but stopped raining by the time I got everything ready. We kept our ponchos on at first, just in case it started up again.

The new totes let me bring 100% of my camping gear, in less horizontal space. This kept the front of the boat down better. They also have these excellent holes in the edges of the lid which let me easily bungee them down tightly. There aren't any serious rapids on the Meramec, but there is a ton of debris, and we've already gotten snagged on logs and slammed to a dead stop in the middle of the current, so you never know.

The new totes also gave Lilly about an extra foot of space. Which was what I was hoping for, because last time she was so close to me that if she leaned forward at all while I was paddling hard I'd bonk her on the head.

Upstream from the River 'Round Conservation Area boatramp.

And downstream.

I don't know why I didn't think to let her use them last time (although she did just fine), but I've got this cheap-yet-usable pair of binoculars. She was very excited to get to look for animals!

"DADDY YOUR NOSE IS SO BIG!"

This tree looked like it just fell and DONK'ED right smack dab on this other tree, poking way out into the river. Probably got rolled up there during the last flood, but it's cool how such an enormous object is just teetering there. Bet it's gonna make quite a splash some day soon!

While there aren't any dangerous rapids on the Meramec, you wouldn't believe the amount of debris compared to the size of the river. Lots of stuff to watch out for.

Cool sediment layers.

This is where the River makes an extremely sharp, about 100 degree angle turn, not a bend, but a sharp angle. Coming up on it, it seriously looks like the river just *BAM* stops. I saw it on googleearth and couldn't tell what was obstructing the river so severely, but figured it had to be a bluff. Sure enough it is. I've got to get with my buddy Scott some time, and float from River 'Round to Choutaeu (about 6 miles) JUST so we can fish here. The water is so clear by the bluffs, and so incredibly dark and deep. Judging by how sharp the angle is, it has GOT to be DEEP! If I would have had my license I would have spent a while here catfishing.

Pretty, little bluffs.

More bluff/boulders, that were falling in huge chunks into the river.

This tree reminded me of Medusa, or some kind of monster. Wouldn't want to come up on THAT in the dark!

The Meramec has no shortage of pretty, little bluffs.

I like the striation here.

I was surprised at how clear the water was. Considering that A) This is the Meramec, and B) It had just rained, I assumed it would be much muddier, but it wasn't. I guess maybe a lot of the muddiness comes from too many boaters going way too fast? There haven't been many people at all out yet, this early.

Beautiful bluff A.

Beautiful bluff B.

Beautiful bluff C.

Beautiful bluff D.

Beautiful Bluff 5.

A tiny little waterfall!

A string of boulders. I'm pretty sure whoever made that boatramp dumped a string of GIGANTIC boulders to make a rudimentary dike in order to slow the current right at the ramp. We could hear it from really far away, even farther than most of the little rapids.

Neat erosion 1.

Neat erosion 2.

Neat erosion 3.

Right before 1/2 way through the float, I saw a long, beautiful beach. I had planned on stopping to cook lunch at a Conservation Area parking lot just a half mile downstream, but why not stop here? Lilly wanted some shade so I tossed down the tarp, and threw the tent rain fly over the tent poles and strapped it to all our stuff. We had some shade, a clean spot to sit, and a wind break from the gentle breeze so I could cook.

Lilly helped me get the river water for the macaroni, and helped stir while I got everything else ready. Ever had sand in your macaroni?

Talapia and corn on the can!

Lilly staying occupied while I finished the fish and corn.

LILLY! UR DOING IT WRONG! BOATS DON'T GO ON SAND!

Lilly is usually so picky, but she ate almost all of her fish, macaroni, and corn! I guess she was finally hungry!

Camp Carter, just before we picked up and moved on.

While I was packing up, I was behind the rain fly so I couldn't see her, and I heard "Daddy I'm gonna make a fire!"

!!!

Stuck my head out to see her trying to Bear-Grylls herself a fire!

Packed up and on the river again, we came upon this old railroad bridge.

Under the railroad bridge. How many times do people get to see the underside of bridges like this?

dem pillars

More pretty bluffs one.

More pretty bluffs 2.

I saw this from waaaaay upstream and swore it was a loose canoe. It was floating downstream. As we got closer I saw it was a log. Made me think of Huck Finn.

More neat erosion.

I'd like to build a fort right about there.

Lilly looking downstream. I need to figure out how to get a seat oriented better for her so she can look either way.

Looking for jungle jaguars.

There was a skunk in the vicinity.

There was this one stretch where there was a steep bank on the left and a very tall, steep bluff/hill on the right. It felt like floating through a canyon. Very dark. And the wind! I guess the hills funneled it, which was literally blowing our raft in circles downstream. There were a few times I couldn't even keep us straight. It was nice because there wasn't any debris and I didn't have to paddle at all.

the gnarly roots

That could seriously be a cool funk band name.

Creep-tastic, dilapidated, old house! Probably the scene of a murder!

I swear bald eagles have some kind of "anti-taking-pictures-of-them" technology or something. We could see its head and tail bright as day, but my camera refused to take a clear picture of it. It was so nice to see them though!

Pancake bluffs A.

Pancake bluffs 2.

Coming up on the Highway O bridge.

Under the Highway O bridge.

The backside of the Highway O bridge.

Big bluffs just upstream from Robertsville State Park.

Lilly checking out turtles with her binoculars. I lost count of how many we saw. It was good to see so many young Aligator Snapping turtles. They're not as common as they used to be. They're an endangered species in Illinois, just at the end of this very river.

More high bluffs.

We finally made it to Robertsville State Park!

Somebody was excited to be finished (and see Mommy, more likely).

A cool tree by the parking lot at Robertsville State Park. Could you survive with a hole that big in your chest?

 

[Lee]

did a via ferrata today

pics

 

[tape]

you cant even fathom how jealous i am, Lee.

 

[mattj]

I need to know what it felt like to be in the middle, on that cable.

 

[Lee]

it was one of those highs you get when you do shit like that, wherein you're so nervous that all your senses heighten and you can take in everything around you so much more clearly, where every moment is so beautiful because you know it could be your last. Don't get me wrong, I was harnessed in and everything but that's not the way the body thinks when you're staring down a 2,000ft abyss. It was also fucking -cold- (if you look at that cable picture you can see a frozen stream/waterfall on the left of the picture) so my hands were getting increasingly numb and I could feel my grip failing as a result. Exhilarating stuff, would reccomend to anyone.

 

[macle]

I live in a small town a bit north of milwaukee. Its right on lake michigan. Theres 2 creeks that run through the town with lots of deer. Occasionly you can see some foxes and other animals around (there was a black bear rooming the street once)

some pics of the light house and our beach.

I was in boyscouts and we went to this beautiful camp every summer on the wolf river. it burial grounds which were cool.

another cool spot we went to was Wyalusing state park. Its right next to the Mississippi river on the western side of the state. It had sweet rock formations and stuff. Too bad it took around 8 hours to get there.

then i also go up north to my grandparents cottage in the northern part of the state to fish.

 

[mattj]

Is that a pike? It's got that spotted, long body with a powerful mouth. I'm not familiar with northern fish, but we do have the very rare pike in creeks connected to the Missouri River. I've never personally caught one though.

 

[tape]

you know wha

ts pretty?

my country's sea

edit: even though it looks so blue and stuff the water was really murky/sandy; crazy waves day! :( we couldn't snorkel/swim/kayak well AT ALL. bummer.

 

[macle]

Is that a pike? It's got that spotted, long body with a powerful mouth. I'm not familiar with northern fish, but we do have the very rare pike in creeks connected to the Missouri River. I've never personally caught one though.

yup its a pike. i still havent caught a musky yet :0 gonna try hard this year

 

[tape]

macle that river makes me want to jump in soooooo bad

does this count as "outdoors"??

ps: its a picture of the moon

 

[mattj]

So we had another Saturday with warm enough weather to float! I was excited because the beginning of the trip would be an area that I've hiked and fished for years, but have never been able to fully explore because I didn't have a boat. Now I could finally explore the lakes and islands that I couldn't get to before. I also discovered a hitherto unknown (to me) island by scouring googlemaps while preparing for our trip.

The Meramec River from Pacific Palisades Conservation Area to Route 66 State Park

Looking downstream from the boatramp at the Pacific Palisades Conservation Area. The start of our river adventure! It was a foggy morning. Reminded me of something out of Lord of the Rings.

This is the spot I fish the most. When the river is a couple feet lower there's a long sandbar to fish from. I couldn't count the number of fish I've caught right here!

The oxbow lake across from where I usually fish. I've always wondered what it looks like. I could never get a good look up it from the Palisades side of the river.

We finally got to explore the island just downstream from where I usually fish. It's very tall!

Near the top of the island, there was this perfect little bird's nest on a little stick about a foot off the ground. I wonder what kind of bird makes its nest so low? I don't suppose there are any predators on that tiny, secluded island though.

Took a shot of another spot I love to fish, from about 40 feet up a bluff. When the water is down, this is a fantastic spot to fish. There is usually a sandbar off to the left and the water is merely ankle deep almost all the way to the island but then drops off very deep right in front of the island. Lots of catfish, carp, and gar.

Looking up another oxbow lake that hooks around back toward the party beach at the Palisades Conservation Area. I've hiked and fished this area for years now so I was very surprised that for a moment I seriously didn't know which way to go! It's hard to describe, but because the river split around the island and then flowed into this lake, the water was flowing literally four directions at once, kind of like an H or an 8. It took me a minute to get my bearings and head back into the Meramec.

Can you guys tell I love river bluffs?

humans
ick

A neat, old bridge that had been disassembled.

I spotted a second island on googlemaps, but just barely. The main channel of the river goes on the right side of the island. Staring at the map I could just barely make out a very small channel that went on the left side of this patch of forest, which made it an island. I could tell the channel wasn't very wide and was too covered with trees to get a good look at it from the map. But I figured it would have a very fast current and would save us time, which it definitely did!

As cool as the little channel was, it was skinny enough to be crossed by a single tree. As soon as we were a ways down it I saw this one almost blocking the entire channel! Thankfully, there was about 5 feet down by the roots, where we just slid right over the base of the trunk.

So I found out why we kept seeing bald eagles on our previous trips! We found the nest. This is a very tiny pic, but a couple of trees to the left you can see one of the eagles in the top right branch. This was one of the most beautiful stretches of river that I have ever seen in my life. The next few pictures of bluffs are from just to the left of this spot. It was unbelievable!

We stopped at the Allenton Conservation Area for lunch.

A tiny waterfall.

The Highway 109 Bridge.

Some gigantic boulders!

A "castle" up on a bluff above the Meramec. That thing is going to fall in one of these days.

Good luck getting that car out of there haha!

The boat ramp at... well you can read it. :p 13 miles from Pacific Palisades Conservation Area to Route 66 State Park!

 

[mattj]

The weather today. Oh my goodness. Mid 70s and partly sunny with an occasional gust. You can't get better weather than this for a float trip!

The Meramec River from Redhorse Access to River 'Round Conservation Area

The map.

Looking upstream from the boatramp.

A pretty house and gazebo up on a bluff just downstream from the boatramp.

We got to this spot where the river hit a big gravel bar and just went everywhere. I picked the middle stream. Yeah that was the wrong one. It got down to less than half a foot deep. I ended up having to drag the boat across the rocks on the gravel bar. It actually floated without me in it.

A dredging machine I spotted on google maps. There were so many wonderful rapids all the way to this point. But as soon as we passed it, it became obvious they had been dredging. The river got very deep and the current completely disappeared. It was like paddling a long, skinny lake. Not nearly as fun as the rapids. I know dredging is a business and people have to work, but it sucks how much this changes the river.

Passing the Highway 30/47 bridge.

I've freed up about as much space as I can in this little boat, with big 'ol me, and Lilly and all the extra totes for weight up in the front of the boat. But it's still pretty cramped. Lilly finally figured out how to stretch her legs and relax in the raft!

We came upon this gorgeous, overhanging bluff. We spent a while just slowly floating under it in the shade. I wish we could have stayed there for hours it was so idyllic.

We stopped to eat lunch at this gigantic gravel beach across from some towering bluffs.

As soon as we stepped out of the boat I saw all the beautiful rocks on the beach and thought to myself, "I wonder if I can find an arrowhead..." I then looked down between my feet. "Oh. There's one!"

WE FOUND THE OCARINA OF TIME!!!!!

Some towering bluffs!

Neat sediment.

I wanted to stop and catfish there so hard. :f

dem bluffs

See that sharp corner the bluff comes to? Yeah. There's a road up there. Right up to the bluff's edge!!!

Another gorgeous, overhanging bluff. This one was really long!

Passing under the old, dilapidated, and the new, Mill Hill Road bridges.

Moar bloofs.

A couple of pretty big caves we passed. Man, if the shore wasn't so steep we would have totally been up in them holes.

BLUFF
OVERLOAD

15 and a half miles from the Redhorse Access to the River 'Round Conservation Area. It was such a fantastic trip. There were so many gorgeous bluffs. The weather could not have been better. But there at the end, when the river turned and went around the conservation area... oh my goodness... the wind was just howling against us. I was paddling as hard as I could, right there in the middle of the current, and we weren't going anywhere. Can you tell we were tired? It was more than worth it though!

You know, sometimes I see people unloading their flashy jet boats and zooming all over the river. And honestly... I do get jealous.

And then I remember this lol.

 

[darkie]

Dang, you guys live in some really amazing places. If we're posting pictures, I can show you what I get to live in:

It sucks, man. All the grey stuff you see are greenhouses, all the green stuff is meadows. And you get all these mountain ranges. feelsbadman.jpg

Oh, by the way Lee, I really like the view from your house.

this looks like a screenshot from sim city 4

 

[mattj]

This isn't really getting outdoors to the level that I usually enjoy, but this weekend my wife got us a free night's stay at an insanely fancypants bed and breakfast in a town next to the town I grew up in. As a very young child I had often ridden by the big, golden buck on top of this 1800s era building in Hermann and wondered what was in side. A super nice bed and breakfast. That's what was inside. But while we were there, we visited this excellent riverfront park and walked across the bridge that spans the Missouri River. It was a fantastic day to be outdoors.

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Looking upstream from the Hermann Riverfront Park. It's a beautiful park that goes right up to the Missouri River in Hermann Missouri.

Right next to the boatramp.

They had this neat infographic about the Lewis and Clark expedition. I confess that I have often fantasized of living in that time and place and having the opportunity to join them.

The map on the infographic happens to also be a float I've got planned for later this year. We'll start in Gasgonade, float onto the Missouri and just past Hermann to this big, uninhabited island in the middle of the river (just past "you are here"). We'll camp and fish on the beach overnight. And we'll float the remaining 11 or so miles to New Haven in the morning. Luckily, Missouri law lets you camp on any beach on the Missouri River. Most states don't let you do that.

Looking left, upstream, right, and downstream while standing on the extraordinary footpath, right in the Middle of the Missouri River, about 60 feet up, on the Highway 19 bridge. I'd actually love to be floating this river right now, having grown up literally less than a quarter mile from it. But because this is all so new to Lilly, I thought we would start out on the Meramec River, something much, much smaller (around 1/8th the width and depth and current). The Missouri River is half of one of the top 10 largest rivers systems in the entire world by length or volume. I can't wait to get out on it again, but this time with my little girl!

We finally got a picture of ourselves together!! This wonderful jogger stopped and offered to take one for us! We usually each take pictures, but don't have anyone to take a picture of Heather and myself together.

The next day I took Lilly fishing on the second lake at the Catawissa Conservation Area. We didn't catch a thing, but it was a great day to be out. I always wanted to fish way up in this second leg of the second lake. But it's incredibly hard to get to because there are zero maintained paths in the Conservation Area and there really is no way to fish from any of the banks. They're way too steep, even when the water is way down. But it was easy getting there in the raft. We just tied up to a tree on one side of the river (almost fell out of the boat leaning out to grab the tree) and let the wind blow us the full 50 feet of rope out into the middle of that branch of the lake. Even though we didn't catch anything, I got to see that the boat works really well for fishing. It's got two, sturdy pole holders, and a solid enough floor to stand up and move around on.

 

[macle]

i really wanna do some fishing soon but its still mid 40s and rainy here.

 

[mattj]

So last weekend I tried setting up limb lines on the lakes out at the Catawissa Conservation Area. Then, yesterday spent a few hours fishing at the Port Hudson Lake Conservation Area, outside my home town.

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The lakes were up a couple of feet. It was weird not having a normal, long boat ramp, because that was all under water.

The river was rising, so the lakes were flooding. It was like paddling through the Amazon. Trees everywhere and about 3 feet of water through a flooded forest. It made for a lot of places to hang lines from tree limbs though.

Didn't catch any fish, but I caught a turtle.

And another turtle.

Oh and another turtle. It's better than not catching anything though.

Spent a few hours out at the Port Hudson Lake Conservation Area, near New Haven. The sun was doing this really pretty thing, shining through the clouds.

It's about 55 acres of water,there was almost no wind, and I was alone most of the time, so most of the time the lake was like glass.

Green is finally returning to Missouri!

The most common thing I caught. The lake is so full of trees and brush piles.

Didn't have even a nibble for hours, right until the very end. And then I couldn't keep him because they have a special regulation at this lake requiring Large Mouth to be at least 18 inches. But at least I didn't get skunked.

Fishing from a boat is so entirely foreign to me. I've spent all these years getting good at bank fishing and many of the things I've learned from bank fishing just do not carry over to boat fishing. I'll see my line tense up and the bobber move and be like "OH GOOD! GOT ONE GOING!" Nope. Just the boat moving. :p And then, I've even gotten good enough to handle 3, or more, poles while bank fishing, even in a river with currents. You just space them far enough apart and angle the poles right. I tried handling 3 on my little raft. Yeah, that's not going to work.

 

[mattj]

Why aren't you people outdoors!? It's finally "nearly spring weather" here in the US Midwest! The rain is backing off a bit (Thank you Jesus for the rain but I think we're doing okay now) and the temperatures are finally into the upper 80s and lower 90s, which is PERFECT for getting outdoors to hike, fish, and float. Nooooooooot quite warm enough yet to swim, but it's getting there.

the last couple of weekends

A bass I caught the Saturday before last at the Port Hudson Lake Conservation Area. It was pretty dark so I thought it was a Largemouth, but looking at it now its mouth doesn't go past its eye so it was probably a Smallmouth and I could have kept it.

I seriously need to work on my fish identification. I can tell what a bass, or a catfish, or a carp, or a sucker, or a trout, or a panfish is, but I can rarely identify its subspecies. This is important, especially for bass and trout and sometimes catfish, because around here, depending on what location you're at, there are often different regulations for each one regarding how big they have to be and how many you can keep. This usually varies from public lake to public lake, and even from one stretch of river to the next. We're planning on floating the uppermost portion of the Meramec very soon. I read that it has special regulations regarding trout because there's a trout farm right there. The stretch that runs through town doesn't have those regulations. We also almost never ever see those same trout too.

I'm thinking about buying this book to help.

Fish of Missouri Field Guide by Dave Bosanko | Paperback | Barnes & Noble
I'll look it over at our local Barnes and Noble today.

Caught this one last night. Craziest catch! It's not a very big catfish. But when my bobber went down, I pulled and saw... A gar tail floating upward. It was really odd looking. When you pull in a fish you usually see their mouths come up. But there was this gar tail... just floating... upwards?! And then I saw the catfish's head jerking about. Did I just catch two fish?! What is going on?!

So I grabbed my net and scooped up the catfish first. It was bigger and catfish are way easier to fillet. There in its mouth was my hook. ... ... And there in its mouth was ANOTHER hook?!

Apparently this catfish had gotten hooked on someone's trotline somewhere. And apparently the gar had gotten hooked too. But apparently the person didn't tie their line very tight because it looked to me like it wasn't broken or cut anywhere. There was just this catfish swimming along with about 8 feet of line hooked to it, dragging this dead gar around!

And speaking of dead.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Fish just doesn't get any tastier than when you catch it and cook it right away!

 

[Lee]

just a few from last week

 

[tape]

this was at Punta Rusia, in the province of Puerto Plata.

panoramic view; wide

And this is at Cayo Arena, some minutes away on a boat ride. this was before the wind went completely haywire.

and the view from where we were staying

(thats a 10 minute walk from the beach)

 

[mattj]

No lie. I seriously cried at those pictures. They are so beautiful and you two are so blessed to have been able to spend time in places that gorgeous.

Float #5!

16 miles from the Highway 8 bridge (just upstream from Meramec Spring) to Riverview Access. It was mostly sunny, 70 degrees, with a light breeze. You just can't beat that weather for a float! There were deep crystal waters, huge fish everywhere (including a 4-5 foot Longnose Gar we passed), and we even got to witness a Bald Eagle snatch a fish out of the water just 100 feet in front of us! Out of 16 miles, and about 10 hours (we took our sweet time) we saw only a couple of paddlers and one motor boat (which was kind enough to slow down for us!) It was Memorial Day weekend, but we managed to go miles and hours without seeing or hearing a single person! Incredible, fantastic, perfect day!

We started at the Highway 8 Bridge Access. No boat ramp, but a nice parking lot that you could drive right onto the gravel beach from. It's hard to imagine that this is the same Meramec River that flows through Pacific. It's deep, and wide, and muddy in Pacific. Here, it's hardly wider than any creek, crystal clear, and goes between ankle to knee deep. If anyone reading this, and who lives nearby, is considering floating on the Meramec, this is a beautiful, gorgeous stretch, but it is very, very, VERY shallow and with lots and lots of boulders. I would suggest floating it when it's at least 2 feet above normal and use a kayak, not a raft like we did (which very well could have gotten shredded to bits and stuck in the gravel, had I not had experience), or a canoe (which will, and I do mean WILL, ram and tip on the boulders all throughout the first 2 miles of the river).

Lilly was SO ready to go!

Here's where the water from Meramec Springs flows maybe a quarter of a mile from the spring into the actual Meramec River. There's a beautiful bridge with a little waterfall.

The water coming from the spring is this, almost flourescent, milky, blue. And the water from the Upper Meramec River is crystal clear. Where the two meet, surprisingly they don't mix for a very long way. As you can see, there's this incredible dividing line where the spring water doesn't mix with the river water. It's like oil and water! This goes on for about a mile until the Dry Fork River pours into the Meramec. It gets pretty well mixed by then, but almost all the way until Scott's Ford (6 or so miles downstream) you'll see deep, blue holes here and there full of that milky, blue water.

This probably doesn't look like much, but this was the only place in the 69 miles of the Meramec that we've floated so far where I actually, seriously thought we were in trouble and didn't know what to do for a minute. The white water there is a tree that had fallen into the river and blocked nearly all of the river that is deep enough to float through (where I'm standing is very shallow). Just before the Dry Fork River, the Meramec REALLY bottlenecks. Before the tree is about thigh deep and VERY fast current. Right after the tree it the river suddenly dips and is WAY over my head. The current is so fast I couldn't keep from running into the tree and we got stuck. I hopped out of the boat and the current was so fast that should I have slipped I could have been sucked under the trees and debris. I thought about it for a minute though, and turned my body sideways so the current could more easily flow around me. I thought about walking through the rapids, but could see how deep it got immediately after the tree. So I walked the boat to the shallow shore (where I'm standing in the picture). I then walked the boat through the shallows to avoid all those overhanging trees. There's really not a way to float through that area. Thank you JESUS for keeping us safe!

Lilly always has fun on our floats. But we've always had the problem of, because of the way I have to pack the boat with the boxes all the way up front, she has to sit on her chair facing me. But she does so good in the boat now that I trust her to sit on the boxes up front. She calls it "The Captain's Seat". This way she can easily see where we're going without her having to twist 180 degrees. She loves it! As long as we weren't going through any rapids, and the water was smooth, she was up there almost the entire trip.

More bottlenecks and fast current. But thankfully they were mostly clean, gravelly bottom, so there wasn't much danger. But we really zoomed along!

The water got deep and slow and calm here. It was like glass. The river is almost never that smooth.

More of those milky, blue holes.

This was the only bluff we saw on this trip, but it was very beautiful with all those trees hanging off of it. And the water was that beautiful blue milk here.

Later we came across a rope swing. Lilly just had to grab it! There was a smudge on the lens, but that actually kind of makes the picture look all old-timey. Who needs instagram filters.

Scott's Ford. It's nice that they have a road across the Meramec, but it's a pain to get around. You can't go under it, and unless it's flooded you can't go over it. We pulled off to the side and a super nice guy helped me carry our raft over it along the shore. We waded around in the water and Lilly played with some kids here too.

The first Redhorse Sucker I've ever caught! I've caught plenty of Sucker before, but never a Redhorse. The only difference really is that they have red fins. Notice those wounds on its back? Just a few miles upstream we saw a Bald Eagle snatch a fish from the river. I'm pretty sure that's what those wounds are from too. They match up on both sides. Suckers would make easy prey because they just slowly mosey through the shallows.

A tree nearly blocking the river.

Some more rapids and a tiny stream coming down a steep hill.

These white flowers were blooming EVERYWHERE along the river. The air was sweet with them the entire trip! Heather looked it up online afterwards and says it's a Catalpa tree.

Some rocks some kids probably stacked. Such a neat memento to leave in the middle of nowhere haha!

The boatramp at the Riverview Access.

... erm... um... most conservation areas have... uh... much nicer boatramps than this. When we came up on it, I had been keeping track of where we were on the map as we went along, so I knew we should be coming up on the boat ramp, but honestly I thought this was just somebody's boat ramp they had poured. And when I walked up the ramp they had those dark brown, wooden Conservation signs, but none of them were marked so I wasn't even sure we'd stopped at the right spot. When Heather pulled up later I guessed we'd made it to the right spot.

 

[tape]

i think we're the only two that will be posting in this thread

beautiful river pictures. our big/important rivers have been drying up for as long as i remember (in my mother's time as a kid they were very deep and wide) so im kinda jealous of those pics. i mean, we do have smaller rivers but not like yours.

edit: man ive given up on taking pics of flowers whenever i see a good scene... but its almost summer and the Flamboyants are are slowly starting to bloom so ill probably take a bunch