Icebergs and mile long slides, Split Rock River, MN at Floodstage!

Ben Kinsella, coming out of the mist of Under the Log

Paddling rivers at flood stage is dangerous! This Spring, John McConville and I tackled the Split Rock River in Northern Minnesota at a terrifying level. Not only was the flow significantly above recommended, but there were trees and giant icebergs moving down stream with us.

Normally, there is a simple spray-painted gauge on the left bridge piling at the take out. There are a few hashes and a couple letters next to them. One of the lower hashes has an S next to it and one of the upper hashes has an M next to it. The locals jokingly refer to these two levels as the Shire and Mordor levels. After completing a descent where the entire gauge was buried under frothing white water, I think a new line and new initial may be necessary.

a fun sequence of Scott White on ski jump

The put in is on private property and has had a few issues over the years. After speaking to a local resident and police officer, we were allowed access to a small tributary upstream. John and I put our kayaks into the normally tiny tributary… but this day the tributary was cranking! I remember getting a good boof over a downed tree only 10 feet into the creek. From there down the water multiplied and multiplied. By the time we reached the confluence, and were actually on the Split Rock, we both looked at each other with wide eyes and gaping jaws!

As we paddled the first mile or two of "flat water" our conversation went as such… THIS IS FREAKING HUGE! We got to be careful! Did you see that HUGE ice burg! Yeah, I think that was the one that sunk the Titanic! Stay close!

Ben Kinsella realigning on Winfrey's Whimper

Arriving at the first major rapid, we had already seen tons of icebergs, lots of anchor ice, and more logs and trees then I could count. We scouted the first mile or so to the next reasonable eddy. The directions went as such, "Flow, Left, Right, Middle, LEFT! Middle, Middle, Middle, try to eddy out". Those were the directions I had in my head for more than a mile of Class 5+.

Completing the first chunk of the rapids, John and I were glowing with excitement and sharing stories of being obliterated by huge rouge waves and running lines we never thought could possibly work.

After another huge scout, we agreed the sun was setting a little faster then we were hoping. We rallied a couple more of the big rapids and kept good downstream progress.

Ben Kinsella on the first major slide

One huge rapid after the next, we were getting picked up and flung 15 feet off line on what normally is a bounce micro-creek.

The crux rapid, "Under The Log", at 3:51 in the video, WOW! Looking back at this I have no idea why I wanted to run it. There was almost no chance of a clean line. The low angel slide plowed into a ferocious 8 foot tall hydraulic. Upon contact with the hydraulic the chaos ensued. For a few seconds my 93 gallon kayak felt as small as a squirt boat. Violently window shading into a sloppy brace, then rotating just in time to get the nose up for the final hydraulic.

Flooded rivers will always be the top end of danger, and the top end of excitement. The following morning I spoke with John, neither of us had slept well, I had found myself tossing and turning reliving the days chaos.

another adventure brought to you by Chris Baer

The Forbidden Fruit

Once upon a time in Minnesota, there was rumor of a creek that precariously meandered through the most arduous private property along Lake Superior's North Shore. That river is the Forbidden Fruit.

John McConville on the big one

The put-in for this creek is located on a small dirt road with friendly and humble residents. This year we were lucky enough to chat with some of the locals. The folks we spoke with granted us access to the creek. They also warned us about the asininely private residence down stream.

yes it's cold!

The paddle into the gorge is infested with wood. Blind corners held logs and ice damns during our early spring assaults. Upon sight of the first major gradient loss, we exited river right. An amazing series of slides that directly flow into a 25-foot waterfall is the first major attraction.

The rapids following the waterfall are rather continuous, and offer a wild variety of very constricted boulder gardens with the occasional off-angle boof.

Moving down stream we quickly enter into the delicate private property situation. Stealth is your friend, moving quietly is key. To limit our local contact, we made a point of only paddling this section during the week and during the "mud season."

The rapid Cabin Fever is directly in sight of most of private property, and hadn't been completed until this year. John McConville probed the once log-infested landing zone and negotiated the very tricky lead-in firing up a rather smooth first descent.

John McConville, dialing in the first descent of Cabin Fever

From Cabin Fever down you are in the backyards of most of the "cabins" along the river. There are two more slides on the run that ought to be run blind, as to not interact with the local inhabitants. Charge in and start smiling. The water pushes you in a positive direction while sliding the last 300 feet to the delta entering into Lake Superior.

To finish the run paddle into Lake Superior (if the waves aren't too big), and paddle North or South to your desired less-illegal exit location.

Please do not attempt this adventure if you are not confident in your ability to run the slides blind, and/or to complete the entire run in your boat. Hiking out of this river and through the private property could be catastrophic to the next team of paddlers.

another adventure brought to you be Chris Baer

4 river miles in 3 days

Mexico is cool

we stopped by Iltajin a beautiful old ruin on the way to Tlapacoyan

4 river miles in 3 days
The Big Banana and Pezma sections of the Rio Alseseca.

So hear is how we spent three days covering a mere four miles of river. When we first arrived at AdventuRec we heard great things about a mysterious section of the Rio Alseseca, The Big Banana aka the Plantain. The word was that there was a very large water fall on the run, and that no one had ever run it, and "you better put in on the downstream side of it". The group that was collecting the beta on the run had been turned back five times, concerned that they would put in on the wrong side of the falls. On the fifth day they found the falls, and did a immense scout of a huge waterfall. The waterfall was estimated to be 120 feet tall and "looked good to go" besides the fact that it's 120 ft. On day six the group doing most of the research had to head back to the states, but not before a missing wallet and a CB where installed in the truck. After helping our friends and giving farewell hugs we left to go run the Plantain. It was now just after noon.

Jake Greenbaum, Davis Gove, John McConville, Lance Rief, and myself where the crew that would head in to the plantain. It took us a while to drive up into the mountains and find our put in field, and then a bit longer to hike in. We hiked up, down, back up, back down, threw the cattle fences, down the steep embankment, back up and down, into and out of the jungle to get to a tiny creek, that portion of the hike took 2 hours. Jake and I both nursing bad knees decided to put on the creek, we slid bumped and mostly drug our boats down the creek for another hour.

put in falls

3:30 p.m. "WOW there is the waterfall" a beautiful spout of water flying out of the wall 120 ft above us crashing into the river just upstream of our tiny creek. "we ought to get going we don't have too much light left" .... this statement begins the true Epic potion of this tale. After the fact, we all said that we had worries about putting on that late but that none of us were ready to hike the three hours back up to the car. Once on water we made it an amazing quarter mile or so when both Lance and Davis found them self's swimming after an encounter with a submerged log. We gathered the swimmers and equipment quickly and continued down stream. During the excitement and confusion of two of our team members swimming John accidently left his camera on the shore, he didn't relies this until we had gotten far enough down stream that there was no way to get back up to it. After the swims the team seemed a little skittish, could have been the wood encounter, or maybe the fact that we were in and out of 200 foot tall gorge with no good way out, either way we found our selves scouting almost every rapid. In the next few rapids we found a beautiful 20 ft waterfall, and a just shy of mandatory 20 ft slide-sluice thing that broke Johns paddle. Another great rapid had three sections a double backed up hole, a swirly lead in to a thick hole and a mandatory 10-12 ft drop into a supper sketchy hole. The run was living up to the legends, and then the 40 ft water fall. The 40 footer looked good the landing zone was clear and the lead in was easy. The problem was again the hole at the bottom, the hole looked rather caved out, not to mention we had no idea how long it would take us to get a injured person out of the canyon. We walked, put back in, and ran more drops, with all of our scouting, portaging, and hiking we had burnt most of our day light when we paddled up to Meat Locker. Meat Locker is impressive a total height nearing 30 feet, a 15 foot boof off of the top into a ugly seam that swallowed all of us and shoot us into the boiling mess of an eddy right above another ledge. The next ledge looked horrible the ledge made a thick hole that had a cave on both sides and then choked back up by the cliff walls, " I ain't runnin that". After a quick scout we realized that we where done for the day, the sun had disappeared and within minutes it was going to be pitch black, A quick team meeting and we decided to try to hike out. We took the little amount of water and food we had, and left our boats and paddles in the jungle.

Davis on the 20 footer

We were near a banana grove, and the comment came up quickly " there most be some way for the farmers to get those bananas out of here". John was definitely the life savior here when out of his dry bag came a small head lamp. We followed in line behind John banging our shins on rocks and roots, slipping on the banana leafs, getting bit by bugs, not to mention the poisonous and thorny plants we where using to haul are exhausted bodies out of the canyon. Then there was a trail then we lost the trail then we found a better trail, and further out of the canyon. An hour went bye "shush i think i heard something" the distant growl of the overloaded truck using it's jake brake. Then the little dirt road appeared another 15 minutes down the dirt road and we where in a tiny village. We talked to a local farmer and he offered us a ride in his truck back down the hill to our truck, and we gladly accepted.

It was late, and we where exhausted as we pulled into town to force food into our bellies knowing that we had to refuel before we went back in to finnish the run tomorrow. We woke up early, with the thoughts of getting on, firing up the Meat Locker, and getting out of the gorge running threw all of our heads. We were all still tired, no one slept well, and we were all still overly tired from the day before. Even with the odds stacked against us John and I believed that we would have time to finnish the run and hike back in to the 120 foot falls swim down and get his camera back out of the jungle before dark.

the banana grove the second morning

We drove to the same banana grove we hiked out of the night before and quickly found our spot to hike back in. Another hour had gone by hiking in, and we arrived at the Meat Locker we had another team meeting all of us expressing the fact that we wanted to run Meat Locker but the next ledge was probable death. We set up immense safety, we had a live bait swimmer just after Meat Locker and another throw bagger, right before the death ledge. We all took our turns running Meat Locker and all had reasonable good lines. As we seal launched back into the river after the death hole, we realized it had taken us two hours to run the drop and we were running out of day light again. We came around a couple more bends and into the Pezma section. Pezma had some quality drops to it, 20/80 falls, a drop that notoriously beats down 80% of the kayakers, and a splattering of 10-20 foot ledges. It ended quickly a couple last small rapids and the roar of the trucks picked up as we neared our take out bridge. 30 hours, two swimmers, a camera left behind, and a broken paddle we had finally decented a mere 4 miles.

Jake in the Meat Locker


John having fun in the Pezma section


John looking for the 20% line in 20/80


Jake on the last big Pezma boof


the take out, with huge bamboo groves and my bamboo paddle, thanks Kenny.
Check out Kenny's hand crafted paddles at http://bluntfamilypaddles.blogspot.com/

"Mass Cerveze", we where all super happy to have finished the run as successfully as we had, and we all have planes to head back in for another attempt at the Big Banana. John and I also had the thought that we could get Johns camera back out of the canyon without running the whole thing again. So the next morning tired, hung over, and our legs cut scraped and beat to a pulp we hiked back in swam down threw some pools and got to the rapid we had swimmers on three days before. Right there on the shore line was Johns pelican case, camera safely inside. Another hour of hiking and swimming back out, and our Big Banana adventure was truly concluded.

Another Adventure by
Chris Baer