I’m on a… canoe

Garf and I canoed from Sparrowfoot in Clinton, MO to the Warsaw dam. Garf says it was a 30something mile trek on non flowing water. Check out all the pictures on my Truman Lake Canoe Trip Flickr Photoset.

We started out late Friday night and canoed until it got dark. We didn’t figure out how to sign up for one of the very few proper camp grounds so we ended up sleeping on some land owned by the Missouri Corpse of Engineers from 1:am to 6:am. We woke up and broke camp when the sun came up. As Garf said it, “A parade of fishermen came through”. There was a large bass competition that morning originating in Bucksaw.

Although we didn’t have any flowing water to help move us along, the whole trip was pretty leisurely. Only in a few spots where the water got really choppy did we put any real effort into paddling. We didn’t have to pack much in the way of food or drinks becuase there are Marinas all over the place. We stopped at Bucksaw Marina for breakfast, then Long Shoal for lunch. We paddled for about 7 hours the night before to get to our camp site. Then roughly 9 hours to get from Bucksaw (where we camped) to the Dam. We could have accomplished the whole trip in one day but it was nice taking it slow.

The weather was absolutely perfect. Highs of 77 with lows in the mid 50’s at night. Perfect for water and camping.

You can’t ignore the fact that this part of Truman only really exists becuase of flooding. There are trees everywhere. When the water is high and you don’t know the channels you can really destroy a boat out here.

Hwy 7

Leaving Long Shoal. The people here thought we were nuts for canoeing that distance. It doesn’t really seem like anyone does much canoeing/camping in Missouri. As odd as it sounds we couldn’t find a single person that had even heard of someone paddling from Sparrowfoot to the Dam.

We stopped a few times to let things dry out. The water was pretty choppy in spots. We also needed to stretch a lot.

We portaged the canoe across the dam. Our next mission is to start at the Dam where we left off and head on down the river. It should be a ton easier and quicker with the flowing water! This is where it came to an end.

– Insert Rant about Missouri –
Missouri really does not facilitate camping. Missouri conservation and corpse land is apparently only for hunters. Missouri has tons of conservation land and corpse land but you can’t camp on any of it for any reason. The only places you can camp are the commercial camp sites and there really aren’t as many of those around as you’d think.