Fox River Kayak Race June 2014

Posted on Jun 1, 2014 by jkozik in Bike/Kayak Trips | 0 comments

This is our 2nd Fox River Kayak Race (formally Mid-American Canoe & Kayak Race ). We start in St Charles, paddled downstream for about 3 hours to Aurora. This is a timed race; our start time was 11:33am — just about the last group of boats to launch. The weather was pretty good and the water was higher and faster than last year. The river is nice and wide, with only a few areas with riffles or slightly rough water.

Along the way, we had the adventure of portaging around 3 dams.

Geneva Dam. It’s a little scary to talk about, but someone died at this dam earlier in the year. For the race, there were at least 6 people at the take-out point making sure people landed on the ramp and rushed away to make room for the next boat. I really appreciated the help. We’ve used this landing spot many times and I feel really comfortable here. The guys were really nice and friendly.

Batavia Dam. The take-out point is hard to see. There were lots of people gathering here and it was easy to just follow the people. When you land, you look left and go “…oh, the dam is right there…” a little close. The portage crew was managing a queue of boats helping them get back in the water quickly.

North Aurora Dam. It was late, and I am sure what ever staff of volunteers there were, they left for the day. At the biggest dam of the river, it was only staffed by a fire department person watching for anyone who might have gotten into trouble. Otherwise, we were on our own. This is by far the most difficult portage; I was helped by some nice people. The stairway down to the put in point are very steep and water is very fast.

From here to the end of the race was nice. It did rain a little and there was a couple spots where the water was shallow. We landed just down river from the Illinois Ave bridge. There were a couple of nice people there to help us out.

This was the first year our daughter did the race. We all hope we’ll be able to come back next year. We finished in the top third for our category, so we were pretty happy.

Register early! We were nearly the last group off. By the time we got to the end of the race, all the goodies were taken; the submarine sandwiches were all gone. The concession stands were being torn down. It was ok, but next time, we want to finish earlier to take part in some of the end-of-race fun.

Shuttle service – no! Just so you know, the race has a shuttle service. We used it, but won’t do that again. We had to wait 1.25 hours for our turn to take the bus back to the finish line. For next year, I recommend that anyone to participates take two car, and not depend on the under resourced shuttle bus service.

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