Mid-American Canoe & Kayak Race 2013

Today we participated in the Mid-American Canoe & Kayak Race. It launches in Mount St Mary’s park in St. Charles. It goes 10 miles south on the Fox River to the Illinois Ave Bridge in downtown Aurora.  Race map. We entered as non-contestants.

Along the way and new for us,  we had to port around 3 dams.

Geneva. At the Geneva dam, the put-out was a really easy ramp with a railing but the put-in was a long walk to a relatively calm spot at the bottom of the dam under the State Street bridge.  We have done short kayak trips from the Geneva ramp North to St Charles; this is the first time we’ve done the portage.

Batavia. The Batavia dam’s portage area was invisible; a nice spotter was standing along the right edge of the dam to guide us into a really rough and rocky area. The put-in area was really hard to get to and the waters were really fast.   I had to stop and take a picture; it was really wild.

North Aurora. The North Aurora dam has a really nice take-out area. An announcer looked up our numbers and shouted out a welcome to us by name on a mega phone. The welcoming team had a bottle of water and a crew of national guard volunteers. The nice people helped us put in at the bottom of some really steep steps. The water was scary fast with lots of rocks and currents.

After the exhilaration of these portages in the high current waters around the dams, we felt a real sense of accomplishment.

The Fox River water level was still pretty high (at Montgomery, IL the Fox River hydro meter measured 11.88ft at 1980 ft3/sec). But not so high as to stop some of the rapids and riffels areas on the remaining stretch of river. The shoots weren’t  as bad as they looked and we only hit rocks a couple of times. We knew our daughter, who couldn’t paddle with us today, loves the rough rapid water and would have had a good time.  We all remember last year’s dry conditions and are so grateful for the Fox to be flowing this season!

The major bridges had signs tell us how far to the finish. The Illinois Ave bridge came really soon. After the finish line a very nice crew helped us get our boats out of the water. We cashed in our wrist bands for Jimmy Johns sandwiches and chips. There were lots of vendors selling food and it was a fun picnic atmosphere at the finish area.

After years of living my childhood in St Charles and kayaking the Fox River as an adult, this is the first time we’ve entered this 50 year old race. Mid-American Canoe & Kayak Race – what alot of fun!!

Footnote: this was the first paddle for my new kayak, a Current Design Kestel 140. It was alittle scary for me; my good old sea kayak is so big and stable. Moving to a fast and nimble river kayak had me unnerved.

To me, portage on these 3 dams is really hard. It’s no wonder that I haven’t seen casual paddlers do this. Now that I have done the portage once, I might do Geneva again; I might do Batavia, but the North Aurora Dam put-in scares me.

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