Currently, on the Current River
A tale of two rivers
Although it is but one body of water, the Current River in Southeast Missouri provides two very, very different paddlin’ experiences. A weekend on the Current tells the tale of two rivers.
...not Two Rivers Canoe, which is a place on the Current River and refers to the convergence of two actual rivers, Jack’s Fork and the Current. I mean as in wow, we had two completely different experiences floating the Current. One peaceful and idyllic, the other loud and...well. We’ll get to that.
Sshhhhh...
After a relatively silly car ride (one stop and then a time-consuming and frustrating zip around Rolla, MO to find something to eat) down to Akers Ferry (an actual working but rough-looking ferry!), where we put in on Friday late afternoon, my adventure buddy Toph and I were joyfully, peacefully floating in our kayaks with nary another person in sight.
Within minutes, any road noise was gone, and all we could hear were the sounds of nature and our own paddles nibbling at the water. It was hot all weekend, with temps north of 90 degree F during the sunny days, and as the cold water clashed with the dropping air temps in the early evening, a mist formed on the surface of the river. A fawn drank quietly from the river as we paddled by—and then realized we were there and loudly hauled ass back up into the woods.
The Current River is pretty large—quite wide, and in the summer safely floatable all along the main route—and marked by lush greenery, scores of gravelly beaches, and high bluffs. It’s beautiful.
As we floated, we’d hit pockets of warmer or cooler air, with temperatures immediately swinging 10, 15, or 20 degrees. It was totally peaceful. So much so that you feel like you need to whisper.
After an hour or so, we came to Cave Springs. I always appreciate when things are named appropriately, and this place ticks the box. It’s this large cave right on the water. You can paddle into it without missing a stroke.
There is some kind of actual spring emanating from the cave; it has its own little current and tries to push you back out. But it gets so dark in there so quickly that our flashlights couldn’t penetrate far enough for us to see it. We thought for 1.25 seconds about trying to paddle in before deciding that we would actually prefer not to risk 1) running aground inside a cave with no way to see our way out and 2) being defecated on by 10,000 bats that were unhappy with our presence.
A-tent-tive
Back out of the cave and with the light waning, we pulled off on a gravel bar and made camp around 7:45pm. That would have given us sufficient daylight to throw up tents and get dinner going, except that...I managed to forget my tent poles. Not my tent, just the poles. (How is this even possible? I don’t know.)
This was a major bummer for obvious reasons, but for me it’s a double whammy, because I loooooove my tent. It feels like a little personal luxury camping hotel. It’s one of those products that is exactly perfect for me and what I want. Sigh.
I was able to use the rainfly, two “poles” (big sticks), and a crossbar (another big stick) to fashion a pup tent-like structure. It was ugly but worked well enough. If it had rained, my head and feet would have gotten wet, but thankfully, it didn’t, so I had a reasonably decent night under the stars.
Notably, on the second night, I was determined to have an even better experience. We once again nabbed a delightful spot--a gravel bar with a view of bluffs and a cove--and it had the luxury of a low-hanging tree branch that extended a ways. After a fair bit of futzing with trying to remake the pup tent thing, I realized that because my tent poles attach like an exoskeleton, the exterior is full of hooks. Aha! I grabbed the bungies and the tow rope from my kayak and, using the tree branch and another big piece of wood I found, I strung it up.
I have never been more proud of my engineering skills. (Especially because I don’t have any.) My tent was up. I had my palace. And it stayed up all night. I slept soundly.
Lightening and lightning
That first night, we were visited by an expected bioluminescent delight: The fireflies were out in force. We’re used to summertime lightning bugs. They typically slow-glow as a few dozen of them float around your backyard, looking for...well, I don't actually know the purpose of the glowing. Mating maybe? Anyway, that was not the light show we saw there on the river.
Instead of dozens, there were hundreds—maybe thousands—all set off against the black backdrop of the woods at the edge of our camp site. And instead of slow, lazy glows, they were flashing rapidly, wildly, like a discotheque.
And it went on ALL NIGHT. I know this because I didn’t sleep super well that first night and kept waking up more or less under the stars, and—yep, still going.
ALSO! Because I was wary of rain, I kept a close eye on the sky. We never got rain, but we did get heat lightning. Heat lightning is apparently real lightning from real thunderstorms, but it’s just reflected off of high clouds, so the actual storm is far, far away, and you neither hear the thunder nor get rained upon.
And so, the evening sky was filled with the light of club dancing fireflies and faraway lightning. Wild. Yet somehow peaceful. Never seen anything like it.
River riffraff
The second day, Saturday, was set to be our mega-mileage day. We were up early with the light, knocked back some coffee—and some Snickers and whiskey for breakfast (be jealous and judge not)—and were on our way.
We knew we’d hit Pulltite fairly early, and indeed we did after an hour and 15 minutes or so. This was where our peaceful peace was very unpeaced. Pulltite is a popular put-in spot for...everyone. We rounded a bend, and there were dozens of bright red canoes, kayaks, and yellow rafts, along with dozens of excited day floaters splashing about. These are “float trip” people. No offense to them, because who among us hasn’t been a “float trip” person, but almost all of these people were shirtless and unsunscreened, smoking, and already half cocked at 9:45am, with full coolers of booze lashed to their boats for many more hours of consumption.
Again, not to judge much here: Our plan was to refresh our own beer supply at the little store there. And so it came to pass. Also, I bought another adventure hat there. (There was no cell reception anywhere along this river, including Pulltite. They had WiFi, so we were able to fire off a couple of quick messages to our fams to let them know we were alive and well.)
We didn’t tarry. We decided to put as much distance as possible between us and the throngs of smoking, sunburned lobster people. We didn’t stop until Round Spring, which was a bunch of miles down the river.
The Current River has—surprise!—a bit of a current. It flows around 3mph or so, so with a modicum of paddlin’, we were getting about 5mph. By the time we stopped at Round Spring (to go and find the round spring), we realized that if we continued our current (pun) pace, we’d run out of river by the end of the day. Eep. We determined to slow it down.
Round Spring, a spring that is round
We got confused when we parked our kayaks at Round Spring. It’s another popular put-in/take-out point, but it also promised a round spring that is supposed to be very pretty. But it wasn’t obvious where to find it. We even got back in the boats, went 100 yards or so down stream, thought better of it, and paddled back up and took out again.
We knew it was around there somewhere, and we weren’t in any hurry, so we grabbed some to-go snacks from our bags and a walkin’ around beer (WAB) each, and set out to find it. TLDR, the half mile walk was nice, but we were a little lost, and we could have floated down to a take-out point that was right next to it.
ALSO! We had to cross a long footbridge to get across the river. A driving bridge ran alongside it, and—coincidence scale!—during the three minutes we were crossing, my car zipped past us. It was our shuttle person taking it down to the eventual take-out. I mean, what are the odds?
The round spring at Round Spring was wooded, and shaded in green, with the deep blue water that’s colored by copper. We sat there, quietly, and snacked and were still.
Back on the water, we once again put a little distance between ourselves and the day floaters, because we wanted to have a quiet swim. It was blazing hot—somewhere in the mid-high 90s—and that cold river water was a-callin’. We found a spot and braved it.
Y’all. This water is so cold, that when you submerge yourself and pop back up, you’re still cold for a few seconds until the sun’s ray pierce through the thin film of chilly water. ‘Twas quite refreshing.
And then, the jon boats came.
Jon boat jerks
Good god the jon boats! Everywhere! There were so many!
A jon boat is a squarish, smallish vessel (good for maybe 6-8 people), in all of these cases with a motor on the back. They have flat hulls so they can fly up and down larger rivers, blasting through spots where the depth is only like 6 inches.
I’m sure it is tremendous fun to hurtle down a river in one of them at 20mph, but it is not fun to be in a kayak when they zoom past. You can hear the drone of the motor coming from half a mile away, like a swarm of locusts coming to ruin your day. Then they careen around a corner and churn up a wake that you have to paddle through. Then you get to breathe their motor exhaust.
Look, I get it, you have to share the river, and this stretch of the river apparently is where jon boat people go to get their zoomies out. But of the hundreds—I swear I am not exaggerating that number—that buzzed past us over the course of hours, exactly one was courteous enough to slow down his engine to keep the wake minimal.
And they just kept on being places. Like you’d come around a bend and discover a gorgeous location—bluffs, a long beach, a babbling brook under some shade trees—and there would be 20 jon boats. It looked like redneck spring break. Dozens and dozens of people turning redder and getting drunker and more dehydrated by the minute, standing in the middle of water such that we had to redirect to get around them.
ALSO! Where are people finding the $7,000-$20,000 to buy these things?
Sunday morning coming down
Despite the jon boat jambaroo, we managed to 1) put in something like 27-28 miles, 2) not run out of river before our take out, and 3) found a beautiful camping spot.
Tired and sweaty, we once again went for a dip right there at camp. The shore sloped so far down so quickly that we figured out that we could run, jump off the beach, and land a cannonball in 8-foot-deep water. So we did that for some time.
After a heavy night’s sleep, we got up, had coffee, then Snickers and whiskey, then got back on the water for the last few miles before the trip was done.
We were at Two Rivers, our take-out point, in under 90 minutes. We loaded up and headed to the nearest town, Eminence, MO, for a giant brunch. We found a diner, J&B’s, that was ideal: A grumpy, young put-upon waitress, a large menu, an obvious cadre of regulars, and an incredibly long wait until the food arrived. (A tip: Get the patty melt. It’s on rye, with swiss. It was exactly what we both needed.)
And then on home to cell service and dry land.