Trip ID: 926 Back to list of trip reports. This trip report has been viewed 156 times.
| River or Event: | Add to my calendar NEW (& CURRENT) MEMBERS TRIP ON FOX RIVER |
| Location: | Voyagers' Landing Forest Preserve |
| Start Date: | August 27, 2022 |
| End Date: | August 27, 2022 |
| Trip Leader's Name: | Bharat Meshwani |
| Trip Level: | Beginner |
| Weather: | Mild AM, Sunny and Hot PM |
| Water Level: | low |
| Cubic Feet per Second: | 650 |
| Gauge Name: | South Elgin |
| Time on Water: | 4.5 Hours |
| Trip Distance (miles): | 3.5 |
| Number of Watercraft: | 26 |
| Number of People: | 27 |
| Put in Location: | Voyager Landing FP. 50 Airport Rd., Elgin
(GPS coordinates: 42.069280, - 88.272362) |
| Take out Location: | Same as Put-in |
| Round trip carshift time (min): | N/A |
| Contacts: | None. |
| Report: | This was the third of New Members' Welcome trip. Current members were also invited. We had a large group of paddlers, a total of 27 representing both canoes and kayaks. Many board members also attended to assist in overall trip. We had 24 solo crafts, one tandem kayak (actually it was a tri-dem kayak, yes with three cockpits but two people and one cockpit unoccupied) and one tandem canoe paddled backwards by a solo canoeist. We also had many canoeists paddling with a kayak paddle. Should we call them Kanoer or Cayakist?
This body of water was chosen as many people wanted to know what it feels like to paddle an easy river. The first two New Members' trips were on lakes. The trip involved an easy paddle upstream from the launch site for about 3.5 miles to downtown Carpentersville and back for a total of about 7 miles. The river path goes through several scenic spots, forest preserves and islands. This is a scenic section of fox river where there is good possibility of seeing some wild life. We saw deer, snowy egrets, grey herons, a lots of geese, etc. We saw a few turtles also and a lots of birds fishing. After a brief safety talk, people launched at about 10 AM. Almost immediately it became clear that managing such a large and diverse group of paddlers and boat types would be challenging. Keeping everyone with an audible range was a challenge. Among different types of boats, we saw sea kayaks, fast tandem kayaks and slow moving recreational solo kayaks. So even though the water levels were way low compared to after rain event, many paddlers had a challenging time keeping up with the rest of the group. One experienced board member remained behind as a sweep and one just tagged along a group of slow paddlers. The rest charged forward at a medium to slow pace. At about 1.6 mile length, the slowest moving group decided to turn around and return to the launch site, calling it a day. At about 2.5 mile length, another group of paddlers decided to turn around. The rest continued to about 3 mile marker, had lunch on the side of the road and then continued for another 1/2 mile to the Carpentersville bridge. We all returned after that reaching to the launch site by about 2:30 PM. We did not have much time or energy left in our systems to play games or stroke improvement or rescues. Although that would have been nice. Perhaps the distance of 3.5 miles going upstream was overwhelming for many paddlers. During the course of the day, we discovered many alternate launch / take out sites, bathroom facilities and other areas where we can eat lunch. It was a great day overall. |
| Report Author: | Bharat Meshwani |
| Report creation date: | 2022-08-30 17:05:01 |