Help finding a location in the midwest

[Jamie Farmer]

I am planning a 5 days/4 night whitewater rafting and backpacking trip for a small group of around 10 people.  We have no rafting or kayaking experience but are good hikers and all middle age strong guys.  I am not familiar with the best location to start and end along with the details like camp sites and how to get back to our cars.  Our timing is very flexible but we are thinking October but next spring or fall we could plan out as well. 

[DRC]

Are you looking for recommendations for a river or information about a specific river that you already have in mind? If you don’t have a river in mind already, you may want to check out the Buffalo (near the Arkansas/Missouri border.)

[Jamie Farmer]

I’m looking for recommendations because we will drive if it’s worth it but not knowing the better locations to check out is hard to research

Thanks 

Jamie Farmer

3800 Peartree Dr

Lake in the Hills, IL 60156 

815-404-6468

On Aug 22, 2023, at 9:56 PM, DRC <drcom...@gmail.com> wrote:

Are you looking for recommendations for a river or information about a specific river that you already have in mind? If you don’t have a river in mind already, you may want to check out the Buffalo (near the Arkansas/Missouri border.)

On Monday, August 21, 2023 at 10:06:09 PM UTC-4 jcfar...@yahoo.com wrote:

I am planning a 5 days/4 night whitewater rafting and backpacking trip for a small group of around 10 people.  We have no rafting or kayaking experience but are good hikers and all middle age strong guys.  I am not familiar with the best location to start and end along with the details like camp sites and how to get back to our cars.  Our timing is very flexible but we are thinking October but next spring or fall we could plan out as well. 

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[Paul Martzen]

You have a good deal of research and education ahead of you to fulfill your ambition for a multiday river and hiking trip.  We may be able to help you get started on that process. 

Since you have no rafting, kayaking or whitewater experience, my first thought is that you should seek an outfitter to provide that expertise.  There are lots of options and you can start searching state by state, for river outfitters, whitewater rafting, river guides and similar.  American Whitewater has a very comprehensive list of rivers along with descriptions, but it does not have any lists of outfitters.

Guided trips on even big rivers are generally safe, because the guiding service can train you in basic river safety and they have the expertise to run the rivers.  For the inexperienced, even very easy rivers can be very dangerous. The dangers are not obvious, until you have experience.  A guide can see where the water is moving and what spots are dangerous.  An inexperienced person might just see a nice lake with pretty trees. 

American Whitewater (AW) has the most complete nationwide list of whitewater rivers.  You can learn a lot by looking through our inventory. 

https://www.americanwhitewater.org/content/River/view/river-index

You can search by state, but you can also zoom in on the big map and see how long sections are and get some idea of the terrain.   When you click on a particular river, it should take you to the individual page for that river, where there will often be photographs and descriptions about that river section.  When you find sections that look interesting to you, then do a separate search for outfitters on that particular river.  AW river pages may or may not have any info about side hikes.  If the volunteers adding info to each page want to put hiking information on a page, then you will find some.  

One typical aspect of multi-day river trips is that participants do a lot of day hiking.  The rafts carry all of the gear and food, from one campsite or hiking location to the next.  With just daypacks, hikers can cover a lot of distance on side trails and canyons whenever the rafts stop. 

A very different type of trip that might appeal to you is packrafting.  Packrafts are very small and very light, single person rafts that can be carried when backpacking.  Backpackers can hike to a lake, float across the lake and continue hiking on the other side.  Hikers can descend one trail to a river, float a ways on the river, then hike out a different trail.  However, floating a packraft on any river has a similar learning curve as any other type of river boating.  Without training you can loose your backpack, your boat and possibly your life on even easy rivers. 

I hope this helps and I will be curious to hear how your searching evolves.

Paul Martzen

Fresno, CA

[Jim Mazzola III]

I would suggest you look at some of the Facebook pages for the Southeast such as Carolina Canoe Club, Georgia Canoe Association, and Tennessee Valley Canoe Club, just to name a few. (THERE are a LOT more)
Ask them for recommendations. Just about anywhere in the southeast near Smoky Mountains will give you access to lots of hiking trails and rafting opportunities. Ocoee is not that far down the road either if you're looking for some 'stouter' whitewater excitement.
Jim

On Mon, Aug 21, 2023 at 10:06 PM 'Jamie Farmer' via American Whitewater StreamTeam Forum <american-whitewate...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

I am planning a 5 days/4 night whitewater rafting and backpacking trip for a small group of around 10 people.  We have no rafting or kayaking experience but are good hikers and all middle age strong guys.  I am not familiar with the best location to start and end along with the details like camp sites and how to get back to our cars.  Our timing is very flexible but we are thinking October but next spring or fall we could plan out as well. 

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[DRC]

The Ocoee is not a good multi-day option.  With a multi-day river trip, you're usually looking for a river that is remote, so you get the full wilderness experience rather than having a highway running alongside it; runs 24/7 (which eliminates a lot of TVA-controlled rivers); and has numerous camping options at various distances along the river. The New River might be an option, now that I think about it.

[DRC]

But I also concur with what Paul said above.  With no rafting or kayaking experience, you are not qualified to self-guide.  Too much can go wrong even on a relatively tame river.  You're probably going to need multiple rafts to accommodate the weight of both paddlers and gear (even if you go ULW), and each raft will have a lot of weight relative to the strength of the paddlers.  Thus, it will be more difficult to steer than if you were R5'ing a single raft on a day trip.  You need to have at least one or two people who know how to steer a raft and give paddle commands.

[Jamie Farmer]

Thanks so much for the information. This is very helpful and i’ll get working on my research with your guidance 

I agree I need a guide for rafting.

You guys are awesome! 

Jamie Farmer

3800 Peartree Dr

Lake in the Hills, IL 60156 

815-404-6468

On Aug 23, 2023, at 4:59 PM, DRC <drcom...@gmail.com> wrote:

But I also concur with what Paul said above.  With no rafting or kayaking experience, you are not qualified to self-guide.  Too much can go wrong even on a relatively tame river.  You're probably going to need multiple rafts to accommodate the weight of both paddlers and gear (even if you go ULW), and each raft will have a lot of weight relative to the strength of the paddlers.  Thus, it will be more difficult to steer than if you were R5'ing a single raft on a day trip.  You need to have at least one or two people who know how to steer a raft and give paddle commands.

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