Today is my Birthday. I decided to celebrate by putting in 19 miles on the dupage river: from naperville, through Plainfield, down to Shorewood. 0 portages on this trip, and it's all fairly scenic.

The put in is Doothea Weigand Riverfront Park in Naperville. It's a minor walk through some much to get to the actual river, but it works.
The take out is the Dam at Hammel Woods. You drive in via the route 59 access portion of the park, and drive through to the last loop, then can walk to the dam. The take out is maybe a 5 minute walk away from that.

This trip: water was at normal levels. It took me about 5 hours of paddling hard to get to the end. Good day.

Today I went on a 10 mile trip down the Dupage river: through the rapids section. Start point is Hammel Woods (just after the dam on the rt. 59 entrance). Take out point is the Channahon State Park dam. Both are easy to get to by car, but do require a 5-10 minute walk from lot to river.

The river was up this weekend. We had major rains over Labor day, and it was still pushing the river at a decent clip. I've usually done this stretch in low water levels, so higher levels was a first. It was fast, and a bit frightening. I was taking out 3 people who had never done this stretch before, so I would lead and survey the current while they tried to not duplicate my mistakes.

This stretch starts up 3 miles after the launch. There's a couple of smaller turns, then it flares right up.  When you get to the lake, there's 3 points of exit. Left side is currently blocked. 

I did get some killer video footage of it:

Over Labor day weekend, I attempted to do a 32 mile trip from Belvidere to Byron, IL. Start point is just past the last dam in Belivdere, off Appleton road, right by the VFW. It's called Hickory Bill's Island. The end point is the downtown Byron boat launch, just outside of town. You can park overnight at the boat launch in Byron, then I got permission from the VFW to leave a car for the overnight. 

There's a forest preserve and Lithuanian club around the 13-15 mile marker, which is an idea place to camp on the kish. You then get to the rock river at the 22 mile marker, then go 10 miles to Byron.  I had done this trip previously in 2016, but went further to Oregon.

This trip was with 3 other people. My experienced Dad in a kayak, and 2 rookies in a canoe. It was during a major flood, which was a huge mistake. We didn't realize there was rain up north, which fed the river to a gauge reading that was 6th highest in recorded history in a 24 hour timespan.

The first 6 miles are the toughest, with constant turns and obstacles. In the floodwaters, my kayak rookies tipped twice. Bags would spill out each time, and it took us about 2 hours to grab everything and reload. We also lost paddles on the second spill, so the canoe was compromised down to 1. The swirling waters would force you to shores, but with trees and fall on the shores, it was quite hazardous. The first 3 hours had the two falls, which put us behind for our goal. Fortunately, the 4mph + currents kept us somewhat on pace.

We'd camp at the Lithuanian club 14 mile marker. and set up right on shore for the night. After a good dinner, storms came in at 8pm, and it didn't cease until 7am the next day.

Because of this, the current went to an insane 6+ mph, and the water level went up several feet, up over the shoreline. We'd have to cut the trip off short. Between the canoe being down a paddle, flow, and incoming storm, we had to cut things off.

We sent the two rookies to go find and uber and pick up cars at the end point. Then we dragged all boats and gear along the flooded shoreline to the Forrest preserve. It was about 2 miles of portaging, and we had to drag boats and gear over several gates. We'd finish at 11am, right as another huge storm came in.

In the end, it was a disaster of a trip that we shouldn't have gone on, but we got out of it unscathed. I learned to check flow, because the initial river levels just told me height, not flow. I should've compared that to historical levels and checked flow, but I didn't.

But hey, we survived. Learn from my mistakes.

This river is passable, just not in flood conditions.