Namekagon River: West River Landing to Springbrook Landing

This morning Noelle and I headed into Wisconsin to drive to the Hayward area and canoe a section of the beautiful Namekagon River. We arrived at Camp Namekagon by 9:30 and were on the river by about 10.

The trip started out with a slow flowing section of river that was a nice warmup for the small Class I rapids that were still to come. In the calm sections we found some water lillies.

Despite a forecast of clear skies, it turned out to be overcast for the entire trip. We saw plenty of birds though; lots of mergansers and cedar waxwings.

We passed under several bridges as we floated along including several railroad bridges.

Unfortunately, other than the many birds we saw, we didn't see much wildlife. We arrived at Springbrook Landing by about 1 pm. There was some jewelweed growing along the river banks there and I enjoyed looking at it while we waited for a group to get off the landing and start their trip.

After getting back to the car we drove into Hayward where we had planned on eating a late lunch and sampling some beers at the Angry Minnow. Unfortunately it is closed on Sundays. We walked around town a bit and ended up eating lunch at Norske Nook. The apple pie was delicious! We ended our day with a short hike along the Namekagon-Courte Orielles Portage. It was a short 0.8 mile loop trail. At the mid point is a nice view of the Namekagon River.

On the return section of the loop were a few trees that had blown down in the recent storms.

Noelle had a fun time crawling through one of the blowdowns.

 

While I had wanted to see and go inside the world's largest muskie, it is part of the Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame and costs $6.50 per person to enter. Noelle and I settled for this view from outside the gates.