Return to the Upper Iowa

 15 years ago, I took a little boy named Bobby on a canoe trip and campout on the Upper Iowa River on the Northeast edge of the state. We took the same route and camped at the same place I had taken with his older brother, Daniel, six or seven years earlier.

This weekend I returned for another Upper Iowa paddle trip with two young men, Rob and Dan. 

We didn't camp this time because I failed to get my act together to organize camping. We instead found a rental house where we boys "camped" in comfort with Heather and Vickie. Probably a good thing, because the campground we used last time turned out to be closed for the season. The outfitter we used before is no longer in business, and the one we found wouldn't shuttle us to the old route. No matter. It was a beautiful trip from Bluffton to Decorah, rather than from Kendallville to Bluffton.

We took a canoe and a kayak, rotating two of us in the canoe and one in the kayak. 

The Upper Iowa River drains part of the Driftless Area, a geological region that lacks glacial debris, or "drift," as the recurring glacial advances of the last 500,000 years have bypassed it. The result is a much more hilly and variable landscape than most of Iowa, with steep hills and bluffs and deep valleys. It is at its best in the fall. 

It's a sparsely-populated part of the state, and much of it is unsuited for farming, so there is plentiful wildlife, including bald eagles and this osprey:

A great trip, with great companions. We shouldn't wait 15 years to do it again.