Masonic Park to Nature Road:
An exhilarating trip whose rewards are equal to but precariously tempered by its risks, frisky Deer Creek revels in ridiculous bliss for experienced paddlers leaning into discomfort – while steering clear of sharp rocks, boulders, downed trees, cattle, barbed wires, and electric fences – on a narrow stream with a commanding gradient passing resplendent limestone palisades. Too shallow to paddle 90% of the time, it’s a wild ride in that bewitching hour when it’s runnable.
Rating: ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
Trip Report Date: June 30, 2024
Skill Level: Intermediate-Advanced
Class Difficulty: Nonstop riffles and Class I+ rapids
Gradient:
≈ 16′ per mile
Gauge Recorded on this Trip:
Pilot Mound (North Branch): ht/ft: 10.4 | cfs: 1725
Lanesboro (South Branch): ht/ft: 3.08 | cfs: 510
Recommended Levels:
We recommend these levels. Because Deer Creek is one of three tributaries that eventually become the Middle Branch of the Root River, these gauges are correlative. If the North Branch gauge is notably below 10′ and the South Branch gauge below 3′, do not bother; Deer Creek will be too low to even look at. Even at “10 and 3,” there is no guarantee. Instead, think of “10 and 3” as the “proceed with caution”; definitely worth driving out to visually determine if it looks runnable. Our man on the street stream, Don Schaub, recommends doing Deer Creek only when the North Branch gauge is at 10.5′. For what it’s worth, on my trip there was plenty of flow on this otherwise very marginal stream at 10.4′.
Put-In:
Masonic Park, Highway 38, Spring Valley, Minnesota
GPS: 43.73755, -92.3504
Take-Out:
Nature Road, Wykoff, Minnesota
GPS: 43.74299, -92.28302
Time: Put in at 10:00a. Out at 12:00p.
Total Time: 2h
Miles Paddled: 6.75
Wildlife:
Great blue herons, blue-winged teal, and lots of fish.
Shuttle Information:
5.25 miles, mostly unpaved. This is not for the cycling faint of heart! The roads are very steep, mostly unpaved, and quite narrow. Moreover, I was chased after a large unleashed dog for a solid hundred yards tearing at me hell for leather, snarling and barking, before someone finally called them off.
Background:
Hang onto your hats – at least your paddle! I’d say buckle up, too, except that chances are very good you’ll be getting out of your boat quite a bit during this brief but fabulous trip. That and canoes/kayaks don’t have seatbelts.
Located only 20-some miles away from the glitzy glamour of downtown Rochester but a world apart, a natural phenomenon occurs in the unglaciated, steep-hilled country of Fillmore County: three individual streams – Bear Creek, Deer Creek, and Spring Valley Creek – converge within a mile of one another to form, abracadabra, the Middle Branch of the Root River. Bear and Deer Creeks run parallel to one another west to east, at most only two miles from each other, at times less than half a mile apart, separated only by a single ridgeline. Spring Valley Creek is a mile south of Deer Creek and flows mostly northeast. To put this in non-visual context, the distance between Bear Creek to the north and Spring Valley Creek to the south is only four miles as the crow flies. That’s three separate streams that can be paddled anywhere from 5-15 miles with gradients ranging from 12-20 fpm all within the span of only four miles.
Furthermore, once Spring Valley Creek joins Deer Creek, and Deer Creek joins Bear Creek (or vice versa), the triple-down crown canters for a dozen miles as the Middle Branch of the Root River before joining the North Branch downstream from Chatfield. In theory, one could plant oneself at Masonic Park, where our trip on Deer Creek begins, and paddle four separate streams over the course of as many days without driving farther than 10 miles!
Romance aside, allow me to be perfectly unambiguous: the likelihood of getting bruised or bled, at least dirty, is pretty good, and only intrepid paddlers should try their luck. These three creeks come with many caveats: they are dodgy/dangerous and fit for guerilla paddling. First, they’re prone to be too shallow to paddle most of the time. When they are running, that window of opportunity will be brief – but also typically preceded with stormy weather (i.e., heavy rain), and that usually means wind, and that usually means downed trees, especially on narrow creeks. Second, their steep gradients result in flying downstream where obstructions can be expected, often around a tight bend with little to no warning. These obstructions range from the aforementioned tree debris, barbed wire and electric fences, cattle in the water, to low-clearance farm bridges. The margins here are razor-thin.
To be clear, there’s nothing deadly about running these creeks. They’re not like true whitewater rivers where paddlers might get pinned or foot-trapped. No, they’re just spectacularly impractical! You will definitely be portaging a time or two. You will definitely crash through strainers and have brush, branches, and spiders fall in your boat. You will definitely need to duck under barbed and/or electric wires and bridges. And you might square off with a territorial bull like a paddling matador.
Why in the world would anyone want to do this? Because the paddling itself is really fun, jacked with hackle-raised adrenaline, and the landscape is lined with walls of sedimentary rock and towering palisades whose limestone outcrops are practically luminescent in the south-facing sun. That’s why.
To give credit where it’s due, I first read about this beguiling triumvirate of trout streams well over a decade ago, thanks to David Lind’s paddling guide for southeastern Minnesota. Authored by caution to the wind, the admirable guidebook is long on allure but short on detail (like maps). It’s also where I first read about paddling the South Branch of the Root way upstream of Preston. In a sense, that trip was an apt primer for paddling Deer Creek: both are renowned trout streams (especially the S. Branch) where the idea of paddling is as counterintuitive as a losing Colts team reaching the playoffs was to legendary coach Jim Mora.
Since then, I came across some thrilling videos of Bear and Deer Creeks on YouTube courtesy of Don Schaub (who’s since become a pal and fellow Miles Paddler). The hook was set, and I was ready to be reeled in. Per usual, it was a question of when, not if; timing enough water on an obscure stream 200 miles away from home takes a minute to line up. For me, the opportunity (and water levels) rose at the end of June 2024, thanks to a ton of rain and a weekend to drive out and back.
Don had already posted video of two segments on Bear Creek and one of Deer Creek, but nothing on Spring Valley Creek. Moreover, Spring Valley Creek offers a tantalizing 6.5-mile stretch from Orchard Road to Highway 8 where there is nowhere to get out through insanely beautiful environs like the Wykoff Balsam Fir SNA. To Spring Valley Creek I went!
Because Spring Valley Creek flows into Deer Creek – and who can resist a confluence? – I first left my bicycle by the bridge at Nature Road over Deer Creek. That way, I could cheat by being on two of these three streams during a single paddle when I had only one day anyway. (Actually, the original plan was to leave my bike at the Highway 5 bridge and get a taste of all three creeks, but in late June the “access” here was overrun and unruly with weeds and brush and no obvious place to take out, so I opted for the next bridge upstream instead – Nature Road – since there’s no other bridge downstream for miles.) Then I drove down to Spring Valley Creek, where soon my moon-eyed romantic balloon got pricked by a pin. The access was crap – a mostly tree-debris clogged culvert – and water levels looked doable but bony. But those contentions paled in comparison to getting impaled. Come again? At the bridge was a handwritten sign (presumably intended for anglers) that read: “Warning! Territorial bull ahead.” Suddenly, I felt like all the world was a corrida, and my red canoe a cape.
I made some mental calculations… This would be about 7.5 miles on a creek with zero intel but for an obscure guidebook written 20 years earlier that not even someone like Don Schaub had paddled. It has a crazy gradient as high as 20 fpm in places and already looked on the low side from the start. The likelihood of long walks was good, portaging a gauntlet of trees outstanding. But let me not mince words: it was the prospect of a pissy bull I was most worried about. I was alone after all. And while the odds of running into Jake LaMotta in bovine form were probably skimpy and only within the first 1.5 miles of the trip, still…
On the other hand, I already knew that I could just begin at Masonic Park on Deer Creek, which is about as beautiful a setting to start a trip as one can think of – public land with lush green grass mowed low and level, not to mention towering bone-white limestone bluffs – and nearly as opposite as the pasture masquerading as a bullring where I was currently standing and contemplating. The choice was clear. While venturing on Deer Creek was an unknown unknown, Spring Valley Creek was a known unknown. In other words, I didn’t know and had no reason to think there’d be a bull on parade on Deer Creek, whereas I now knew there was a bull on Spring Valley Creek. All signs pointed to Deer Creek.
Editor’s note: Props to readers catching the references to Donald Rumsfeld, Rage Against the Machine, and Raging Bull above.
Overview:
Our trip starts at Masonic Park, a true jewel seemingly plucked from the heavens and plopped down in the middle of nowhere. It has a picnic shelter on the lawn, opposite which is a gorgeous palisade of limestone that the creek has been steadily eroding for an awfully long time now. There is no dedicated access here – again, this is a far cry from a creek that sees many kayaks or canoes – but the banks are low, so launching is easy. The creek itself wends around the bluff counter-clockwise like a crescent moon, so I dragged my boat a few hundred feet to make the most of passing beneath the towering limestone (totally worth it).
As the creek veers left and away from the palisade on the right a shockingly large island splits the main stream in two side channels. The left is shorter but shallower, so I went right and was treated to a sequence of boulder garden meets babbling brook before passing under the Highway 38 bridge. A hairpin turn to the right follows immediately after the bridge. It’s quite an exciting quarter-mile and its own miniature way offers a template for the rest of the trip: gorgeous geology, split-second decision making, and swift current.
A half-mile of crashing through brush comes next. On this trip, my first mandatory portage awaited around a bend – an impassable tree that spanned both banks. Oh boy, I thought, this is gonna be a long day… But it wasn’t. Indeed, this was the first of only two non-negotiable portages.
The level-ten conveyer belt of a creek whisks you downstream. On a trip like this, you hardly need to paddle; rather, you’ll be using your paddle to steer left or right – the steep gradient alone will see to your speed. Modest shelves of limestone rubble lie along the peripheries before the next conifer-crowned palisade broods before your eyes. Atypical of the area, this limestone bluff faces north and will probably be in the shade. Then you slip into open pastures, so watch out for wires! For me, I encountered four total. Because I was in a canoe (and thus higher up than sitting inside a kayak), I had my trusty Y-er handy to hoist above my head instead of ducking underneath. You’ll want your own Y-er if doing this trip – seriously.
While very narrow and frequently bee-lining left and right, Deer Creek nonetheless flows in sweeping loops through a mix of woods and pastures. Small islands regularly split the stream in side channels, all of which will require choose-on-the-fly decisions about whether to go left or right. Trust your intuition which has the most volume and passage.
Or sometimes you’ll end up floating over a low-lying grassy island, since the only time a creek like this can be paddled is during high water.
Piles of downed trees cluster in predictable patterns to avoid. But you will need to be vigilant while you’re on the water. As a river guy, I’m always wondering about what’s ahead. Indeed, it’s one of the main reasons why I prefer a meandering stream than an open body of water like a lake. Curiosity gets my cat every time. But on a swift, swerving stream like Deer Creek, “what’s next?” becomes what’s now? There were plenty of times I just missed skimming against a rough-hewn wall of limestone on one side through a fast moving chute – what Miles Paddler, Scotty, calls “cheese graters.” And plenty of times I noticed an unmarked wire only seconds before I’d have to pass under it. I don’t want to exaggerate the danger, but I do want to underscore the need to be constantly aware of the surroundings and obstructions (boulders, strainers, wires, downed trees, cattle, etc).
When you are able to take in the gobsmacked beauty of the landscape, it is a world of wonder. Sometimes the limestone palisades bathe in the brilliance of the sun, ash-white but glowing like live coals. At other times they are fissured like filo dough or delicately crumbling in hand-sized shards or van-sized shelves. This is a kingdom like nowhere else (and it’s one of three total creeks all on top of each other!).
This pattern will repeat over the course of this short trip, so I won’t belabor the point. Sun-drenched meadows with potential cattle and/or wires with cattle in mind followed by wooded bluffs and lots of wooden obstructions to just miss or crash over or through, fantastic exposed bedrock, small islands and gravel bars, and virtually nonstop riffles or Class I+ rapids. Landmarks are hard to come by; you’ll likely be lost in the details. But one that’s notable is a private suspension footbridge. Wooden, rickety, and remarkably hovering some 20’ above the creek, it suggests a kind of initiation ritual, crossing the Rubicon or something… It also approximately marks the northernmost stretch of Deer Creek before it plummets south and under the first of two modern construction bridges (both beneath Hwy 8) that looks surreally futuristic since everything you’ve passed by or under or through up to this point is ancient or undeveloped.
After the first bridge there’s about 1.5 miles to go before the takeout. While still plenty effervescent, the intoxicating effects subside. There are a couple more sweeps past limestone bluffs, but most of the visible outcrops will be along 8′-tall walls. The surroundings likewise become more bucolic – open pastures and views of farms. And more wires! As you careen eastward, Spring Valley Creek slips in stage-right, so subtle and narrow in its own right as to be mistaken for a side channel of Deer Creek itself. You’ll then immediately pass under the next Hwy 8 bridge and its “swallow condos” like an adobe village. At this point, it’s probably safe to start waving victoriously to an invisible crowd along the banks, as it’s mostly open and unobstructed from here on. Highway 8 hugs the creek to the right until you veer to the left a hair and come upon the bridge at Nature Road. Needless to say, there’s no dedicated access here either. I got out on the upstream side of the bridge along the right bank where it was grassy and flat-enough.
What we liked:
Honestly, it’s difficult to write about this trip because it flew by so fast. I don’t often wish I’d taken video of the gazillion and a half times I go out paddling, but this was definitely one of the few occasions where seeing is believing and conveys aspects that are hard to capture in words. I encourage you to watch Don’s video of a trip down Deer Creek upstream of this one to get a sense of the dynamics.
A trip like this is the equivalent of adding an abundance of salt and sugar to your favorite food, making for a delicious paddle that’s ridiculously rich and rewarding. It’s plenty caffeinated, too, so you’ll feel jacked afterwards! For me, this was a white-knuckled paddle from beginning to end with no breaks (or brakes). Instead of the proverbial bull in a china shop, I was a canoe crashing through brush surrounded by cattle… My heart rattled like a nervous bird flapping around a cage. To be blunt, I rarely feel jittery in life – I am a white, straight, cys male in the American Midwest – so it felt weirdly welcome to feel a bit uncomfortable, presenting me the opportunity to lean into my nerves. Maybe that’s me. Regardless, a trip like this no less presents you with ample opportunities to practice your skills as a paddler, namely reading the river, calculating risks, avoiding obstructions. Finally, experiencing all of that while taking in knee-buckling beautiful geology? I mean, come on! I wasn’t glad to reach the takeout per se, but I was elated after having finished.
Oh, and I noticed an honest-to-goodness actual VHS tape strewn in so much tree debris at one point. Ordinarily, I’d never “like” litter, but the retrograde memory of those clunky black cassettes brought me straight back to my 1980s childhood, Blockbuster and all…
What we didn’t like:
This too is tricky, because I loved this trip even though so much of what makes it lovable would be loathsome for most paddlers – the water is swollen and brown, you’re constantly crashing into sh*t, and always, always on the lookout for hazards that can genuinely injure you. But I was anticipating those perils, so none came as a surprise.
The one thing I truly disliked was being chased by an aggressive dog during my bike shuttle. Came out of nowhere and scared the living hell out of me. I am positive that I have never pedaled so fast in my life! All I could think was if this thing bites my foot or leg, then what? I don’t have insurance because I live in a nation run by for-profit healthcare that’s morally bankrupt; I can more easily afford a handgun and bullets to shoot it with than get a rabies shot after visiting an urgent care clinic. Like Mr. Mellencamp sings, “ain’t that America?”
Don’t get me wrong: I was the one out of place here, not the dog. This was a farmhouse out in the country, not a suburban front lawn, and along a gravel road where seeing a bicyclist is as unlikely as the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile. First a fear of getting gouged by a bull, now being mauled by a dog. Good times on Deer Creek!
If we did this trip again:
I’d absolutely do this trip again and look forward to it! But I’d take video this time, probably paddle it in a shorter canoe, and not bike-shuttle back to the car.
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Related Information:
Video: Don Schaub
Photo Gallery:
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