Monticello to Eby’s Mill Road:
Alternating between valley and canyon, the mighty Maquoketa meanders through some of its prettiest and statuesque environs below the Monticello dam. The premium on this trip is 8+ miles of public land along one if not both sides of the river – a rarity in Iowa. The paddling is good whenever there’s enough water, but it’s spectacular when the trees are leafless, to better take in the bevy of rock outcrops embedded in the bluffs.
Rating: ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
Trip Report Date: May 7, 2021
Skill Level: Beginner
Class Difficulty: Quietwater with scarce riffles
Gradient:
≈2′ per mile
Gauge Recorded on this Trip:
Manchester: ht/ft: 4.4 | cfs: 155
Recommended Levels:
This is the minimal recommend level. Ideally, look for 200-250 cfs to avoid scraping.
Put-In:
River Road, below the Monticello dam, Monticello, Iowa
GPS: 42.24535, -91.17217
Take-Out:
Eby’s Mill Road
GPS: 42.19804, -91.05659
Time: Put in at 11:45a. Out at 4:45p.
Total Time: 5h
Miles Paddled: 14.25
Wildlife:
Bald eagles, songbirds galore, turkey vultures, hawks, kingfishers, woodpeckers, and turtles.
Shuttle Information:
10 miles by vehicle on the south side of the river. Longer for bicyclists on the north side.
Background:
Nate Hoogeveen, author of the commendable guidebook, Paddling Iowa, highlights four exceptional stretches of the Maquoketa River across three counties, accounting for roughly 60 of its 150 total miles. However, these four trips are not equal in length or excellence. Trips 1 and 2 are nearly even at 10ish miles apiece, whereas Trip 3 is a big mac attack at 20 miles, and Trip 4 focuses on 14.5 miles (with recommended add-ons up to 25 miles). Accesses are everything, but the countryside the Maquoketa flows through alternates as well; some miles are staggeringly gorgeous, others humdrum or hemmed in by agriculture.
Weeks before this trip, I had first baptized my boat on the Maquoketa’s waters on subsequent segments downstream nearer Maquoketa Caves State Park. My socks were knocked off, my breath taken. The terrain and the topography alone were astonishing. But even if you hit a homerun on your first at-bat doesn’t mean you retire and walk away; you get back in the box and keep swinging, sometimes striking out (rarely) or settling for a single.
Capitalizing on the compelling allures of young spring, I returned to the Maquoketa a month later to paddle what seemed like the next best stretch according to the guidebook. Joining me for this trip were fellow Miles Paddlers, Scotty from Platteville and Maychel from Madison. Since it was a traveling day, taking on a 20-mile paddle seemed imprudent (especially when facing some menacing headwinds, mainly one two-mile stretch dead against them). So, instead of ending our trip at Highway 136 to match Maquoketa River 3, we opted for Eby’s Mill Road landing for about 14 miles. Besides, in those 5-ish final miles Hoogeveen writes “limestone outcroppings become smaller and less common” while lowland woods and croplands become more prominent. Meh.
The Maquoketa is a big river by this point. On this trip its width averages from 100-200′. As such, it runs shallow. This is one of the character flaws of big rivers; their volume isn’t necessarily insufficient, but their considerable width ends up thinning out the amount of water, resulting in shallow conditions. The Maquoketa is mostly sand-lined, so scraping isn’t too much of an issue, but there are several gravel-based areas where you can expect to run aground. Wide rivers also correlate to wind-prone. Beware!
Overview:
You’ll want to park and launch close to the dam itself. (Following River Road to its dead-end only takes you to the outfitter’s operations.) Sandbars flank both banks of the river as riffles jet downstream from the dam. Off to the left is a dry-dock marina of rental canoes followed by the twin bridges of Highway 151 (the same highway that leads to the Capitol in Madison, incidentally – as well as Cedar Rapids, only 35 miles away). For about half a mile below the bridge, bluffs on both sides loom above the river. The scenery tapers to flat, sandy plains for the next two miles, scads of skeletal trees cluttering here and there. Broken rock rubble looking like the Pottery Barn’s worst fears come true lie along the banks, substantive chunks of boulders – some called “cottage-sized” in the guidebook – punctuating intermittently. The mouth of Tibetts Creek comes in on the left, after which the Maquoketa hangs a sharp right. Through a half-mile-long straightaway you might think, “OK, this is nice,” but just you wait! The river will abruptly curve to the left and begin snaking through a stunning canyon, big wooded bluffs boxing in on both sides.
Pictured Rocks County Park will be engulfing you before you realize it. Depending on the time of year, many of the most fabulous rock outcrops will be camouflaged by foliage. But now and again stately friezes of limestone bask unabashedly in the open air with a head-tilt well north of 100′ high. (Of course, a paddle in mid-April or mid-November would be scandalously burlesque in all the exposed bedrock!) And depending on water levels, riffles will cheerfully appear once in a while. As the river dips southward in a mile-long languor, you’ll pass the concrete boat ramp on river-right at the county park. It’s been just shy of 8 miles up to this point – certainly a fine little trip all its own, if that’s all the time you have to paddle.
Just like that, the river boomerangs up to the north for nearly a mile in another long straightaway. The water clarity in the second half of the trip, at least in early May at a relatively low level, was gorgeous and engaging with so many palm-sized rocks lining the bottom. What rock outcrops above the river remain shy and hiding behind their mother’s deciduous skirts are made up for in the nearly endless array along the banks – referred to as “tortured-looking” by author Hoogeveen. As the Maquoketa leans northeast in yet another mile-long straightaway, you’ll be paddling through Indian Bluffs Wildlife Management Area. Again, you won’t realize this on the water, but there are trails there, as well as primitive camping. Here is an inspired piece about the area written by Kevin Koch, author of The Driftless Land (an EXCELLENT book of individual essays in and about the unglaciated nooks of northeastern Iowa, southeastern Minnesota, southwestern Wisconsin, and northwestern Illinois).
In the final two miles the Maquoketa meanders a bit more, but the topography tapers. You’ll pass under a pleasant pedestrian bridge built atop the ruins of Eby’s Mill, a historic site first of Scottish settlers and the Indigenous before them. The takeout is just past the big bridge at Eby’s Mill Road (aka Highway X73), downstream, river-left. (Note: at the time of our trip (see video below), this was a scruffy afterthought. But today it’s a totally established landing and parking area.)
What we liked:
The scenery is mesmerizing at times. In areas surrounded by population centers or a seemingly infinite quilt-block pattern of row-crops, sometimes it’s what you don’t see (or hear) along a river that is the premium (such as subdivisions and highways, lawnmowers and combines). For a short spell, paddling on a river is a passport to another time and place, even a time machine transporting you. Glimpses into both pre-European settlement as well as eons ago can be discerned with a little attention and imagination. Some of the rock outcrops here are estimated to be several hundred million years old, back when this swath of North America lied close to the equator and was bathed in an ancient ocean named the Silurian Sea. It’s truly incredible. The twin compact of Pictured Rocks and Indian Bluffs encompass more than 1500 acres of public land. That’s impressive anywhere; in Iowa, it’s practically a moonshot miracle!
Lack of development, canyon-esque proportions, and a plethora of phenomenal geology – these are the premiums for this stretch of the Maquoketa.
What we didn’t like:
Altogether, this was a delightful trip. But to be objective, there were a few cons I feel obliged to mention.
Even though we paddled this in early May and at a relatively low level, the water was surprisingly opaque in the first half of this trip. Some of that is the natural dun-color of its sandy bottom, but the bigger culprit will be related to agriculture. As mentioned above, the Maquoketa here is quite wide and flows in long straightaways. Not only does this sometimes tax one’s imagination or wondering what lies around the next bend (bend? what bend?), if you’re against the wind this can be a slog. It also means that the river will be much shallower than you’d expect – especially so early in the season.
When I first came out to the Maquoketa a month earlier, the trees weren’t even budding yet. As such, the unbound glory of rock outcrops was on lavish display. But on this trip – still the first week of May – the green machine of flourished foliage had been turned on. Hoogeveen does offer disclaimers that most of the raucous outcrops will be camouflaged by trees, but I figured that would be a summertime thing, not so soon in spring. Sometimes it happens overnight. But a 2-hour drive to Iowa to see a whole lot of fluffy green trees blocking the view of what you just knew had to be gorgeous geology behind them was surprising and disappointing.
If we did this trip again:
I’d definitely do this trip again, but either earlier in spring or in late autumn, with more water, less wind, and fewer leaves.
Regardless, I’d be wary of paddling this trip on a summer weekend. This stretch of the Maquoketa is approximately midway between Cedar Rapids and Dubuque, less than an hour’s drive, and so one should expect company. This is too gentle and exquisite a trip to be ballyhooed by yahoos in aluminum canoes or inner tubes with Bluetooths crackling, cackling laughter, and lobbing f-bombs.
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Related Information:
Maquoketa River I: Quaker Mill Dam to Bailey’s Ford Park
Maquoketa River II: Delhi to Hopkinton
General: Jones County Conservation
General: Jones County Driftless Area highlights
Guide: Paddling Iowa by Nate Hoogeveen
Guide + Map: Northeast Iowa Resource Conservation & Development
Outfitter: Monticello River Rentals
Wikipedia: Maquoketa River
Miles Paddled/Driftless Kayaker Video:
Photo Gallery:
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