Bridgeport Access to Iron Bridge Access:
Our first foray on the lower Maquoketa River downstream from its final dam, this undersung segment exceeded our expectations a hundredfold by featuring miles of fabulous rock outcrops and wooded bluffs in a mostly undeveloped corridor.
Rating: ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
Trip Report Date: November 14, 2023
Skill Level: Beginner
Class Difficulty: Quietwater with an occasional riffle
Gradient:
≈2′ per mile
Gauge Recorded on this Trip:
Maquoketa: ht/ft: 10 | cfs: 390
Recommended Levels:
We recommend this level. For this trip, water levels are almost always reliable.
Put-In:
Bridgeport Access off Highway 62, Maquoketa, Iowa
GPS: 42.08453, -90.63288
Take-Out:
Iron Bridge Access of Iron Bridge Road, Spragueville, Iowa
GPS: 42.10136, -90.51835
Time: Put in at 12:00p. Out at 2:20p.
Total Time: 3h
Miles Paddled: 8
Wildlife:
Bald eagles, deer, wood ducks, and hawks.
Shuttle Information:
9 miles via Iron Bridge Road and Highway 62 (paved). 8.25 miles via Iron Bridge Road, 287th Avenue, Dark Hollow Road, 81st Street and Highway 62 (mix of paved and unpaved).
I was alone and thus on a bicycle for the shuttle and knew I’d be facing fierce headwinds on the ride back to my car, so I opted for the longer but paved option. While it’s not ideal for bicycling, there wasn’t much traffic on a Tuesday mid-afternoon in November, so it felt safe.
Background:
Readers of Miles Paddled who’ve been following along at home might recognize this post as our sixth documented trip in 2026 down the mighty Maquoketa River. If you’re arriving here outside of our other trips because, like us, you’re curious about the river beyond its more popular segments upstream and you happened upon us courtesy of your non-AI-generated search engine, then welcome! Nice to meet you! If you’ll indulge me a moment to provide some “character background” here, I’d like to share some behind the scenes. No offense will be taken if you’d rather skip the flippant, personal stuff and launch right away into the trip description Overview below.
Without meaning to be coy, I’ve hinted at working on a Driftless Area paddling guidebook for a couple years now. Really, the undertaking began in September 2016, but like many ambitious projects it faced setbacks and delays, ranging from being a paddling nomad for a couple months wholly at the mercy (and unmerciful whims) of weather without a home of my own to go to; to a worldwide pandemic societal shutdown; political upheaval; awe-inducing floods and heartbreaking droughts; the loss of family and friends, and the loss of a dog; relationship changes, the meeting and making of new friends, job changes, financial challenges, etc.
In short, life.
More than once I gave up on the project, and not least because it was spectacularly impractical. I had no contract, no advance royalties, no crowd-sourced cushion funding me to go. It was all self-motivated and –financed. I don’t even live in the Driftless Area!
As such, it waxed and waned, too, depending on life circumstances and climactic vicissitudes. The whole thing came to a halt in 2018, when I had put all of my eggs in a move to Minneapolis basket only to end up with a whole lot of broken shells and a runny face. But I picked up the pieces in April 2021 and resumed the seemingly never-ending research by venturing into the canyonlands of the Maquoketa River.
What job(s) I had during this ten-year tenure were tethered to manual labor, not a work from home or remote option, meaning all of the recon, research, and paddling were done on weekends or self-furloughed time off. One of these was in autumn 2023, during which “sapaddlecal” I made the most of exploring the Upper Iowa River in Iowa, the Cannon and Zumbro Rivers in Minnesota, and the lower Chippewa River in Wisconsin. LOTS of windshield time… But by that point I was fully reinvested in the project, doubling, tripling, and quadrupling down on it.
But we do live in the Upper Midwest, and once I’d wrapped up all the Zumbro River trips it was early November, with shawls of lacey snow on the ground in north-facing pockets. The season for exploration was quickly coming to a close, and I had a job and girlfriend to return to. Even this paddling nomad has to go home eventually.
Yes, but only a week after returning to my job a randomly warm mid-November forecast inspired me to take a day off and drive back down to the Maquoketa River to paddle a lower stretch I had never done and was not even mentioned in my first-edition copy of the preeminent guidebook, Paddling Iowa, by Nate Hoogeveen, my Hawkeye Bible. You know the song “Off He Goes” by Pearl Jam? That’s all I’ll say.
(As for the guidebook? It’s in the works. The little caterpillar of a manuscript is presently going through its chrysalis of copy-editing… A full butterfly should be unveiled in late winter/early spring of 2027. More on that as we get closer…)
If I’m being honest, I wasn’t expecting much from this trip. I felt obliged to do it for the sake of research, but it was precisely that – an obligation: having to do something out of responsibility, not having to do it because it’s a must-do experience. Still, I likened it to playing with house money. By this point, I more or less knew what I needed to know for the Maquoketa River in order to write about it in a guidebook, so this was just gravy or icing or lagniappe (take your metaphor). But what fun it was! Sure, any sunny day in the mid-50s in mid-November will feel like a gift, but the aesthetics and scenery on this trip were excellent – better than some of the better-known segments of the river upstream. I won’t exaggerate or embellish; the first two miles are dull as dishwater, surrounded by suburbia and farm fields. But it’s lovely afterward. Paddling this late in the year, with the leaves off the trees, permitted views of the exquisite rock outcrops that would otherwise be camouflaged or obscured.
This trip was that little mint left on your pillow, the 13th bagel in a baker’s dozen, the beer back to your Bloody Mary. I might’ve been playing with house money, but it felt like hitting a jackpot.
Overview:
The Bridgeport Access at Highway 62 is official and allows for ample parking and pull-around radius for trailers. Below the bridge, the river is about 130′-wide and will swell to over 200′ by the take-out. Beveled wooded banks about 25′ tall lie on the right, while the left bank shows a sheer crew-cut of row crops, cottonwoods, and willows. But here and there exposed bedrock and outcrops will pique your curiosity, all rough-hewn and haggard. Likewise, little spits of sandbars and downed trees will add to the otherwise monotonous view of occasional long straightaways. The river here is mostly sand-lined, so you’ll want to watch for shallow areas, especially late in the season or during a drought. Otherwise, it’s smooth sailing (minus the Iowa wind).
Iowa classifies all its rivers in two categories: meandered or non-meandered. Here, “meander” is a term of art with legal cachet that has nothing to do with what you or I think of rivers naturally bending left and right as they flow downstream. Neither does it have anything to do with Greek mythology or the ancient Maeander River of the Byzantine Empire (re: modern day Turkey). Instead, “meandered” means the state owns the land underneath the river and up to the ordinary high-water mark along the banks, which to leave aside the legalese means that paddlers may camp on sandbars or islands along the river itself. (Non-meandered streams are different; paddlers are permitted to be on the water in boats, but may well be trespassing if picnicking on sandbars or islands, much less camping overnight.) I mention this because from the City of Maquoketa down to the river’s mouth at the Mississippi, the Maquoketa is a meandered stream, whereas the majority of the Maquoketa’s miles upstream of the namesake city are considered non-meandered. So hit the sand and have a beach party! Or to quote from Corona, “la playa awaits.”
After about two miles the river will bend to the left (north), whereupon the topography and terrain become far more compelling; the hills are steeper, the embedded rock outcrops more prominent and detailed. While farms are never far away, you’re rarely aware of them while on the water – smitten instead by the geology show. And it keeps getting more engaging as you proceed downstream. Due to the negligible gradient (~ 2 fpm), the current is typically calm. But there is one little zippy Class I rapid where the remains of a long-removed bridge add some effervescence. Long straightaways do lie in between meanders, but the rocks are pleasant companions to keep you entertained. Flat-topped row crops will return now and again, but the majority of this tidy trip lies along wooded bluffs with nary a sign of development. And you’ll pass several sweeps where boulders the size of carports punctuate the steep banks with a sly wink from gravity, inspiring the irrepressible wonder of what would happen if one of those lost its footing and tumbled down into the river…? That’d make one helluva splash!
Following a bend to the left, the green glow of the Iron Bridge will come into view a thousand feet ahead, preceded first with a bevy of rock outcrops on the right bathing in the water and embedded in the banks above, a truly theatrical encore before curtain’s call. The equally excellent access is on the left bank on the upstream side of the bridge.
What we liked:
I thought this trip would be pleasant, but it was much prettier than I’d hoped! I personally enthuse paddling new-to-me segments of rivers I know and fawn for in other sections; they’re like the B-sides to the popular hits or meeting the first cousin or best friend of your spouse who knew them way back – they fill out the whole picture. But that’s subjective. Objectively, anyone will enjoy this trip. Should you paddle other segments of the Maquoketa first? Sure. To wit, either the Pictured Rocks or Canton area. But this trip is a gem in its own right, with oodles of outcrops, boulders, and wooded ridges with hardly any houses, barns, roads, backyards, power lines, etc. Just be sure to paddle it in early spring or late fall, to take in the exposed bedrock that otherwise would be lost behind the leaves.
What we didn’t like:
Other than the first two-ish miles, where the landscape is somewhat mundane, this was a splendid paddle with little to quibble about.
If we did this trip again:
First off, I’d definitely do this trip again! In a world of poetry and nowhere to be, I’d have started at Joinerville Park – where I ended my first ever trip on the Maquoketa River in April 2021. But that would’ve required portaging around a dam that the official guidebook and every single online resource strongly discourages the reader from doing since there is no established portage to get out, around, and back on the water below. Furthermore, there are still another 5 miles between the dam and where this trip started, and since it’s 4 miles and change from Joinerville to the dam, that’s really its own trip at 9.25 miles. To have added that to this trip would’ve put me at 17 miles, which is not happening in mid-November when it’s dark by 5pm and takes over two hours to drive one-way. But I’d entertain such a prospect during more favorable times of the year. Regardless, I’d begin below the dam (somewhere…) or at least at the 5th Street Access to make this a longer paddle.
And at some point I would love to begin at Iron Bridge and paddle all the way down to the Mississippi River and beyond, making the most of this meandered river by camping on it at night. Of the 30+ miles from the dam to the mouth, I am quite confident that the half-dozen miles to the Iron Bridge access are the prettiest and least developed. But the adventure would be fun all the same – at least once.
Here’s a cheat sheet for distances and established accesses from Joinerville Park to the Mississippi River:
Joinerville Park boat ramp to the Maquoketa dam: 4.25 miles
Maquoketa dam to 5th Street Access: 1.5 miles
5th Street to Bridgeport Access: 3.5 miles
Bridgeport to Iron Bridge Access: 8 miles
Iron Bridge to Spragueville access: 8.5 miles
Spragueville to Damon Bridge Access: 4 miles
Damon Bridge to Highway 52 Access: 4.5 miles
Highway 52 to Mississippi River: 2.75 miles
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Related Information:
Maquoketa River I: Quaker Mill Dam to Bailey’s Ford Park
Maquoketa River II: Delhi to Hopkinton
Maquoketa River III: Monticello to Eby’s Mill Road
Maquoketa River IV: Eby’s Mill Road to Supples Bridge Access
Maquoketa River V: Royertown Access to Joinerville Park
General: Jackson County Conservation
Guide: Paddling Iowa by Nate Hoogeveen
Guide + Map: Iowa DNR
Outfitter: Maquoketa River Rentals
Wikipedia: Maquoketa River
Photo Gallery:
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