Highway 1 to County Road 19:
A swift-flowing, creek-like river located far upstream, this clip of the Root River’s North Branch zips past bone-white limestone palisades mile after mile. But the regularity of unreliable water levels and lots of downed trees, not to mention playing through an eyesore of a golf course, will caution most paddlers coming from afar. The beauty of the landscape and the intimacy of the frisky river are worth the inconveniences, however, especially to those who know the Root much farther downstream but wouldn’t recognize it as being the same stream up here.
Rating: ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
Trip Report Date: June 29, 2024
Skill Level: Intermediate
Class Difficulty: Quietwater with various riffles and two handfuls of Class I rapids.
Gradient:
≈ 4.5′ per mile
Gauge Recorded on this Trip:
Pilot Mound: ht/ft: 10.5 | cfs: 1830
Recommended Levels:
We recommend these levels. Ideal levels are between 8.75 and 10.
The official gauge is nearly 50 miles downstream from here. Furthermore, it reflects the confluence of the Middle Branch’s waters downriver from Chatfield, which adds a lot of volume and skews correlating water levels for this upstream trip. That said, this segment has been run as low as 8.5’ on the gauge without too much scraping.
Put-In:
Highway 1, Stewartville, Minnesota
GPS: 43.89089, -92.40775
Take-Out:
County Road 19
GPS: 43.90397, -92.33623
Time: Put in at 12:00p. Out at 3:15p.
Total Time: 3h 15m
Miles Paddled: 13.25
Wildlife:
Woodchuck, hawks, great blue herons, turkey vultures, kingfishers, soft-shell turtles, bald eagles, deer, and an owl (in that order, actually.)
Shuttle Information:
9 miles, mostly paved; not ideal for bicycling due to Highway 52 – fast traffic and narrow – but doable. Plus you ride parallel I-90 for a spell, which is an odd novelty.
Background:
To give credit where it’s due, I first read about this upstream segment of the Root River’s North Branch sometime in 2014 or so, thanks to David Lind’s paddling guide for southeastern Minnesota. Perhaps more a compilation of creek paddling trips than a true guidebook – there are no maps, or recommended water levels, and most of the featured trips are best fit for guerilla paddlers who don’t mind dealing with a gauntlet of logjams, strainers, fences, wires, poor accesses, and marginal windows of opportunity due to unreliable volume – it is nonetheless a commendable archive of exploring the obscure, one that rewards richly in geological beauty.
It’s also where I first read about paddling the South Branch of the Root way upstream of Preston, which I first set out to do in 2016, when I took up the mantle of wanting to write my own paddling guidebook for the entire so-called Driftless Area. Why did it take eight years to finally arrive at this equally beguiling, equally unreliable, equally obscure upstream branch of the vaunted Root River? No one reason. There were epic floods, droughts, a global pandemic, residential moves, job changes – in short, life – on top of the mundane reality that this trip is 200 miles and three hours of highway-driving away from home.
But life often has a funny way of working out in unexpected ways.
Perhaps the paddling equivalent of the idiom “a door closes, a window opens” is as follows: when a big river is too high, a tiny creek is just right. Sometime in the spring of 2024, the good folks at Sanborn Canoe Company reached out to Miles Paddled and invited us to be a part of their low-stress, high-fun weekend extravaganza called BaseCamp, an eclectic mix of presentations, film screenings, workshops, boat demos, dead fish polo (don’t ask), live music, food trucks, camping, and much more. Think Canoecopia meets Wild & Scenic Film Fest meets free music festival – but all outdoors along the banks of the Mississippi River in Winona, MN.
However, as the last weekend of June 2024 was approaching, when the event was to be held, so too was a tremendous surge of water coming down the Mississippi River. Days beforehand, the whole campground was under a foot of water, so the event was rescheduled for mid-August. Nonetheless, I’d had the weekend set aside already and now thought I could take advantage of the recent rain by exploring obscure prospects that ran too low most of the year.
The North Branch begins southwest of Stewartville (which is south of Rochester). In a flowery cursive hand, it flows in huge loops northeast to Predmore before scrawling southeast through Cummingsville and eventually Chatfield. The official Root River State Water Trail begins in Chatfield (at least the combined North and Middle Branch portions; the South Branch “officially” begins in Preston). Below Chatfield, the Middle Branch’s waters mingle with the North Branch, and the two-as-one flow southeast towards Lanesboro. The South Branch actually flows through Lanesboro (though there’s a dam downtown) and then northeast to converge with its bigger brother above Whalan, at which point the Root River proper flows mostly east to feed the Mississippi River a smidge south of La Crescent.
Looking at a topographical map, it was obvious that the most compelling segment of these upper reaches are from Highway 1 to Highway 116, but since the open windows to paddle this far upstream are few and far between, I extended the distance to the next bridge down, at County 19. Speaking of looking at topo maps, if you zoom in enough just east of the County 19 bridge, you’ll notice a lot of dots. Zoom in further, the dots call to mind porous Swiss cheese or percussed holes in trees from woodpecker beaks. They’re actually depressions in the landscape that denote sinkholes. Pretty frickin’ cool! Most are found on private farm fields, but anytime you see a tiny island with a tree or two surrounded by a sea of corn or soy, chances are there’s a sinkhole located there – especially out here in southeastern Minnesota. It’s not for nothing that the neighboring town of Fountain calls itself the “sinkhole capital of the United States.”
Overview:
There is no dedicated access, but launching from the downstream side of the Highway 1 bridge, river-left, is simple enough. There’s even a natural spring that cascades down the bedrock when everything is wet from recent rain or snowmelt. But it’s the sound of so much rushing water below the bridge and diverted from the first of two islands, and the sight of undulating limestone rock outcrops about 600′ ahead that will command immediate attention. These first outcrops are only 20′ tall and not all that long in sequence, but they’re merely a wink to what awaits further downstream. It’s all inverted-V riffles and light rapids, but it sure is a snappy way to begin a trip!
Flushed riffles continue through more open pasture-type settings, but modest rock walls appear now and again. Leafy canopies provide shade and welcome relief on a sunny day. And then the first of the truly magnificent palisades looms before you. Fissured and textured, with green pops of trees at its base and crown, ash-white, 60′ tall, and wrapping around the river itself, there’s a lot to take in! You’d be forgiven for thinking this was the Upper Iowa River in Bluffton, the two are so similar. But the North Branch of the Root is a much narrower stream, and I’d dare you to find another paddler while you’re out there.
There are several sets of these palisades during this trip, though some are somewhat camouflaged by leaves. Easier to appreciate are the many ginormous limestone shelves and boulders at the bottom of the bluffs. Just don’t appreciate them too close, as they’re often preceded by riffles and chutes. Even very modest current is extremely powerful; respect the awesome energy of a river’s hydraulics!
In between the hushed reverence of the limestone palisades towering above you and rippled like a curtain are flat areas where tree debris tends to accumulate, as well as a slew of gravel bars and sandbars. For instance, in a short east-flowing stretch before the river makes its first horseshoe-bend north, a series of islands will split the main channel in two. While most of the flow goes right, there are logjams galore due to its serpentine meandering. I went left and experienced no blockages. To get a sense of this arboreal graveyard, cue to the 10:10 mark on this video (though watching the whole video is worth your while).
Next, the river bends left and stretches northward for half a mile thanks to a sweep of palisades on your right before being rerouted to the right (east) and then right again (now south) around a horseshoe-shaped palisade on your left that rivals any along the Upper Iowa and is the envy of any river. The entire sequence is magnificent and marks the highlight of this exceptional trip. Along the northern reach is an Olmsted County park called Root River Park. Mostly atop the bluff itself, the park offers some hiking trails and commanding viewing areas.
Alas, then things go south…in several senses. First, the river does flow south by southeast by south again for a full mile before ricocheting east and back north. Smack dab in this huge southbound loop is a country club that will always be on your left no matter which direction the river flows. To convey this experientially, you’ll be paddling along the perimeter of a golf course and then through it for 1.5 miles total. A set of north-facing palisades does help foregive the pomp and circumstance of grown men who tuck in their shirts while wearing shorts, to say nothing of the continuous riffles and Class I rapids past the links. But, still. Golf? Here? Now? Why?
Additional sand- and gravel bars lie downstream, as does tree debris. One such island, after the golf course, warranted taking the narrower right channel, as a nasty strainer awaited in the wider, left channel, eager to clothesline you. Situations like this and the aforementioned one change all the time, especially on narrow rivers. What was safe and forward for me might well be the opposite for you. Be sure to be alert, scout when you can, and portage when you must. Read the river and trust your gut.
Suddenly, a handsome private bridge appears, not for dinky golf carts or pedestrians either. Here, the river flows east for about a mile before veering to the left and back north to its next horseshoe loop. The flow is swift past a couple more impressive rock outcrop bluffs, modest limestone shelves, and weeping seeps. Limestone underscores the entire corridor leading to the Highway 116 bridge. Before you arrive at the bridge, your socks might be knocked off by a cascade of water tumbling down bedrock – this one far more dramatic than at Highway 1, on the upstream side of the bridge but again on river-left. The amount of water tumbling down will depend on how wet things have been recently. On my trip, it was a crescendo. There’s decent (but not dedicated) access to end a 9-mile trip here on the upstream side of the bridge, river-left.
The next/last 4 miles to the County 19 bridge feature exquisite rock shelves, often with a vertical tilt, as large as garage walls. But you’ll likewise see additional horizontally-lined, textbook sedimentary rock walls as well. This clip is less swift or sweeping than the preceding one. It’s not blessed with the palisades, but there are plenty of riffles, light rapids, and rock outcrops here, too. Plus a couple more natural springs and stands of conifers. The river is once more diverted right-left-right around a protruding ridge Google Maps names Table Rock, but I discerned no exposed bedrock in the full leafy flush of summer. Another dive down south and then east past scads of gravel bars and shady woods leads to the County 19 bridge, where again access was easiest on the downstream side, river-left.
What we liked:
Who doesn’t like the combination of thrilling visuals and swift current? What’s there not to like? This far-upstream trip on the Root River’s North Branch was just as fun and even more aesthetically astonishing than our far-upstream trip on the South Branch back in 2016. It’s easy to describe this trip as a smaller version of the Upper Iowa River (which is only 40 miles southeast of here, so of course they share a generous overlap in geology). But that’s a bit like naming your son Jr. or the II. This is all the Root River, baby, a river unlike any other, a river possessing multitudes. As dramatic as the downriver bluffs are in between Highway 52 near Chatfield and Highway 16 near Whalan, the scope and scale of the palisades here are uniquely incredible. Combined with the narrow intimacy of the creek-sized river and its zippy rips, riffles, and light rapids, not to mention the impressive wildlife (including a barred owl and a baby snapping turtle), this was a trip for the ages.
For the record, I didn’t have to portage around or over any deadfall, and I didn’t encounter any wires.
What we didn’t like:
Well, the country club, of course. And the littered deadfall to watch out for mile after mile. The final third of this trip, while still interesting and fast, cannot compare to its first two-thirds.
As a bike-shuttling aside, there’s a nerve-racking stretch along Hwy 52 that’s only half a mile long, but it’s essentially hellish due to the high volume, large vehicle, fast speed nature of the highway.
If we did this trip again:
I’d end this trip at Highway 116 instead of County 19 for the following reasons: the showy outcrops subside and the bike shuttle wouldn’t include the brief but unnerving interlude of Highway 52. I’m glad I paddled to Highway 116, but there’d be no compelling reason to repeat that.
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Related Information:
Root River North Branch I: Parsley Bridge to Lanesboro Access
General: Minnesota DNR
Video: Don Schaub
Wikipedia: Root River
Photo Gallery:
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