Highway 30 to Kendallville:
A primer trip for the jaw-dropping grandeur that awaits in the subsequent stretches of the photogenic Upper Iowa River, this section features plenty of its own rock outcrops, bluffs, riffles, and light Class I rapids, plus a bevy of natural springs – most notably the single-coolest (and coldest) one we’ve ever seen while paddling. On the downside, there are some longish, dullish straightaways, and while not as overrun with party barges as in the Bluffton area, do not expect solitude on a summer weekend. Various accesses allow for paddlers to shorten or lengthen this trip.
Rating: ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
Trip Report Date: August 3, 2024
Skill Level: Beginner
Class Difficulty: Quietwater with occasional riffles and a handful of simple Class I rapids
Gradient:
≈ 5′ per mile
Gauge Recorded on this Trip:
Bluffton: ht/ft: 3.6 | cfs: 300
Recommended Levels:
This is the minimal recommend level – requiring regular river reading to avoid bottoming out in the shoals and shallows. You’ll want around 4′ for a totally smooth ride while still appreciating the clear water.
Put-In:
Plumber’s Park off Highway 30, Harmony, Minnesota
GPS: 43.51001, -92.10673
Take-Out:
Kendallville Park Canoe Access, Kendallville, Iowa
GPS: 43.4413, -92.0371
Time: Put in at 11:45a. Out at 4:15p.
Total Time: 4h 30m
Miles Paddled: 12.25
Wildlife:
Bald eagles, a gazillion fish, great blue herons, and songbirds.
Shuttle Information:
11.5 miles by vehicle or bicycle. Doable on two wheels, but not recommended. And while most of this route is on paved roads – a rarity in Iowa! – Highway 30 reverts to the classic crushed limestone dust due west of Niagara Cave.
Background:
Like most paddlers in general (and definitely those coming from out of state), our first foray down the Upper Iowa River included the famous and immensely photogenic palisades section in Bluffton, back in 2014. (I have no science behind this, but I’m pretty sure that it was the most photographed and hashtag-inspired image out of or about Iowa until Caitlin Clark.) Three years later, in 2017, we returned and began much further upstream, in Kendallville, but still included the Bluffton section because…you just have to, especially if the person you’re paddling with hasn’t experienced that sweep. But then life changes happened, and then the world changed in 2020.
We reunited with the Upper Iowa River in October of 2023, but this time to explore all the lower segments – the part(s) of the river almost no one from out of state goes out of their way to paddle. Scotty and I paddled four separate segments in as many days, part of a research and recon mission of my own towards a future book. But I promised him that we’d come back next year and paddle the dazzling segments upstream (and with our respective partners). Knowing the river only from Decorah on down and not the razzle-dazzle upstream would be like knowing Led Zeppelin from In Through the Out Door and Coda only.
In his own guidebook, the indispensable Paddling Iowa, author Nate Hoogeveen lays out seven total trips along the Upper Iowa River, mostly consecutive, beginning in Minnesota (just north of the state line) and announcing last call about a dozen miles upstream from its confluence at the Mississippi River. To check all my boxes and do all the due diligence, I knew I’d need to return once more and explore the dozen miles of river upstream of Kendallville, lining up with Hoogeveen’s first recommended trip and concluding where our 2017 trip began – like a prequel.
The general topo map as well as the trip description itself both inspire and beguile, so it was easy reasoning to expect a pretty landscape and fun experience. While this section doesn’t have the star-studded celebrities like Chimney Rock, the Palisades, or even The Elephant, it does have Odessa Spring, a spectacular set of natural springs percolating from the bowels of a cave. This nook of northeastern Iowa has an abundance of natural cataracts – Malanaphy Springs, Dunning’s Springs, Siewers Spring, etc. And while Malanaphy and Dunning’s both flow directly into the Upper Iowa River, Odessa all but takes your hand and guides you to its bubbly font.
We [naively] reasoned that we’d have the river all to ourselves, despite being a hot, sunny Saturday in August, on account of paddling an undersung stretch of the river well upstream of Bluffton. Wrong! I mean, dead wrong. There were paddlers already on the water as we were unloading our gear. Two unrelated groups, actually. And we’d pass one group after another for the next 10 miles, over and over, many in tubes or floats – our favorites of which were a giant beaver, a buck whose antlers sported Crocs, a peacock, and some sort of Venus on the Half-Shell. What we missed in solitude was made up for in laughter. The explanation behind this is simple: there’s a private campground and outfitter called Harvest Farm due north of Kendallville. While not as bonkers as the general bonanza in Bluffton, it’s still boisterous.
At least in my first edition copy of Paddling Iowa, there is no mention of an established access in Florenceville. (It’s likely that it was developed after the book first came out.) It’s about two miles upriver of where Hoogeveen has you begin this trip, which is a dinky little wayside called Plumber’s Park – that is unequivocally not a park and would easily be missed if you aren’t looking for it, as there is no signage or garbage cans or anything. But the dedicated access in Florenceville is located at the southern end of Center Ave, 600′ west of the bridge over the river, on river-left. I knew of this prior to our trip, but to start there and take out in Kendallville would’ve made for a 14-mile trip, which would’ve been a bit too much for our group, our schedule that day, and the fact that the heat and humidity combined was well over the 90-degree hump. (To make a bad joke, 90 degrees makes for a right angle, but a wrong time to be out in the sun all day.)
Since there are multiple accesses on the river, several of which are not indicated in the guidebook (re: first edition), let me just list those here and now before we move on with the trip description:
Florenceville landing to Plumber’s Park: 2 miles
Plumber’s Park to Larkin Access/345th Ave*: 5 miles
Larkin Access/345th Ave to Bigalk Access/370th St: 1.75 miles
Bigalk Access/370th St to Harvest Farm Campground*: 2.5 miles
Harvest Farm Campground to Kendallville: 3 miles
* Access is not at a bridge, but instead at the end of a dead-end road. Why does that matter? For one, such an access is less conspicuous than an actual bridge and could be passed by without realizing that’s where your vehicle is. And since this is northeastern Iowa, land of roads few and far between, ending a trip where you can’t cross over the river can well determine how long the shuttle distance to the starting point is.
Overview:
With a nod and wink to Linda Richman from “Coffee Talk,” there are neither plumbers nor a park at Plumber’s Park, where this trip begins. But there is adequate access to the river (the bank is a little steep and slippery) and room for a few vehicles (including a trailer). The river is rather wide here, about 100′, but generally speaking the Upper Iowa is closer to 70′ wide on average during this trip. A slight jog to the right leads to a frisky funnel of riffles and Class I rapids, past which the river bends to the left and then right again, ensuring that the current is lively right off the bat!
Unless the river is unusually high or you’re paddling it soon after rain, the clarity should be rather good, allowing for umpteen run-ins with schools of fish and pretty scenes of the sand-and-gravel bottom. You’ll likely notice modest rock outcrops soon, too, initially comprising a shelf at the lip of the left bank. Soon, trees seem to squeeze in from both sides of the river as it heads south back into its namesake state, impressing upon the paddler a jungle-like, almost wild feeling. An enormous boulder the size of a backyard shed lends itself to the sense of splendid wild.
As though choreographed, as soon as you slip beneath the state line back into Iowa trees disappear, at least on the left, replaced by pasture. Even a lone wire crosses the river (well above the water, even in a canoe). Like a mullet gone horizontal, the left bank is all flat and orderly, while the right bank towers above you with a glimpse or two of tall limestone outcrops hidden behind the foliage. Really, it’s the quintessential Driftless look: crops on one side, bluffs on the other; business up front, party in the back. A small but sparkly natural spring percolates at the base of a bluff on river-right, the first of half a dozen such fonts on this trip.
As the river bends left and heads north back into Minnesota for a spell, you’ll see a huge sprawl of sand taking over the left bank. What first appears to be a sandbar is soon revealed to be a long beach that goes way back. The result of a deep fake or Russian interference? Not this time! It’s merely an abandoned channel of the river, but it’s exceptionally cool (and dramatic) in an outdoor science lab kind of way. Magnificent riffles galloping over cobbled bedrock whisk you away but toward more outcrops on the left, where the river will bend around a large bluff. Before it nearly pinches itself as it completes a huge loop that from a bird’s-eye looks more like an octopus than a horseshoe, you’ll first pass an attractive beachy sandbar on the right and then, directly opposite its southern tip, a steady stream of what looks like aquamarine water coming in perpendicular to the river on the left. (On closer inspection, it’s soggy algae and aquatic plants that give the appearance of darkness.) Be sure not to miss this or skip it, for what it leads to is extraordinarily gorgeous: a natural spring gushing from a cave!
First off, the water coming from this “stream” is freezing cold; depending on how long you walk through or wade in it to toddle up to the cave you’re likely to get some numbing tingles. (Conversely, the miniature “delta” where this frigid water merges with the bathwater-warm river is a neat experience.) As you walk up the alley to the bluff wall you’ll see psychedelic swirls of lush plant life dotted by rocks ranging in size from softballs to soccer balls in the shallow, frigid water. The natural spring percolates out of several places – first at the base of a limestone outcrop, then to its left the mouth of a cave. If you venture into the cave – and how could you not want to? – be very careful where you walk, as there are steep drop-offs that lead to…who in the world knows?
Called Odessa Spring, the cave here is part of a very impressive complex of subterranean passages here in extreme southeastern Minnesota. Popular Niagara Cave is 1.5 miles away as the eagle flies, and it’s likely that some of the water at Odessa Spring originates there. But scientists and spelunkers alike have traced some of the water gushing here as far back as 10.5 miles, originating from what’s called a disappearing stream that is part of the York Blind Alley, using colored dye. Think about this for a minute: a stream aboveground “stops” and slips beneath the surface as an underground river, freezing cold and flowing dark through slick limestone tunnels, highly dissoluble, embossed with fossils hundreds of millions of years old, for miles on end like a subway system, only to reappear above the surface as a natural spring! How cool is that? This is why we go out of our way to Iowa.
The next mile is exceptionally scenic as well: another natural spring, riffles, and rock outcrop bluffs all await. As the river gently bends left, a tall wall of sheer limestone, bony white and like a castle facade, rises from the water. About 50′ above the river, it makes for the first of a couple sneak peeks (or should that be peaks?) of what paddlers will discover in the Palisades segment further downstream in Bluffton. As for human-made edifices, you’ll see a silo on the left and then a set of power lines. The latter signals a dead-end road, alias 345th Avenue, where there’s an easy-to-miss access colloquially called “Larkin.” It’s been five miles since Plumber’s Park; a paddler could do much worse, if all they had time for after work or chores was a 90-min float. (Alas, the shuttle also would be 5 miles, entirely on unpaved roads.)
For the next 1.75 miles the river dives southward and continues to be impressively pretty past another bubbling font of a natural spring, a long wall of limestone outcrops, spirited riffles, and pleasant sandbars. A bridge at state highway A14 spans the river, but there is no access here. A lovely natural spring gurgles down the bluff just past the bridge on the left, followed by an attractive eroded bank about 25′ high. In a straight-ish segment, riffles course through a relatively flat valley past row-crops and gravel bars. But then one of the funkiest, jankiest bridges we’ve ever seen comes into view at 370th Street, known by locals as “Bigalk” (named after a trout stream that comes into the Upper Iowa on river-right just before the bridge). Structurally, the bridge is anybody’s guess (and possibly an engineer’s nightmare). It appears to be two bridges cobbled together, but at the time of this writing it’s open to travel. Nearly beneath the bridge itself, on river-left, is an access better than those up to this point. From Plumber’s Park to here is 6.75 miles. (Alas, once again, the shuttle distance mirrors that of paddling itself.)
Below, rock outcrops seem to emulate the curious kinks and oddities of the bridge itself. With flank-like, scalloped effect, the outcrops on river-right seem to undulate at first, but then are stacked like rectilinear megaliths. Slabs of limestone boulders as large as a garage have calved away from the bluffs above. And if all of that alone were not enough, riffles flurry through glass-clear water. It’s for all of these reasons that ending a trip at the Bigalk access might make you think twice.
The river changes course now and flows east for the next two miles. Most of the surroundings here are flat and humdrum. But as the river begins to turn right, to the south, another wall of limestone outcrops lines the left, increasingly rising above the river. If you haven’t heard or seen a cavalcade of bathing beauties and bros in floats or kayak rentals or just milling about with a can of White Claw in hand, you probably will now, as above this bluff lies Harvest Farm Campground. It’s an astonishing slice of heaven – who wouldn’t want to operate a campground/livery here? There is a private access on the left, but you’d first need to ask permission to use it (and maybe pony up a few bucks). Taking out here would shave off about 3 miles, for what it’s worth, but don’t expect any savings in the shuttle route.
After the campground and gorgeous limestone walls the river wavers modestly as it heads southwards. Half a mile down, a stately trestle bridge appears at 360th Street, but there is no access. From here down to Kendallville the river environs are mostly surrounded by row-crops and sluggish straightaways. But there continue to be riffles now and again, as well as bubbling natural springs and even some tall, slightly concealed rock outcrops. More tree-lined than elsewhere, the shade is a welcome relief on a hot summer day. One final run of riffles awaits approaching the Kendallville access. The river is very shallow here, so picking a line to avoid scraping or grounding out entirely can be tricky. There’s public land on both sides of the river; a small campground is on the left bank, while the dedicated access for paddlers is on the right bank. Both work and have plenty of parking.
What we liked:
There’s a whole lot to like about this trip – it is the Upper Iowa River after all. From its clear water, sparkling riffles, umpteen natural springs – especially the grand pooh-bah of them all, Odessa Spring – and of course the rock outcrops and limestone bluffs, this upstream segment of the Upper Iowa River is very much like a portrait of an artist at a turning point, like when a young songwriter starts to find their own voice and verve, a breakout album like The Beatles’ Rubber Soul or Pink Floyd’s Meddle. The unique magic will mature as the years or miles go by, and there’s often a high note or high-water mark after which much is compared but almost nothing can rival – the Bluffton area could easily be “Sgt. Pepper” or “Dark Side.” As a band gets older the songwriting refines; the need to show off outwards burns away, leaving only a glowing light like a votive candle, quiet but willed, dark but bright. “Let It Be” could never have been conceived by the same Paul McCartney who wrote “Baby, You’re a Rich Man” or “Rocky Raccoon.” The stately but less ostentatious bluffs downstream of the Lower Dam whisper such words of wisdom. And after reaching The Wall, where else can one go but search for The Endless River – to the Mississippi and beyond?
As the old jab goes, I never metaphor I didn’t like.
Seriously though, this is a splendid trip and absolutely worth paddling, if like us you’re “try-curious” about the upper Upper Iowa – above the popular segments in between its headwaters and Decorah.
What we didn’t like:
An abundance of people, medium-low water levels, and slow, dull stretches past row crops or pastures.
Far be it from us to throw shade on others who like to combine a cold beverage with floating on a river. But one can still do so without dropping F-bombs, making crude jokes followed by loud laughter, or playing commercial country music – all of which will ensure a wildlife-free experience down a river. Everybody has a right to be on a river, but no one is entitled to act like a dumb schmuck.
Nate Hoogeveen advises to “look for more than 180 cfs to avoid scraping on riffles, although many paddlers will run this scenic stretch to lower levels.” Honestly, that’s not very helpful. After all, how much more than 180 cfs should one look for? 200 cfs? 250 cfs? We paddled this trip at 300 cfs, and while totally doable, it was skimpy. This made for excellent water clarity, but often frustrated some of us in low-sitting kayaks more prone to running aground in shallows. If your river-reading skills are fully literate, then paddling this at 300 cfs will be no problem. But below that flow rate will pose challenges for most paddlers.
You’re in Iowa (except for two cameo appearances by Minnesota), so it’s no surprise that King Corn is abundant. Besides, row crops are typically on one side of the river only, while the other sparkles with geological splendor. But there are a few long, dull straightaways that coincide with minimal current. Definitely worth the cost of admission, but something worth pointing out.
Lastly (and mercifully), we didn’t have to bike shuttle since we had two vehicles. But it’s still a long, indirect route even by car or truck. When the shuttle distance is nearly equal to, let alone longer than, the paddling distance, one of two things is at work: there’s not much meandering to the river itself, but instead long, broad straightaways; and/or there aren’t many roads, such as in a state or national forest…or Iowa (which, conversely, is pretty much the antithesis of a forest). Long shuttles are a slog if you’re solo, but also a mentionable matter to anyone left behind staying with the gear who’ll have nothing to do for the next 30-40 mins but try to stay out of the elements while not getting snacked on by bugs.
If we did this trip again:
There’s plenty of good stuff along this trip – it’s a solid four stars. But it’s best to avoid on summer weekends. And if 12 miles and change is too long, then consider taking out upstream of Kendallville, such as the “Bigalk” access at 370th Street or Harvest Farm Campground (see map).
We really enjoyed this trip and are glad that we did it. However, it’s unlikely we’d revisit this trip anytime soon since we live out of state. (Kendallville alone is 3.5 hours away from home.) But having experienced it now, I’d start in Florenceville and take out either at the funky bridge at 370th or at the private campground. That would combine the best springs and outcrops along this excellent stretch of the wonderful Upper Iowa River.
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Related Information:
Upper Iowa River I: Lime Springs to Highway 30
Upper Iowa River III: Kendallville to Bluffton
Upper Iowa River IV: Chimney Rock Road to Malanaphy Springs
Upper Iowa River V: Malanaphy Springs to Trout Run Park
Upper Iowa River VI: Trout Run Park to Lower Dam
Upper Iowa River VII: Lower Dam to Iverson Bridge Road
Upper Iowa River VIII: Iverson Bridge Road to Kumpf Access
General: Decorah Tourism
General: Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation
General: Upper Iowa River Watershed Project
Outfitter: Harvest Farm Campground
Wikipedia: Upper Iowa River
Photo Gallery:
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