Illinois

Omar Jepperson and I set out on a two-night three-day trip on the Wild and Scenic Illinois River. We drove down on Thursday arriving at the Illinois River late in the evening and found a place to camp along the road. On Friday we began our trip at McCaleb Ranch to take in a few more river miles upstream of Miami Bar (1850 cfs). We continued on down past Pine Flat and found a kayaker camp for two. On Saturday morning we encountered a group from Portland just as we were getting ready to launch and ended up joining with them as we continued through the more challenging rapids including the Green Wall and the whitewater downstream (2090 cfs). After we finished with the major whitewater rapids we found a camp on river left a few miles upstream of the take-out. We paddled out on Easter morning (1870 cfs) and drove back to Seattle that day.