I wanted to get out for a paddle on this lovely day. I’ve been thinking about different adventures. I’m inspired by friend Dan Strieker who does amazing micro adventures around St. Louis. He recently did this paddle. I was interested as I’ve gone over the Femme Osage on a Katy Trail bridge multiple times. I wanted to experience it from the water. I’ve looked for it but never seen Femme Osage going downstream on the Missouri river. After seeing Dan’s post, I knew I needed to do it as well.
First, the map. The start/end points below are the Weldon Springs boat ramp on the Missouri river.
From Weldon, its a short paddle upstream to get on Femme Osage. Today I’m taking out my Epic V7 kayak. I’ve owned it for 5 years and its never been on the Missouri river. Paddling upstream on the Missouri, I had to go over a wingdike to get to the river entrance. My paddle hit the bottom of the river (really the wingdike) and freaked me out a bit. But once over, it was easy. I stopped to take a photo of the entrance.
The Missouri is on the left and the Femme Osage is on the right. I’m going to the right. Not too far up is a structure that isn’t in use anymore. I’m guessing it was to pull water from the river. Some day I’ll learn to smile for the photo.
The only other interesting structure was the Katy trail bridge. This is the one I’ve viewed from previously. Now I get to go under it!
I was surprised to encounter a single motor boat while I was back here. They complained about Asian Carp. While I saw many signs of them, I was generally quite when I saw where they disturbed the water and was left along. Its an easy paddle and something many of the STL based paddlers don’t see as we spend too much time racing down the river and less exploring. Hopefully I’ll have many more adventures in the future!
Hogan Haake