ADVENTURE TRAVEL

Austin man paddles Mississippi River from headwaters to Louisiana

Currents, barges, storms and jumping carp all part of paddle trip

By Pamela LeBlanc
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Sunday, December 28, 2008

One canoe. Two thousand miles. And a 20-pound Asian silver carp with a death wish.

When Austinite Robert Youens launched his boat in the headwaters of the Mississippi River on Sept. 15, the water measured just three inches deep and 10 feet across. By the time he pulled off the river early this month, 78 days later, the Mississippi's roiling muscle spread a mile and a half wide. In between were storms to endure, locks to navigate, barges to avoid and wildlife to admire — or dodge in the case of that fish.

Since he was a boy, Youens, 54, had dreamed of paddling the length of the Mississippi River. When he retired last year from his job as a manager at engine manufacturer Briggs & Stratton, he finally had time for the adventure. He began to plan.

He'd caught the paddling bug four decades earlier, when he was 14 and a friend took him and his buddies on an overnight canoe trip. Since then, he's stuck to the water like an otter. A 19-time finisher of the Texas Water Safari, a grueling paddling race between San Marcos and Seadrift on the Texas coast, Youens wanted to navigate the country's second-longest river the same way the early explorers did.

"Over 40 years of sitting around campfires, you start dreaming up cool things to do," he says. "It's physical exercise. It's quiet. It's a way to get close to nature that you can't do in a motor boat or a car."

Dubbed "misi-ziibi," or "Great River" by Native Americans, the Mississippi was an important route for fur traders and settlers. In the 1800s, steamboats chugged up and down its waters, and Mark Twain immortalized it in his writing. Today, it's a superhighway packed with barges carrying goods from all over the world.

Youens packed three changes of clothing, a satellite tracker, a weather radio, dehydrated food, a spiral-bound journal and other gear into a pair of waterproof backpacks, said goodbye to his wife and flew to Minnesota. There, he bought a 17-foot used Alumacraft canoe, slapped a Texas flag sticker on its side and named it the Lone Star. A fellow paddler, 62-year-old Ken Berry of Round Rock, would join him for the first 500 miles. The two men caught a ride to a campground at Lake Itasca, where they slept under the stars before embarking the next morning.

"I'm nervous," Youens told himself that night. "I'm scared. I'm getting ready to try crossing the whole United States in a canoe. Even though I have 15,000 miles experience, I've never paddled on a river that big."

The first 500 miles proved tedious. Youens had chosen to do the trip in the fall so he could see the leaves change color. But that meant water flow was low. He and Berry dragged more than paddled the canoe through marshes that rippled with 3-foot-high wild rice plants.

"Three miles in, we have no river. It's like standing on a water bed. Every now and then we slip," Youens says.

The men portaged often, unloading their gear, hauling it through the woods and then returning to drag the canoe to the next point where they could get back onto the river.

"It was tough, extremely tough," Berry says. "It was a challenge to keep a positive attitude and set your mind to it and say, 'No matter what the obstacle, we're going to do it.'

"I remember the first day (Youens) said, 'We've gotta make some speed.' It was killing me. It was just like a locomotive."

The beauty and peace of the river kept the paddlers going to Minneapolis, where Berry left Youens to canoe the rest of the way solo. In the days that followed, Youens met a cast of characters, saw the most amazing sunrises and sunsets of his life, and endured fog, sleet and howling winds. Each paddle stroke pushed him 6 or 10 feet farther down the river.

Early on, a storm kept him sidelined for two straight days. Blasting wind tore the zipper on his tent. He used dental floss to whipstitch it closed while he waited for better weather. Then he called a friend to send him a sturdier tent.

By the time he reached St. Louis, he'd passed through 29 locks, dropping a total of 500 feet. In Dubuque, Iowa, he was named a "Legend of the Mississippi" when he stopped by the National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium. The day his wife flew into St. Louis to meet him for two days, he had to chip ice off his padded canoe seat.

One day, he found a basketball along the shore. He picked it up, drew a hand on it and named it Hannah in a nod to Tom Hanks' volleyball in the movie "Cast Away." He met a 94-year-old woman who grew up 50 feet from the river's banks and two 26-year-old women who were cruising the Mississippi on a homemade raft. He bathed with disposable wipes and talked to his family by cell phone every few days.

Most days, he woke up by 4:30 or 5 a.m. He packed his gear by headlamp and ate breakfast before the sun came up. Then he paddled for eight or 10 hours. He read. He wrote. He penned "Stardust," a snarky ode to the sand that rubbed his toes raw.

In Vicksburg, Miss., he happened upon a towboat christening. The captain gave him a quick on-board tour, fulfilling a lifelong dream. He encountered pleasure boaters and duck hunters and all kinds of wildlife. Beavers slapped the water like tambourines. Raccoons scampered through his camp. River otters twirled like ballerinas. Schools of fish leaped simultaneously out of the water. He saw dozens of eagles, muskrats, mink, groundhogs and deer.

Once, a 20-pound Asian silver carp soared into his canoe, slamming him in the thigh.

The first two weeks, he dropped 17 pounds. By the end of the trip, he'd shed 36 pounds from his 6-foot-5-inch frame.

The farther south he paddled, the more river traffic picked up. Near the end, Youens saw about 20 huge barges a day. Tow boats powered by locomotive engines pushed up to 42 loaded barges at a time past him. He used a hand-held radio to communicate with the boat captains, who advised him to wear a bright red jacket. "To us, you look like a log," they said.

About 85 miles north of Baton Rouge, La., the waves grew so big that they crashed over the front of barges. The current was swift, and small-craft warnings were issued. He'd planned to paddle to New Orleans, but he could see that it was time to get off the river for good. Even that was tricky, and he needed the help of someone on shore who helped tug his boat up a steep embankment and out of the water.

Still, the trip was everything he wanted it to be. "Absolutely. Even more," he says.

In all, Youens paddled about 2,000 miles of the river, which measures 2,310 miles from the headwaters to the Gulf of Mexico. Of 78 nights along the way, he spent three in hotels, seven with friends and strangers who hosted him in their homes, and 68 in a tent or under the stars. Wind and fog kept him off the water five days.

No official records are kept, but river enthusiasts estimate that six to 10 people attempt to paddle the length of the river each year. Of those, two or three probably meet their goal, the enthusiasts say.

Now that he's back in Austin, Youens has traded his paddle for a pen. He's writing a book about his experience and has finished the first chapter. The adventure, he vows, is not over.

Next up? Sailing across the Atlantic Ocean. No paddle required.

pleblanc@statesman.com; 445-3994