PREPARATION

It’s important to learn as much as you can about the river before you get wet. Good maps are a must—not because it’s easy to get lost on a river, but because you need to know what you’ll encounter downstream. Are there dams, bridges, locks, rapids or sharp, turbulent bends coming up? Are there wide reservoirs where the wind can whip up a chop? Where are the best places to camp or take out? A map will tell you what you need to know beforehand so you’ll have time to get in position to avoid hazards or come safely ashore. Even on slow-moving rivers, you need to allow yourself time to move to the side of the river that will take you where you want to go.
A river outfitter near the waterway you intend to paddle is likely a good place for maps and information. If that’s not possible, go to www.usgs.gov to order U.S. Geological Survey maps. To find a listing of U.S. Army Corps of Engineers maps, go to http://bookstore.gpo.gov/, type “maps” in the search engine, and a watery wilderness unfolds before you. These sites will also give you the water levels, continually updated from data recorded at gauging stations along the rivers. That’s important because if the river you want to paddle is barely deep enough to wet your aqua socks, you’ll need to alter your plans. In addition, www.outdoor-resources.com/rivers features trip reports, maps and other recommendations about rivers across the country.
Not typically being one for lots of planning—I tend to subscribe to the “get up and go” philosophy—I did do a fair bit of planning before my Missouri River paddle, but it wasn’t enough. When I arrived at the Red Rock Reservoir (the true source of the Missouri) in southwest Montana on April 3, huge patches of ice made paddling all but impossible. When I’d left my home in New York City, birds had been chirping and buds blooming; in Montana, it was still bitterly cold even during the warmest part of the day. I was able to put in below the dam in the swift current of the Beaverhead, but if I’d made a few more calls (this was before the Internet), I’d have planned to arrive later and would have shivered a whole lot less.
Just as important as knowing how to read your map is making sure you maintain “contact” with the cartography when you’re on the water. This is particularly useful on vast tracks of the Missouri through Montana, where it can be a week’s paddle between towns. If you know, for example, that there are three bridges, two islands and a tributary along the route—all marked on a detailed topo map—you’ll not only know when you’re nearing your destination, but you’ll eliminate a lot of the guesswork that can be stressful. If you have the Army Corps of Engineers charts in a clear plastic casing on the deck of your boat, you can even count the bends in the river for a more precise location. Like coastal waters, navigable rivers also have aids to navigation—day markers, lights and buoys—that you can use to find your location on the chart.
On rivers with huge reservoirs like the Missouri and Mississippi, a GPS will come in handy, especially if fog rolls in. Remember to take a compass as well, and know how to use it. If you don’t, count on your GPS to die in accordance with Murphy’s Law of Electronic Navigation.