St. Francois to Washington State Park?

[Conor]

I am interested in the 19 or so mile stretch from St. Francois to Washington State Park.  I understand it has some long pools and that we will need to be going much of the time to make it in a day.  Also, I was wondering about any obstructions to worry about?  Are there any lead catchment structures like the Newberry Riffle below Desloge?  I seem to recall hearing about some collapsed slab that might need to be portaged around as well somewhere.  

We plan to do this soon before the heat and sun turn this section into a slimy mess as described by Al Agnew.  We did the stretch above earlier in the year and were pleasantly surprised it wasn't nasty and the scenery was pretty nice.  We only had an "off" odor from Flat River to the lead containment structure which was a raging rapid in high water.

Conor

[Phil Lilley]

@Al Agnew will know!

[Gavin]

There is a low water bridge to portage. It's been years. Talk to Steve Andersen at Cherokee Landing. He and Christine might be able to help you out.

[Al Agnew]

I just floated it last week down to Blackwell.  No hazards.  The lowwater bridge at what used to be Cole's Landing (private) is open and clear; sometimes the box culverts going under it can be blocked by logs but it's completely clear of logs now and you can take any of the three culverts under it.  A massive log jam a couple miles below the Highway 67 bridges that was a big problem a couple years ago has a path through it now that is easy to negotiate in all but high water.  An old lowwater bridge a couple miles above Blackwell is now on a nearly dry side channel, and the main flow goes around and over the steepest rapid in this stretch, but it's short, open, and deep; you'll just encounter foot high standing waves in it.  You'll like the scenery, but there is a lot of slow water.

[Conor]

Nice.  It sounds like this is going to be a good one and I plan to do it soon.  How does it compare to slow sections of the Bourbeuse?

The standing waves sound fun.  Sometimes these slow rivers surprise you with really fast sections.  The upper Bourbeuse is like that as well.

 

Conor

[Al Agnew]

On 5/8/2023 at 6:30 PM, Conor said:

Nice.  It sounds like this is going to be a good one and I plan to do it soon.  How does it compare to slow sections of the Bourbeuse?

The standing waves sound fun.  Sometimes these slow rivers surprise you with really fast sections.  The upper Bourbeuse is like that as well.

 

Conor

There are some long, dead pools, but most of the pools are short to medium length.  Not a lot of fast water, but I'd say it's a bit less of a dead pool/short riffle river than the Bourbeuse.  There is a pool about a mile long about halfway between E Highway and Coles Landing, a couple long pools between Cole's and Blackwell, and the pool that starts just below the Blackwell bridge is a good mile long.  Some pretty impressive bluffs.

[Conor]

Thanks.  We were about to do this and decided to do something on the far upper Meramec above Short Bend instead.  I posted that here under the Meramec.  Either way, this one is on our list.

Conor