June 3, 2012 Spoon River Bernadotte to Elrod

[Karen]

The Spoon was beautiful today and in addition to lovely scenery we saw an eagle, an immature eagle and a nest. This was more of a float than a paddle as it was only 5 to 6 miles. We had 10 people come and it was nice meeting new people. I think when I do this part of the Spoon next I definately want a longer distance esp since it takes awhile to setup and do the shuttle etc. Unfortunately stone roads go with the territory for the Spoon. The takeout was alot steeper than I remembered so sorry about that. It definately was not an easy takeout. I realized after the trip - on checking old photos - there was another takeout there that was easier but we missed it. At our takeout the ramp was suppose to have been fixed and should be soon. As a float with a lunch stop this section only took 3 hours so with a similar current I think could easily be paddled in under 2 hours, probably 1 1/2 hrs. It was a lovely section of the Spoon. I'm putting up pictures of the put-in and take-outs also for future reference on the central illinois canoe and paddling group meetup site. We did not end up swimming as the Spoon was a bit deep today. I listed this trip on both our canoe club and the meetup site.

Seville was at 6.79 and 639 cfs. London Mills was at 3.64.

The campsite and take-out at Elrod are private property but just contact Stu Harrison if you want to use it. Info on that is on the general messages site along with other info on Spoon put-ins.