Urban kayaking - the Chicago River: north branch

[honte]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

ahhh, i forgot about the south shore branch of metra electric. the 93rd street station at the end of the line would put me within hiking distance of the public boat ramp over at 95th street and the lake, from which i could cut north through calumet harbor and access the calumet river mouth. i could paddle all the way into lake calumet without have to navigate any locks or dams. there are some truly huge lake freighters that still use that waterway though, it's still a bona fide working river, so it's a bit intimidating.

now i'm seriously intrigued about a calumet river paddle. that's probably a trip for next spring though; something to look forward to. i'm also planning to take my kayak on amtrak up to milwaukee next spring and do a paddling adventure along the milwaukee river system, which includes the milwaukee, menomonee, and kinnickinnic rivers. there's a public put-in only a couple of blocks east of the downtown milwaukee amtrak station in the historic 3rd ward area. urban paddling kicks so much ass. this folding kayak is one of the best things i've ever purchased.

Great, I am glad you are considering the Cal. That's a river I've always wanted to navigate, one way or another - there are just too many old (and probably toxic) sites along it that are fenced off to the point that you can't see them any other way. That huge basin way at the total dead end of State Street... wow.

Last time I was at 95th and the river, I sat under the skyway bridge and watched one of the most massive "tankers" I've ever seen come out of there. Combined with that phenomenal lift bridge raising its rickety way up, it was an unbelievable experience. I believe it contained raw Portland Cement. That thing definitely was not stopping for some measly kayak... please be careful.

[UglymanCometh]

That was some awesome camera work, Steely

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by honte

Last time I was at 95th and the river, I sat under the skyway bridge and watched one of the most massive "tankers" I've ever seen come out of there. Combined with that phenomenal lift bridge raising its rickety way up, it was an unbelievable experience. I believe it contained raw Portland Cement. That thing definitely was not stopping for some measly kayak... please be careful.

well, doing more research i discovered that the easternmost stretch of the calumet river is listed as a designated water trail by the northeast illinois openlands project, but they do warn that due to the heavy commercial use of the river by large lake freighters as you described, that it should only be navigated by expert paddlers, so the calumet river might be something to work towards eventually doing somewhere down the line in the future.

for now, my main goal is to hope that the weather holds up just long enough this fall to do another marathon paddle/photo tour of the south branch of the river. if i can get that in, then i'll be satisfied and things like the milwaukee river, the fox river, the calumet river, etc. will all end up being 2009 projects.

[Segun]

I had a long response to this earlier, but the forum screwed me out of it, but this thread is classic.

[Buckeye Native 001]

Suffice to say this is one of the most compelling Chicago photo threads ever. Incredibly cool and off-the-beaten-path tour of one of the country's greatest cities

[Grimm]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Yeah, as I mentioned earlier in this thread, I'm planning to do the south branch in two weeks, weather permitting. If the weather doesn't cooperate, it may have to wait until spring.

You sure about that?

"Canoe enthusiasts can follow the North Branch of the Chicago River to any number of possible overland Indian portages to the Des Plaines River. The South Branch of the Chicago River is closed to recreational boaters." - Sacred Places North America, Brad Olsen, page 257

^ The book was published in early 2003, so I'm not sure how relevant this is (if at all).

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Grimm

You sure about that?

"Canoe enthusiasts can follow the North Branch of the Chicago River to any number of possible overland Indian portages to the Des Plaines River. The South Branch of the Chicago River is closed to recreational boaters." - Sacred Places North America, Brad Olsen, page 257

^ The book was published in early 2003, so I'm not sure how relevant this is (if at all).

that book is either wrong or out of date. if you go to the northeast illinois openlands project water trail map, the south branch is designated as an official water trail for recreational paddling, at least as far west as western ave. i myself have paddled at least as far south as cermak many times without incident. besides, once you get to the damen/western area, the south branch of the river technically ends and you enter the chicago sanitary and ship canal, which is less interesting than the river itself because it's just a straight-shot canal for mile after mile with no twists and turns for surprises.

check out the openlnads water trail map here: http://www.openlands.org/watertrails_map.asp?pgid=118

[mmmatt]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

39. Mighty sears always watching over his city

Man, Sears Tower is massive!

Great pics, I would love to go to Chicago someday...I have a friend from there who said its quite amazing...Really excited for the Spire too.

[KevinFromTexas]

Awesome tour. Between your kayaking, biking and high rise living, you're my hero.

I like that Kingbury condo tower. Nice design. Cool perspective of the city, thanks for sharing it.

And I want one of these. I'd put it in my backyard and fill it with all kinds of skyscraper crap.


I'm getting a Tim Burton vibe.

[Runt]

Awesome..I think you could be onto somthing here.
Say a published picture book tour of Chicago! I would buy
that in a heartbeat. Can't wait for your new adventures...

P.S I have never been to Chicago so these photos are my passport to it
Thanks again

[honte]

^ See Steely, now you have to do lots more tours, or people are going to get a very strange perspective on the city indeed.

Runt, please do realize that many people who've lived here their whole lives have never seen a lot of these scenes before... it's an odd way to see the city, however interesting.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by honte

^ See Steely, now you have to do lots more tours, or people are going to get a very strange perspective on the city indeed.

i'm only gonna do tours of places i can paddle through. that's my niche. my photography skills are vastly inferior to the many highly-skilled chicago photographers who shoot this city from the more conventional on-foot perspective with their professional-grade cameras, so why bother duplicating all that with my inferior eye and equipment?


anyway, i have a question to ask about my kayak pics. looking through them again, i noticed that the red triangle of my kayak bow shows up at the bottom of a lot of them. in some shots it was intentional to try and give some scale to the shot and to convey the fact that the pics were taken from very close to the water level. in other shots though, the bow shows up just because it was there. do you find the bow in the shots to be visually distracting? is it something i should try to avoid in my next kayak tour?

[Steely Dan]

so i was able to do my marathon paddle on the south branch this past saturday. the heavy overcast and fog was less than ideal for photography, but i did it anyway because i fear that winter is fast approaching and this might be the last weekend i get out on the water.

anyway, i paddled the whole south branch from the river mouth at LSD all the way southwest to damen, where it turns into the sanitary & ship canal, and i paddled a stretch of the canal all the way west to kedzie. i also paddled the whole length of bubbly creek along the way, which was really cool. all in all it was an 11.5 mile, 6 hour paddle right through chicago's former industrial heart. so now i've got over 200 pics to sort through, edit, and upload, which might take awhile, but here's a preview shot that really sums up the south branch in many ways.

this is an old abandoned grain elevator just east of the start of the sanitary & ship canal around damen ave.



look for many more to come sometime this week.

[honte]

^ Always dreamt of doing a residential conversion in that great thing. It's been done elsewhere... will Chicago do its usual "ignore and destroy" or get creative?

[Steely Dan]

^ that's a neat idea, but it doesn't seem terribly practical. first, grain elevators don't have floors in them so all of that secondary structural stuff would have to be added from the inside.

then there's also the issue of location. this is along south branch at roughly damen, and not only is that area currently a kind of industrial no-man's land (i mean, i certainly would never live there, it's too isolated), i'm sure daley would have reservations about turning over such a large chunk of his precious riverfront industrial corridor over to residential interests.

[honte]

^ Yeah, I've considered all of those points in the past. I drive past there at least once per week.

The last point is the only one that seems of much concern to me. The skyline views are unbelievable and the floor plates are easily added. As I said, there are several very successful examples of this elsewhere.

It could also be adaptively reused for offices, which would be allowable within the zoning restriction but would require a waiver based on square footage.

[mSeattle]

Very nice!

[Steely Dan]

well, i got the south branch thread up and running now, check it out: http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=160007

[bnk]

Originally Posted by honte

^ Always dreamt of doing a residential conversion in that great thing. It's been done elsewhere... will Chicago do its usual "ignore and destroy" or get creative?

linky please.









Dan you do not fk around. You get it done.

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

well, i got the south branch thread up and running now, check it out: http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=160007

[Robert Pence]

Great tour and photo set. Thanks for sharing it!