Nippersink Canoe Base Park

Another successful, peaceful paddle on Nippersink Creek. This time we dropped in at the newly renovated Nippersink Canoe Base. The put in is very nice and the park is great. I have never launched from this park before so I don't know how the water looks mid season, but I can already tell that the water level and the lily pads may be an issue in this area. We bottomed out on our way into the Nipper and lilies are already growing in the cove.

Once we got into the current of the creek, we fell into the picturesque landscape that lines the creek. The length of the creek that we paddled is part of the 355 acres Nippersink Park.

The section of the creek that runs through the park is heavily treed and there are a lot of fallen trees in the creek. Many more are hanging heavy over the creek. There are a lot of hairpin turns in this section too. The current was moving pretty quick, which slowed things down headed upstream, but was pretty fun on the way back.

Once you get out the North side of the park, it opens up into flat farm land. There is a huge farm that you can see once you come out of the woods. The bank of the creek gets really steep too. It feels like you are paddling through a really small canyon. The landscape takes you out of Illinois. I don't know where it takes you, but it isn't the flat plains of the Prairie State.

We made it about 1 & 1/2 miles upstream before we had to turn around. What took us an hour to paddle against the current only took us 30 minutes once we had the current on our side. The hairpins were fun on the way back. We had to really pick our paths and remember where the sandbars were.

There always seems to be one thing from each trip that stands out and is the memorable moment. This time it was a snake swimming across the creek. We spotted him just as we were getting back to the put in. We followed him a little and watched him disappear into the grassy shore. It was my daughter's favorite part of the trip.