This years trip was a great one, with great weather and great company. Sometimes the weather can be less than cooperative but this year was an exception.
This trip was planned a few months in advance and as usual we had a couple of people back out last minute but their loss. My brother and I had plans to leave Thursday afternoon and stuck to those plans and were on the road by 2:00p.m. The drive from Omaha to the Seneca camp is 5hrs but a very enjoyable dive on hwy 92 and hwy 2. We arrived at camp around 7:30 and began to unpack, the rest of our group were already set up and helped us unload our gear.
After getting camp setup we sat around the camp fire with some beers and began to discuss the plans for tomorrows trip down the upper stretch of the dismal river. Most in the group had been down the river but had a couple of newbies so we were joking around about how bad we got our buts kicked the first time we encountered the dismal. We all went to bed early that first night so we could get up early as our outfitter was going to pick us up at 7:00 a.m.
The next morning was cool with temps in the lower 50's and lots of morning dew, we were all wondering if it was going to warm up but after the sun came up over the ridge we knew that it would warm up quickly. The guys in our group we already cooking up some first class breakfast so we had some energy for the day. Mitch Glidden arrived right at 7:00 so we loaded up our gear in the yellow short bus and headed to Mullen to pay for our canoe and camping rental before hooking up to the trailer of canoes and kayaks. From there we took a short 20 minute drive to the headwaters of the dismal on hwy 97 south of Mullen. This is where the fun begins for those who have never been down the river before, the entrance is somewhat difficult to navigate down due to a steep embankment that is heavily eroded and ends with a 12' vertical drop to the rivers edge. But we knew how difficult this can be and brought plenty of rope and ratchet tie downs to secure gear as it was lowered, all went well.
The start of the river doesn't disappoint with several areas of tight corners fast water and dead fall to navigate around. And it didn't take long before we had our first casualties of the trip with some canoes and kayaks taking a sideways dump into some dead fall. All were okay so we laughed it off and continued our way down the river in anticipation for the aquifer. After a couple hours we arrived at the Aquifer and had lunch while having fun jumping in the aquifer. If you have never experienced the aquifer on the dismal it is hard to explain it just has to be experienced first hand but is very cold and pushes sand into every pocket in you your shorts aka sand enema. After an hour of hanging out we headed down river in anticipation of the small falls about an hour from the aquifer. You should portage here before trying to paddle through, an experienced canoeist can handle this no problem but anyone else should unload there gear before paddling.The falls this ear were very easy to navigate due to more water flowing through the falls,i ran the falls three times with no issues and only had one canoe dump while floating the falls. There is a deep hole that you can jump into on the back side of the falls that we all had a blast doing for close to an hour before loading up and heading toward our camp which was another 2 hours down river with two more portage points due to a private hunting outfitter putting up a huge fence to retain his animals what a pain in the butt and should be taken down in my opinion.
