Mile 188.0 - RBD North Riverside Park Boat Access
188 RBD North Riverside Park Boat Access
This might be your best access to Mosenthein island and the “Big Muddy Wild & Scenic Section” of the Middle Mississippi, but unfortunately has become silted in with deep Missouri River-type mud over the years, and is never an open ramp with easy access. The only time you won’t find mud is in high water when the ramp is under water! A wrecked barge sank upstream of the landing, the carcass of which has created a lull in the flow. Maybe in future years the barge will be removed, and the ramp will be maintained as it should be. But for now its every man for himself. Take your chances if you will. Slippery slimy mud accumulates as the water recedes and makes the ramp nearly unusable. You can park and put in here, but unless the river is high be ready for an extremely muddy portage. You might have to jockey for position with fishermen and beavers. Don’t leave your vehicle overnight in any circumstances. Arrange shuttle with nearby Big Muddy Adventures.
I was camped here at the North Riverside Park Boat Access in 2006 with Mike Clark and Norm Miller, after paddling the Missouri River in dugout canoes in the Scott Mandrell/Churchill Clark Lewis & Clark Bicentennial II “Then & Now” Expedition, or “Now We Paddle for the People.” It was our last night on the river, and we were going through the last of the provisions, which included 2 dozen eggs and a pound of bacon.
“...I slipped down the trash-littered ramp and around a pile of bed frames & some big muddy logs, and then down a one-lane path through the tall weeds below and found Norm & Mike with a fire going. “Ahoy,” I yelled, “I come bearing gifts – red wine and eggs & bacon!” It was all I could quickly locate, but it hit the spot. We cracked the ½ gallon bottle of merlot Keith Locke gifted me, and started frying a pound of bacon in one of Mike’s pots. Ooh-whee! To be on the river with a fire and food coming, the water happily slapping the docked canoes, the raft rubbing bank nearby, Norm’s Verlen Kruger canoe-yak pulled up above, all of us river-worn and happy to be alive, to be together on this last evening, to be camped one last night on the edge of the river, the best place to be (if you asked any one of us) in all of St. Louis, even for Wanbli Mike, who lives there, and for me, whose wife is camped nearby, this was our night for sharing and celebration, we had done our work and the river had blessed us with a beautiful evening, storms receding in the distance, downtown St. Louis glowing behind Mosenthein Island, the bacon sizzling & popping, a fire warming our cold fingers and muddy feet, endless glasses of wine taken in the only vessels we could find, the recycled plastic water bottles I had cut open and employed as paint-pots for my water colors, which had cupped painting water from St. Helen’s Oregon to Livingston Montana to the confluence, and so it was a fitting vessel for a celebratory drink, in one swallow we tasted the Columbia, the Yellowstone, and the Missouri from our one-night hovel on the Middle Mississippi, we toasted once, and then again, and again, Norm kept saying, “I can’t believe I’m here on the edge of the biggest city in the Missouri Valley” and then “I can’t believe I’m here with you guys, I’m so glad I met you guys. Can you believe how this all happened?” More wine. More driftwood for the fire. The bacon crispy, I cracked two dozen eggs two at a time popping into the pot without removing any grease, swirled the concoction until it firmed, and then pulled it out of the coals to cool. 8 eggs each. 8 slices of bacon. We ate it with the last of the Ukrainian Rye Bread John Moore had brought us at Taylor Access, and washed it down with red wine & water. Norm later commented, “Yeah that bacon and egg supper spiked my blood cholesterol from 98 to 560. But it was worth it!”
For the rest of this adventurous return to St. Louis, including a descent of the Chain of Rocks by dugout canoe, go to Rivergator Appendix “Over the Chain of Rocks with the Lewis & Clark Bicentennial Re-enactment of 2006”