North Country kayaker conquers the mighty Mississippi
Published: 01-16-2025 9:08 AM |
For most, it’s hard to imagine paddling the entire length of the Mississippi River, from its headwaters at Minnesota’s Lake Itasca all the way through the heartland of America to the Gulf of Mexico.
It’s not for everyone, as just eight or nine people accomplish the journey every year down the country’s second-longest river (second only to the Missouri River, which is about 100 miles longer).
But among those chosen paddling few is former Conway resident Hans Bauer, 55, now of Randolph, who achieved it this past summer, traveling 2,350 miles solo in a used kayak that cost a mere $100.
He started the journey July 29 and ended it exactly 100 days later on Nov. 6.
It’s just the latest adventure for the philosophical Bauer, who never fails to find quiet humor in the often ironic side of life. He gives new meaning to “marching (or in this case, paddling) to the beat of a different drummer.”
And like that line in Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken,” that has made all the difference for the veteran Mt. Washington Auto Road and SnowCoach driver, Outside TV 16 producer, photographer/hiking columnist for the now defunct Mountain Ear and now a substitute teacher for Gorham Middle High School.
I first met Hans in fall of 1998, after he had just completed a solo, Forrest Gump-like, 3,000-mile run across America, which made for good stories in both the Mountain Ear and The Conway Daily Sun.
Bauer has also cycled six times across the continent, totaling 28,000 miles; and sailed, climbed, hiked and done numerous other adventures, such as annually competing in the Auto Road’s Alton Weagle Unusual Ascents of Mount Washington —he has ascended the 7.6-mile road 17 different ways, including by pogo stick, hiking last year in 48-pound cement shoes, riding a penny-farthing high-wheel bicycle and five different times on different stilts.
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Then there were his many winning ultra running competitions. I mean, who does such things?
As to what compels Bauer, he says solo paddling the mighty Mississippi was just the latest of those bucket list things that he envisioned as a 14-year-old who dreamt big adventures for his future.
“I did this latest journey, because I had jotted it down in my notebook when I was 14, and along with a list of other goals and adventures, I put it down in writing because they were adventures I wanted to do,” said Hans.
“They have turned out to be worthy endeavors that have taught me much about life — it’s been a great education. After reading ‘Tom Sawyer’ and ‘Huckleberry Finn,’ and all their adventures on the great river, I wanted to do it. That’s it — it’s all because I wrote it down. So, I have to do these things.”
Bauer, who is single, said the timing for this adventure was right:
“I was able to do this because of changes in life obligations — being freed up by selling my place (in Center Conway) being one of them. It allowed me to finally ‘take off,’” he said.
For this latest escapade, Hans did a little pre-trip research, but not as much as one would expect of such an experienced adventurer.
As was the case when he ran across the country in 1998 with nothing more than a small backpack, a point-and-shoot camera and a baseball cap, Hans this time also traveled light.
He bought the used, 16-foot Necky sea kayak for $100 at the start of his journey on Facebook Marketplace in New Hampshire, where it had been used on Lake Winnipesaukee.
He packed up his vehicle and drove from New Hampshire in late July headed for north-central Minnesota, the location of Lake Itasca, considered the primary source of the Mississippi.
He brought along a “skirt,” used to seal water out of the kayak and also devised an outrigger system should he fall out and need to get back into the craft.
On the bow of the kayak was Rosa, a plastic pink flamingo taken from the lawn of his home he bought two years ago in Randolph — the flamingo served as his goodwill ambassador.
Hans said he packed canned soup but did not bring a cookstove, as that would have taken up valuable space in his crammed kayak.
“In all of my journeys, I have traveled pretty Spartan,” he said. “I had water, and I brought along cans of soup which I would down cold.”
He planned the river towns where he could get off river and replenish his food stock.
“That took the highest precedence — because the river is very ‘skinny’ on civilization,” he shared.
“The longest stretch between towns was more than 300 miles between Memphis and Vicksburg. I went about 30 miles every day. I camped the whole route. I needed to plan ahead of where to get to towns to get food. I’d sometimes walk miles to get to one of those Dollar General stores, which are everywhere in the Midwest; literally the Walmart of these smaller towns. I ran or walked more than 150 miles on this trip — there were towns I had to walk inland 4 or 5 miles round-trip to get to the stores.”
Bauer said in those riverfront town convenience stores, there often wasn’t much of a choice of real food. “That is why I ate a lot of chips and candy, in addition to the soup,” he shared.
He said he felt a sense of sadness in many of those riverfront towns, as they seemed to be places that time had forgotten as modes of commerce changed along the riverfront over the past 160 years.
“Many towns have fallen largely quiet but still express a long-passed heyday in their beautiful architecture,” Hans observed. “They still speak of days of greater human vitality on the river — to a more golden er of human hustle and bustle on the river. A time of greater prosperity.
“The river itself is largely quiet, the realm of a couple dozen big barge transport companies. The more constant visible human presence and hard work along its banks have faded. You can see this in the endless thousands of wooden skeletons of old wharf piers that line the banks.”
Yet, he said, the people he did meet, restored his faith in the goodness of the country.
Bauer took along an iPhone Pro 13 for taking photos and posting them on his Facebook page. But out on the river, there often was no broadband or phone connection.
“On the river, there would only be a few bars on my phone, but if I came to a town I could find service and catch up on things and post updates,” he said.
He was blessed with good weather with not a day of rain the entire journey, miraculous as that may sound (which it was, given the duration of his voyage).
Even more incredible, he did not run into many people on the trip, other than passing barges.
Hans has always been fine by himself, but enjoys the company of others because throughout his journeys, he has always been a story collector.
On his coast-to-coast run back in ’98, for example, he shared how when he ran the backroads of America in pursuit of proof that the Norman Rockwell version of America still existed, he would often be invited into people’s homes along the route.
His traveling philosophy goes something like this: meet people face to face, respect them, listen to them, and you’ll revel in the joy of their humanity.
“I have developed a very sincere travel philosophy that I have honed like a diamond: I believe in this philosophy at my deepest core, it’s as simple as this: In all my travels, beginning when I was on my first long-distance bicycle trip, when you meet somebody we all like to express who we are, and to talk about our families and share our pride in our families.
“When I ran across the country (in 1998), I would introduce myself as ‘Hans from New Hampshire and I’m running across America.’ There immediately would be an interest in each other. They would realize that ‘hey, this guy is not a grifter;’ they’d want to hear my story. And they would immediately accost me with their kindness. So, travel with an open heart and an open mind. People want to be part of your journey; they get excited. So, it was and is all very natural.”
But there was little of that on this river journey because he was literally alone, as hard as it is to fathom about the Mississippi, the fourth longest river in the world.
Instead, the joy was in being a part of the river’s flows; of seeing beautiful sunsets and enjoying the contemplation of being at one with Mother Nature and Ol’ Man River.
It was also at times dangerous.
“I did not have the luxury to be terrified in the moment, but the potential horror was always the fact that I was entirely alone,” he said. “There was rarely ever anyone around to help if I
didn’t manage it. No boats, no homes, no people watching ... just the odd and other world of giant barges. It was the solo nature that always amplified these thrilling times,” he said.
One of his most startling near-mishaps fortunately occurred close to shore — otherwise, he may not have been back here, telling the story.
He was swarmed by a school of Asian carp in Missouri in what is called a “carp storm,” an experience that he had been warned about but which far exceeded his expectations in how dangerous such an incident could be.
Asian carp are an invasive species that was introduced to the United States in the 1970s to control algae in sewers and canals but which escaped into the Mississippi and are now considered a major ecological problem
“Some people may never have heard of them — but people along the river go, ‘Oh yeah — the Asian carp. You’re lucky,’” Hans said. “The water just came alive and they were jumping out of the water all around me, overturning the kayak.”
One of the fish — which he estimated at 15 to 20 pounds — nailed him in the back, causing a gash that he had to go into town to the police station to have bandaged. “I think they get excited when they sense a vibration and that’s what happened, when they suddenly started jumping across the bow. It happened quickly.”
Bauer shared the following thoughts in an email: “The river begins its journey over a few rocks and on its way south as a shin deep stream just a few feet wide and grows to more than 2 miles wide at times.
“South of Minneapolis and especially south of St. Louis, the river is incredibly dynamic, powerful and dangerous. Strong currents, eddies, wind and barge wakes, pushing on itself around corners, jetties and over wildly fluctuating depths made for terrific navigational challenges every day, all day. Cross chop, competing currents and white capped waves of 2 or more feet. Giant swells of up to 4 feet and high winds to 30+ mph were regular challenges.”
He said that the river can be largely understood by its division into three sections.
The upper “headwaters” run for nearly 500 miles to Minneapolis are quiet, clearwater paddling requiring 30 long portages around dams. The stretch 750 miles from Minneapolis to St. Louis requires passage through 30-foot locks and dams.
Among the photos he shared is one showing him at a statue in Hannibal, Mo., of Samuel Clemons (aka the writer Mark Twain), who worked the river as a barge pilot from 1857-61.
As to Twain’s influence on Hans through “Tom Sawyer” and “Huckleberry Finn,” Hans said, “Having written in my journal as a teenager about taking such a trip, I was delighted in this journey to keep that dream alive.”
Along the river, in addition to the portages, he passed under hundreds of official and unofficial bridges that cross the river. “All have a history and great importance to the people on the river’s opposing banks,” Hans said, sharing a photo of him seen with his boat and the St. Louis Arch next to the Eads Bridge, which was opened to traffic on July 4, 1871, at a cost of $10 million.
Another photo shows the many barges that ply the river, transporting cargo.
“Nearly 40,000 barges, and 7,000 tow boats to push them, ply the river between Minneapolis and the Gulf of Mexico. There are also great numbers of cruise ships and casino boats,” said Hans, showing a photo of one of many iconic paddle boats floats on the river in classic heyday style that would make Twain proud.”
Although spectacular human efforts to control the mighty river are visible along its entire length, he said the river was basically very quiet though home to great numbers of manufacturing and processing facilities.
“More than 700 million tons of cargo move along the river by barge each year. Grain, soybeans, petroleum, coal and chemical products arrive by train and truck from the vast interior of Americas heartland. The river moves more than 92 percent of the entire nation’s agricultural exports,” he said.
As for wildlife, Hans said, “As one of the longest rivers in the world and the third largest watershed, after the Amazon and Congo, the river drains 31 states and more than 40 percent of the nation. The Mississippi is home to an extraordinary abundance of wildlife for its entire length. Coyotes, alligators, wild boar, bald eagle and massive fish were just some of the daily thrills I enjoyed seeing. One night I heard the wild boar near my tent, and that scared me because I don’t know much about them — that led me to move from the shore to an island. I was probably camped on an island two-thirds of the time. Seeing the birds was amazing every day — it is one of the nation’s biggest migratory flyways and it was thrilling to see the eagles and other species every day.”
Once he got to the Gulf of Mexico, he traded his kayak for a ride to New Orleans. “As it turns out, the guy who traded it I had met on the river. He had been following me on my posts on Facebook. After I paddled the Atchafalaya River to Burns Point Park (in St. Mary Parish, La.), he met me there, took the kayak and drove me the two hours east to New Orleans, where I caught a bus for the 56-hour drive back to Minnesota to return to my car.”
A three-day drive back home to New Hampshire ensued after that, thus completing just the latest in the incredible adventures of Hans Bern Bauer.
Looking back. Bauer said, “The river was no relaxing pleasure float. It was hard paddling all the way. It had endless thrilling challenges and was an awesome joy for myself — but I would not recommend it as any easy casual adventure.
“It was not a family-friendly affair on the whole. I would only consider it again for the incredible love and great nature of its people along the way. I enjoyed a terrific swath of America’s heart and soul in the people in this journey that I will never forget.
“It was endless sunsets, gorgeous sunrises, on an adventure dominated entirely by warm nights and days, with no rain. It was a ‘spectacularly ideal’ adventure weather wise just gorgeous from start to finish.”
Note: Bauer plans to do slideshows on his journey so be on the lookout for posted schedules on Facebook and in the Sun.
These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.