“We ate a lot of canned food, chili, and Pop Tarts,” Jake said with a smile. By the time we got to the end, around Millville, it was like a lake,” Clay said. When we started out it (the river) was 10 feet across. “It was good to get out and feel how a multiple-day trip went. The pair both agreed that the trip was a great experience. My feet got pretty cold,” Clay pointed out. I wished my sleeping bag had been a little bit heavier.
#VOGLA RIVER IOWA FULL#
One thing that they hadn’t expected to its full extent was the cold. A lot of the times you could just let the current take you,” Clay said.Īlthough there had been lots of rain the days prior to the trip, the pair said it only rained one day, for about four hours and that was it. We were lucky cuz the river was high because of a lot of rain. “The days always seemed to change as far as distance went. What was one of the hardest days of the trip, they only made 10 miles, having to drag their kayaks most of the way. We knew we had to go rain or shine,” Jake related.Īnd go they did, taking off on Oct. The two knew they had a break in classes coming up in the fall and that that would be the time to go. In the end, they made it in four, inspired they said by hot cheeseburgers waiting for them at the end of the day at taverns and burger joints along the way. Originally the two had given themselves five days to reach the mighty Mississip. But then after looking at maps of where all the trout streams ran into it, we thought, ‘we can do it.’ To our knowledge no one has ever done it before,” Clay related.Ībout the only planning that took place was finding campgrounds along the Volga and determining which one would be their destination for each day. At first, after kayaking parts of it, we joked about doing it. “It wasn’t something that we had thought about for a long time, or something that we really did a lot of planning for. Not that they were trying to prove anything to anyone, but now the self-proclaimed lovers of the Driftless can say they got to know it on a level that few have or will. The center, almost directly where their shop is located, in the town of Fayette.
The heart of it runs through Northeast Iowa. The driftless, the land the glacier forgot, stretches from the southern corner of Minnesota down to the northwest corner of Illinois. They also offer seasonal guided trout fishing and backpacking trips throughout the “Driftless” region. Jake and Clay are Upper Iowa University soon to be grads who started their business last year, offering clothing items such as t-shirts, hoodies and hats, koozies, stickers and other gear items, all emblazoned with original label artwork, that Clay and Jake designed themselves. It was certainly a trip up close and personal through the heart of their business’s inspiration, The Driftless. The owners of Driftless Area Guide Company, Clay Lieb and Jake Dale, will probably never have to feel that they need to take a backseat to anyone in the Northeast Iowa area when it comes to outdoor adventure after kayaking four days and three nights, covering over 100 miles and following the Volga River from near its source to where it joins the Turkey River and ends up in the Mississippi River. It was a trip suited to two self-proclaimed adventurers whose business counts on their experiences and how they can pass them on to their customers, whether it be through adventures of their own or through the cathartic effect of wearing adventure inspired clothing, or using adventure inspired equipment, or displaying adventure inspired themes. It was the kind of trip Huck Finn would have loved…the kind of trip that conjures images and sounds of banjo-guitar battles….the kind of trip that seems to hold some type of spiritual awakening….the kind of trip that makes one truly respect the extreme goodness of the cheeseburger. UIU senior accounting major Clayton Lieb and senior conservation management major Jake Dale kayaked four days and three nights, covering over 100 miles, and followed the Volga River from near its source to where it joins the Turkey River and ends up in the Mississippi River.