Читать книгу Canoeing & Kayaking South Central Wisconsin - Timothy Bauer - Страница 14

In addition to excluding trips whose cons outweighed their pros, I did not include trips within the city of Madison or any in north central Illinois. Why didn’t either of these regions make the cut? Let me address that question in two parts.

Madison is heavy on lakes but light on rivers. The lakes themselves are pretty and quintessentially Madison, but they don’t make for the most exciting paddling in my opinion—especially when one considers the volume of motorboats and Jet Skis. One exception to this is Lake Wingra, which is almost entirely surrounded by the University of Wisconsin Arboretum and upon which all motors are prohibited. It’s a pretty sanctuary in the heart of the city, but it’s unlikely that anyone from out of town would purposefully come to Madison just to paddle it. But if you’re already here, it’s worth a couple hours of your time. Altogether, there are a handful of places like this in the Madison area that aren’t so notable as to warrant their own chapters in a guidebook like this but are pleasant enough as asides.

Illinois, our neighboring state to the south, is another matter. Illinois suffers from a self-inflicted curse of antiquated bylaws that are unfriendly to the public (to put it mildly). In Wisconsin, virtually all streams that can reasonably float a boat are considered public right-of-ways; more on this below. In Illinois, the opposite is predominantly the case. That said, Stephenson and Winnebago Counties in north central Illinois are the progressive exceptions to the reactionary rule, offering some of the relatively few public waters in the state, so I want to at least recognize these streams. But limiting myself to 60 trips was difficult enough without blurring the line of a porous border where the climate for paddlers is less than welcoming. (Sorry, Kishwaukee!)

Nonetheless, you will find suggestions for paddles in Madison in Appendix A at the back of this book. In Appendixes B and C, I have listed additional destinations in metro Madison and north central Illinois that did not merit detailed paddling-trip profiles but are otherwise worth consideration.