Mississippi Source to Sea

Why the Mississippi River Might Be the Best Long-Distance Trip in the U.S.


If you've been following our adventures you know we are primarily thru hikers though we do enjoy a good long distance paddling trip when the opportunity arises.
 
Right in the middle of working my way through the Triple Crown of Hiking I found out about something I never knew was an option in the modern day: paddling the 2,300+ mile Mississippi River from the headwaters in Minnesota down to the gulf aka the Mississippi Source to Sea or MS2S.

Similar to a lot of folks I primarily associated the Mississippi with having read Huck Fin in school. Meanwhile I had the impression that in the modern day that traveling down it in any sort of a paddle craft wasn't really possible as it had become more of an industrial / shipping river.
 
Then I came across a random website while hiking the CDT that not only explained it was a thing but mad it sound amazing. 
 
Considering I'm someone who stays relatively well informed about all the various long distance outdoor activities I was surprised something like this existed and that I hadn't come across it. And now having done it myself in 2023 I'm really blown away that it isn't more popular. Because it's a really amazing trip. 
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    • Planning

    How I Track My Hikes & Paddles Using Google Sheets


    Matt’s Long Distance Mileage Tracker Spreadsheet Template

    Coming out of the IT world I’m a huge fan of spreadsheets. Since Google Docs have been available I use that heavily for pretty much everything from capturing random notes to planning future adventures. Or in this case tracking my miles while on trail.

    I own multiple smart watches and standalone GPS devices and yet I don't bring them with me when I'm doing long distance hikes. This is because they are a hassle to keep charged and I always seem to forget to start the track when I leave camp leaving my stats for the day off by however many miles.
     
    My general advice to new folks is just get a new ish modern smart phone and use that. If FarOut exists for the trail it's everything you need to hike. If it doesn't exist I generally find a gpx for the trail and load it into Caltopo or GaiaGPS. Both applications allow you to generate waypoints every x miles along a track which I then use to make mile markers. I then use these mile markers in conjunction with a Google Spreadsheet.
     
    Previously I made this spreadsheet by hand every year and it was bloody annoying. Being the lazy ex software engineer I am I've now created a template complete with a script to generate all the manual bits. Easy eh! See below the cut for how to use it yourself.
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