His Twitter LinkFrom Lake Itasca to the Gulf of Mexico the Mississippi River is 2,340 miles long, and my buddies plan is to do all of if Solo in his Kayak. He is leaving Thursday from Central Illinois, driving all the way to Lake Itasca, and starting the trip Friday early morning. His hope was to do it all in one trip, but his other jobs and National Guard commitments forced him to break it into sections. The first part will be a 10 day journey going as far as he can get, but he is shooting for Minneapolis at around 500 miles.
His Kayak is a Hobie Mirage Outback.
He has the standard packing list for long term camping, a few days of water/Gatorade, and enough food stuffs to cover probably all 10 days. (His twitter has a picture of him packing) When the sun goes down he'll find a decent campsite along the river, set up camp, cook a warm meal, and sleep till dawn and take off to get more miles in. There are enough towns along the way that there will be a few stops in stores...and more than a few stops in Bars.
Along with the regular camping stuff, he'll take his GoPro for video updates, and has a Time-Lapse camera mounted on the front of his Kayak that will run the entire time. He has an external battery pack for his cellphone, and a small solar panel just for that trickle charge all day if the sun is good.
For this first part of the trip he will be on the river ~5am Central on Friday morning until end of the day on Sunday 13th.
Feel free to ask anything here, or @ him on Twitter. I'd love to answer any questions, or explain things better.
He'll be tweeting updates at least once a day, and is going to try and do more as cell coverage/battery allows. I'll try and keep this thread updated if there is any interest in his trip, but give him a follow on twitter!
Follow!https://twitter.com/Shane_Westen