Prairie Sportsman

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Narrator

If you ask anyone from outside of Minnesota to describe the state, they'll probably tell you two things. One it's cold, and two, it's got a lot of lakes. Well, that's mostly accurate. The state actually offers a diverse set of landscape features that create an array of outdoor recreational opportunities. Some of which are widely known and that they might not be. (upbeat music) Minnesota has a lot of water, and while fishing generally gets a spotlight when it comes outdoor recreation. If you wanna try some a little bit different, you don't have to travel far to find it. (upbeat music) -

Narrator

With names like Dragon's Tooth and Hell's Gate rapids on the Kettle River offer a taste of whitewater rafting right here in Minnesota. (upbeat music) Tony Vavricka owns and operates hard water sports in Sandstone. Kind of in college, I started doing some of the rock climbing. It took me to some really cool places. I've been out to Alaska and to Wyoming and to California. But then I started a family and was staying closer to home, which was in St. Paul. And I discovered there's so many awesome rivers for a whitewater paddling within three, four hours of Minneapolis and the Kettle here being one of them. So we're going down the Kettle River today. In the next three miles is kind of the stretch of the Kettle River that everybody talks about. It's got the great rapids in it, Blueberries Slide, Dragon's Tooth, and Hell's Gate. And then we're also gonna stop at Wolf Creek Falls. And then at the end, we go into Robinson Park in Sandstone, Minnesota. -

Narrator

The Kettle River in Pine County is one of six state wild and scenic designated river segments. We are very, very blessed to have such an amazing river. It's very clean. It runs 80 miles, and you can paddle pretty much all of it when the river's at the right level. -

Narrator

This section of the Kettle River is part of Banning State Park. So the park is fairly busy with new visitors. It was a hidden gem, and now we are starting to see an increase in visitor usage. We got the Kettle River, we have an old Sandstone Quarry from the late 1800s, two waterfalls. Most people don't know it's here, and we're so close to the freeway being halfway between Duluth and the cities. All right, so when you're down here, you're getting ready to launch. You got a group of new people. You have no idea what their experience level is. What do you tell them? In the spring paddling because this water is so cold if somebody does fall in, we're wearing the wet suits today, so that's super important. So when we do that, I'm gonna sit on one side of it, and you're gonna sit just right next to me on the other side. And I'm just gonna kinda tell you when to paddle, and we'll be both paddling at the same time. And the main thing when we're on the river if something happens and you fall out of the boat, the main thing that you wanna remember is don't stand up in the river, okay? It's gonna become your instinct to stand up, super bad idea. If you stand up in the river that river's gonna grab you, it's gonna take you down the river and your foot's gonna get caught behind a rock. And there's a lot of rocks in this river and that river will push you over, it's gonna be a bad situation. We're about to go into the first set of rapids. So it's called Blueberry Slide. (dramatic upbeat music) Well, at certain times we're running down right through some of the rapids. Other times, those rapids get too high, and we're going around some of this stuff. Sometimes the rock started showing so we have to take a trail through the rock. So yeah, it just depends on that river level, and how much adventure the person's looking for when they get them on the water. It's a great adventure, people love it. (dramatic upbeat music) There's very few rivers in this world that don't have dams on them right now. The Kettle River is a free flowing river, and it's affected by rain. So this river goes up and down all summer long. We could get a big rain in the middle of July, and it would be too high for me to raft down the river, we'd close it down. And then it can get to a certain point at the river, where it's too low for the big rafts. We have inflatable kayaks echoed on the river when it gets a little bit lower. And then as soon as the rain comes again, we're putting the rafts back on the rivers so. (water sloshing) Today, I check the level this morning, it's at 1,300 cubic feet per second. (water sloshing) One more. (water sloshing) One more. (water sloshing) So that's every second, there's 1,350 cubic feet of water flowing down the river. (dramatic upbeat music) (water sloshing) (dramatic upbeat music) You know I'm guessing I ran into a hundred times before I started the company. And I'm guessing I ran it anywhere from 80 to 100 times a year since I started. So that puts me somewhere around between 600 and 700 times I would guess. (dramatic upbeat music) I get excited every time I go down, and I get excited. I'm taking new people, the river's at a different level. I'm seeing new things. (dramatic upbeat music) I'm very, very happy to be going down the river anytime. (dramatic upbeat music) (water sloshing) Yeah, so the rafting tour, my rafting tours that I take people on are generally three to three and a half hours. That includes a 12-minute shall ride up to the park here. We do a quick little talk, a little paddling demo, and then we're going down the river. And again, it's three to three and a half hours. We could race down and make it a lot faster, but there's some sections on the river that it's worth taking your time and just floating and jumping in the river and walking under waterfalls. So it's really good. (water sloshing) Going along the river, you just see so many different views that you don't get from onshore. Onshore you see the cool clips, and it looks awesome. And then just the view from down on the water is completely different very good. (upbeat music) The last big set of rapids is the fabled Hell's Gate. (tense upbeat music) We're not gonna cross into another dimension when we go through here, are we? -

Tony

No, no, no, you know, it's kind of got the most notorious name, but I don't think it's any worse than some of the rapids that we're gonna go through right up here on the top of the river. (tense upbeat music) -

Narrator

Named by the loggers who used to struggle floating felled trees through its narrow gap. Hell's Gate offers an exciting yet slightly less interdimensional experience than its name implies. (tense upbeat music) After going through Hell's Gate, it's an easy paddle downstream where you can take in the sites that Kettle River in the surrounding Banning State Park have to offer. (gentle upbeat music) You don't have to travel far to experience whitewater rafting in Hell's Gate for yourself. The Kettle River section and Banning State Park is located near Sandstone just about an hour and a half North of the Twin Cities. To get the three to three and a half hour experience from Tony visit hardwatersports.com.