A muddy river adventure is filled with newfound friends and farm-fresh food.
“This is Big Muddy Adventures, not a small, clean, easy trip,” lead guide Pete Nagel’s voice booms, silencing the low murmur of an eager crowd. We’re gathered near a boat ramp in Sioux Passage Park in Florissant, watching the Missouri River rip past at a brisk clip. Huge logs, some as long as the 30-foot canoes we will ride, sail past eddies in the turbid water. These aren’t conditions for a relaxing canoe trip. These are conditions for an adventure. A gust of wind bursts through the cottonwoods high above us, dislodging a scattering of fluffy cottonwood seeds that swirl around us like snow. “Look down at your shoes and wave goodbye. They will never, ever be the same,” Pete says.
This Big Muddy Full Moon Float, an evening paddle that takes place during the full moon with a two-hour stop for dinner, begins at its end, our cars waiting in the parking lot for us when we return. The temperature is in the mid-60s, and I feel comfortable in my tank top.
It is now 4 pm, and our voyage is scheduled to conclude by 10 pm, but Pete reminds us that the moment we board these vans, we’ll be on “river time,” in reference to how time flows differently on the water. This adventure will take as long as it takes.
We are driven upstream to our put-in site at Blanchette Landing in St. Charles. Here the river looks wider and less debris filled. We disembark and form a loose semicircle, awkwardly acknowledging the strangers we’ll be shoulder to shoulder with for the next several hours. Part of the Big Muddy experience is the natural camaraderie that inevitably forms among guests on an adventure together. As I look from person to person, it’s impossible to miss the smiles that are forming as the small talk and laughter grow—the bonding has begun.
The sky is blue, and the cool breeze coming off the water is refreshing, even exhilarating. Still, the constant shuffling of the guests’ feet betrays an anxious energy.
Guide Mark “Malko” Malkowicz is already at the put-in when we arrive. I am told he wanted to work tonight even though it was his day off. He sets about hauling the gear to the canoes as he converses with the other guides about weight distribution. Another guide, Lucy Shea Faulkingham Jr., who is also our shuttle driver, is backing the huge trailer down the mud-slick boat ramp. It’s surprising how quickly the guides load the boats with paddles, dry bags, and coolers. Then Pete is strolling over to us bearing a colossal bag of life jackets. The only thing that isn’t ready is us.
The Beat of River Time
The safety talk begins with a life jacket fitting, to be worn “snug as Grandma’s hug,” followed by a brief paddling lesson. It’s revealed that no Big Muddy vessel has ever capsized in the entire history of the operation, and Pete is clearly thrilled to inform us they practice flipping and recovering the canoes every year, in winter no less. The guides eye each other with knowing grins. Some adventures are just for them, it seems.
“Keep your eye on the paddler in front of you, match their strokes, and stay on beat,” Pete says. The message is clear: The trip will be more than 17 miles, and if we want to make it to the end with our arms and our spirits intact, we need to step up and do the work.
And then we’re ready to begin.
In less than five minutes, all 18 passengers are aboard the two canoes, each with one guide at the backend of the vessel. Clearly, this outfit is a well-oiled machine. I am placed at the front of our canoe. Our first tentative strokes propel us out into the swirling eddies. “And a one and a two and a three,” Pete calls out the beat for us to match our strokes to. Eventually, we settle into an easy rhythm. And soon, it’s second nature. I lift my eyes from my paddle to see the swifts and swallows coursing alongside us, catching mosquitoes stirred up by the wake of our craft. Their calls fall in time with the beat in my head. And a one and a two and a three.
My breathing slows. I feel the warm sun on my skin and the occasional cool spray of river water. It smells pungent, like fish and algae and something earthy I can’t quite name. The river carries us while we propel ourselves. I’m caught up in my surroundings. So this is river time.
The Bridge to the Beach
In what feels like moments later, we are at our midway stopping point, Sycamore Beach, on river right, a Florissant put-in that has been host to hundreds of guests, guides, and school groups over the years. With my untrained eye, I didn’t see there was anything to stop for among the endless wild trees that line the river. But Pete easily spots the small break in the canopy, steering our canoe with skill toward the shore.
The water is churned with mud, and I exchange furtive glances of hesitation with the other guests. When I look over in Pete’s direction, he’s smiling once again. The guides gently nudge the behemoths into position alongside each other at the muddy shoreline.
Now it’s time to get to work.
The guides build a “Roman road” before we disembark, their practiced hands laying out
brushy debris, sticks, and driftwood in little time, crisscrossing the mud to create a makeshift path. I assist the guides to extract travelers from the canoe, ferrying them one at a time through the morass as they hold onto our hands and shoulders, over the worst of the mud, and onto the beach, largely without incident. No shoes were lost in the endeavor, thankfully, but the name Big Muddy became very real and personal for some of us. The guides and I are up past our knees in the feet-sucking mud, freeing ourselves with wet schlorp sounds. As I look around, I see the guides are still smiling. All of us are.
The first time it happened, I almost didn’t catch it. A sudden, almost ritualized refrain. A low whisper, guide to guide: “Best job in the world.” And then the response, almost instantaneously, another whisper, “Best job in the world.” And they seem to mean it.
The Fellowship by the Fire
Pete has worked with Big Muddy for four years, but in a previous life was well on his way to becoming a lawyer. Lucy started working with Big Muddy at 17-years-old, her first job ever, and in six years has never looked back. The guides love for the company has been palpable from the moment I set a dripping-wet foot in the canoe.
River time slows down further as I pile my plate high with appetizers that are tastefully organized on plates and bowls, glistening pimento cheese and pungent artisanal pickles. Thinking this is tonight’s only sustenance, I polish off my third plate so I will have the energy to paddle the rest of the trip. But I was wrong. I see the guides laying out the main course of bratwurst over the fire and placing zucchini and potato salads on the table. Then I remember the email I received a week earlier, detailing the trip.
The gravity of my error crashes down upon me like three plates of wet cheese.
I had opened the email, checked the meeting location and time, then promptly ignored the rest of the instructions. If I had read the whole message, I would have known that on this trip, Big Muddy offers a three-course meal, replete with appetizers, a main course, and desserts, all handcrafted by renowned chefs from Farm Spirit STL, a farm-to-table catering company.
But never mind my error. I am enveloped in the warmth of the campfire and lulled by the chattering of the contented group surrounding it. In time, we peel ourselves away from the fire’s glow and shuffle back through the mud to the canoes and the river.
The Call of the River
The temperature has dropped into the low 60s, and the sky has turned overcast, a dis- appointment as we are not able to see the full moon. The visibility on the river has also deteriorated. I am now armed with one of Big Muddy’s marine-grade flashlights; my job is to spot large logs and debris in the gloom. At times, Pete instructs me to drop the flashlight and help the crew power through whirlpools.
We end where we began at Sioux Passage Park. The wind has quieted down, and our cars are peppered with cottonwood seeds. I’m swept up by a primordial yearning: to not disturb the cottony fluffs, to turn around, to walk back down the squelching, mud-soaked ramp, to set my dripping feet back in the canoe, to get back on the river.
This trip was not a float trip to relax on, but rather, it was a pairing of work and enjoy- ment. It was full of grit on full display, the literal gritty mud coating shoes and hands. It was led seamlessly by skilled guides who appear to take joy in what they do. Experiencing river time is the kind of break that’s almost impossible to find in our modern world anymore. Disconnected from the outside world, we connected with each other—outside of time, but enjoying every minute of it.
Although light rain and overcast skies ended up denying us the true full moon experi- ence, I am able to hold onto the warmth of the fire and the camaraderie of new friends who shared this nighttime adventure together.
About Big Muddy Adventures
Established in 2002, Big Muddy Adventures is a professional outfitter and world-class guide company, providing access to the middle Mississippi and lower Missouri Rivers with its fleet of 10 touring canoes, 12 kayaks, stand-up paddle boards, and seven voyageur canoes. In addition to the Full Moon Float, Big Muddy offers a STL Riverfront Adventure, a Mississippi River paddle that starts at the Arch, a Canoe Concert Series, which is part river trip, part dinner party, part concert, and a Missouri River Trip, which follows a portion of the river traversed by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. Big Muddy also rents boats at the Boathouse in Forest Park and at Creve Coeur and Simpson Lakes, all in St. Louis. The company hosts corporate retreats and youth team building events, and for this year’s Missouri River (MR) 340 race, Big Muddy is offering boat rentals and a shuttle service for racers.
• 3120 Locust Street, St. Louis • 2Muddy.com
All photos by Matt Fox.
This article was originally printed in the July/August 2026 issue of Missouri Life.
