I know it's a long shot that anyone here (or in their right mind) lives in northeastern North Dakota, but for the sake of invitation, there's a day-trip planned for this Saturday.

The Pembina River is fat with spring runoff, and should make for an interesting ride. We are meeting in Walhalla at 10:00 AM, and driving to a "secret" launch site just south of the Canadian border, where the float will begin. Overall, it should take 3-6 hours, depending on stops (the thing about geologists is they always want to stop and look at stuff). The Pembina Gorge is a very pretty area, and is also home to the oldest rock outcrops anywhere in the state. Lots of fossils to be found.

So if anyone happens to be in the area and would like to join us, send me a message and I'll get you my cell number.

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I spent a weekend camping there 33 years ago.  Post some pics please!

Will do. We pushed it back to Sunday though... should be nicer weather anyways.

The Pembina River was a success!

The water was just shy of flood stage and moving FAST, and the standing wave trains were consistently in the 2-3 foot range. Some sections of these went on for a hundred yards or more, which made for a pretty exciting afternoon. These rapids were nothing to worry about, but the submerged trees from recent flooding made for a fair amount of maneuvering. All in all though, the Pembina Gorge is a very pretty part of North Dakota, and the Pembina River is worth paddling if one is already in the area.

Our route was from the Canadian border down to the second county road bridge upstream from Walhalla, a good 12-13 mile float that with rock stops, took all of a few hours to complete. It is possible to continue to the city of Walhalla, ND and eventually to the Red River, but past our stop point, the river ceases winding through forest and stays in not-so-scenic agricultural land for the remainder of its length.

I was pleasantly surprised at the lack of trash lining the banks, something that plagues the Red and Red Lake rivers here around Grand Forks. Part of it has to do with annual flooding over a more developed area, but a lot of it has to do with people littering for no apparent reason other than the act of littering. The only debris we encountered along our stretch of the Pembina was one old tractor tire and one small piece of a styrofoam cooler. Pretty good for eastern NDak.

The roads to the landing spot were washed out, so we drove as far as we could in 4x4, and still had to make a muddy 1-mile portage to the water. My classmates with their rented Old Towns had a hard time with the softer spots, but me and my little Sandpiper made good time (knee-high rubber boots are essential anywhere in North Dakota, in every season, except for the one that requires snowshoes).

Another thing I love about my little Sandpiper is the ease in which I can stuff it into anywhere for transport. With a tanker Old Town atop the 4Runner and no time to build a halfway-legal rack extension, I simply stuffed it into the back window and strapped it to the seat anchor points. Not the most comfortable ride, but it worked.

All in all, if you're ever in the area and want to get a good day of paddling in, check out the Pembina River. It's a lot more remote than it looks, and it's a lot of fun for novices and experts alike.

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gorgeous pics....looks like a sunny ND day.  I thought I recalled an area of cliffs upstream from Wallhala that are predomiantly clay....possibly was mined for making bricks?  I remember climbing those "cliffs" as a kid.  Memory seems to remind me of 100ft or so?

There were some steep hills, I don't remember any cliffs... but there's a lot of landslide scars on many of the hills, so maybe they fell apart?

We were mainly looking for remains of the   (You need to Login or Register that was found a few years ago in the Cretaceous Pierre shales exposed in the Pembina Gorge, but our luck was not that great. And certainly not as great as the "Dakota" hadrosaur that was found out in the western Badlands, which had partially intact   (You need to Login or Register

But, at least we had a good time on the river...