Mike Kinziger said Tuesday morning that his canoe trip with Jay Thurston down the Wisconsin River would likely be defined by one major factor -- the wind.

Strong winds had created rolling waves on all of the bigger lakes and flowages they'd had to cross. After a good morning on the water, Tuesday, paddling from the Biron dam through Wisconsin Rapids to Port Edwards, the pair were thinking ahead to crossing the 20-mile long Petenwell Flowage. They were wondering if they could actually get it done.

"The story about this trip should be about all of the planning, the skill involved, how we've picked our shoots down the river, but that won't be it," Kinziger, 60, of Moscow, Idaho, said. "It will be about the wind."

Kinziger and Thurston, 75, of Viroqua, are more than half way through a 436-mile trip down the Wisconsin River. Their itinerary called for them to finish in six days and 10 hours.

On the first day, Friday, they stayed on their itinerary and made it 64 miles down the river from Lac Vieux Desert in Vilas County to just below the Rainbow Flowage. They had to spend two extra hours on the water to do it because of southwesterly winds.

Friday night was punctuated by Thurston suffering through a stomach ailment, which he diagnosed as coming from drinking too much of a sports drink.

On Saturday, Thurston bounced back quickly and he was feeling good, but the southwesterly wind slowed the pair and they stopped just past Tomahawk, two stops short of what was on their itinerary. They were about four hours behind.

Sunday they again headed straight into the wind and had to get off the river for two hours before ultimately making it to the Mosinee dam. They canoed 67 miles on Sunday, the most productive day of their trip going into Tuesday afternoon..

The harshest day of their trip came, Monday, when a strong wind from the north, gusting at up to 40 miles per hour, nearly capsized them in the Wisconsin River Flowage above Stevens Point. They were able to climb out of their canoe at Bukolt Park.

"One mistake and we would have been in the river," Thurston said. "The wind (was) so strong that the canoe was going up and down. One second I was looking down at Mike, the next I was looking up at him. We're lucky we made it in."

The pair waited on shore for four-and-a-half hours. Kinziger even got to visit with some old friends in Stevens Point.

"It was nice, but we should be paddling," Kinziger said. "…You can't make miles if you aren't in the water."

After trying to wait out the wind, the pair took a proactive approach, portaging their canoe two miles to the U.S. Hwy. 10 bridge in Stevens Point and then canoeing south to the Biron dam. It was a noble effort, but then ended Monday six stops, more than 10 hours, behind on their itinerary

Kinziger and Thurston both said they were physically well Tuesday morning. However, their outcome of their journey rested largely on three factors, being able to cross the Petenwell Flowage, then being able to cross the Castle Rock Flowage and then handling high water levels fueled by flooding along the Lower Wisconsin Riverway.

Their itinerary called for them to finish their trip Thursday night, setting a new record for canoeing the length of the river in an open canoe in the shortest span of time. However, after the delays caused by the wind, a more realistic expectation might have them finishing late Friday or sometime over the weekend, if that's possible.

Thurston, at age 75, said just finishing the trip was his first goal. His second goal was beating the time and Kinziger established in 1983 -- just over eight days. They were ahead of that schedule Tuesday morning.

"We're going to take some time to plan our approach to Petenwell," Thurston said. "We'll have to see what it looks like when we get there."

The quest Thurston and Kinziger had taken begun seemed to be balancing on the edge of a knife as the two embarked down the lower half of the Wisconsin River.

(Editor’s note: To date the Broadcaster has published 20 stories and updates on the trip by Thurston and Kinziger on its website at www.vernonbroadcaster.com)