🛶 Getting in the gorge with your neighborhood river tour guides

Maybe you’ve seen them floating down the river. Maybe unloading at Sea Salt. Maybe, perhaps most likely, you’ve seen their converted bus and trailer of kayaks parked on the street near 42nd and Minnehaha. 

The flotilla of orange-sunburst kayaks around town is the mark of Paddle Bridge, a Longfellow-owned kayak tour company connecting people to the splendor of the urban Mississippi. I recently got a chance to float along on their flagship tour of the gorge.

Background

Paddle Bridge was started by a group of guides who came from Above the Falls Sports, a North Loop kayak outfitter that was an early champion of the recreational potential of the urban Mississippi in the 2010s. When the business closed in 2018 — in a very North Loop story arc, its building is now a Lululemon — eight of the guides decided to carry on the spirit of the business: showcasing the beauty, variety, and accessibility of the river.