Ozark Wilderness Waterways ClubKansas City · Est. 1956

Kansas City’s paddling club

Seventy years on Ozark water.

We are a club of families and friends who float, hike, bike, and camp together across Missouri, Arkansas, and Kansas, and who have spent every year since 1960 hauling trash out of the rivers we love.

Come to a Second Saturday See how trips work
About thirty club members of all ages, many in green club shirts, gathered at a wooded campsite
Club campout
The OWWC club pin: an arrowhead over a canoe with the letters O W W C, established 1956
1956Organized in Kansas City by families who floated together
100+Member families and individuals
#41One of Missouri’s first Stream Teams, formed 1989
1960The year our annual river clean-up began

Why we exist

To explore and enjoy the wilderness waterways of the Ozarks, to share that experience with others, and to leave the streams better than we found them.

The club was organized in 1956 by families who had been canoeing together on Ozark streams and felt that someone ought to help keep those streams wild. That is still the whole idea. Trips are led by members, planned at our monthly meetings, and open to everyone from first-timers to lifelong paddlers.

  • Canoeing & kayaking

    Spring-fed Ozark floats, multi-day river camps, and easy day paddles close to home.

  • Hiking & backpacking

    Day hikes around the metro and overnight trips into the Ozark hills.

  • Bicycling

    Group rides on rail-trails and quiet back roads.

  • Conservation

    Water-quality monitoring on the Blue River as Missouri Stream Team #41, and a river clean-up every year. More about our conservation work

A year with the club

There is always something on the calendar.

Winter

Plans and programs

Meetings carry on through the cold months with slide shows, trip reports, and planning. The year’s trip schedules go out with the newsletter, usually in February or March.

Spring

High water, first floats

Ozark streams run full and clear. Weekend floats and campouts start, along with early-season hikes before the leaves close in.

Summer

Floats and the clean-up

Multi-day river trips, family campouts, and the annual clean-up weekend, when we fill canoes with whatever doesn’t belong in the river.

Fall

Color on the water

The best floating of the year: cool mornings, empty gravel bars, and bluffs lit up with color. Backpacking and bike rides fill the gaps.

Streams in our logbook

  • Current
  • Jacks Fork
  • Eleven Point
  • Buffalo
  • Niangua
  • North Fork
  • Black
  • Blue

Rivers the club has floated and cleaned over the decades, from the national riverways of the eastern Ozarks to the Blue River running through Kansas City.

Meet us in person

Second Saturday, every month

Visitors are always welcome. No boat required.

When
The second Saturday of each month, 6:30 p.m.
Where
Camp Lake of the Woods dining hall, Swope Park, Kansas City, Missouri
Cost
Free. Just show up and say hello.

Meeting time and place occasionally change for holidays or special events. If it is your first visit, confirm the details in the current newsletter or drop us a line.

Join the club

Membership is simple and inexpensive.

Dues cover a family or an individual for the calendar year and bring the monthly newsletter and both trip schedules to your mailbox or inbox. The easiest way to join is to come to a meeting; you can also join on any trip.

Questions? Club email coming soon

Annual dues

$25 per year, family or individual

  • Monthly newsletter
  • The Ozark schedule and the Close-to-Home schedule
  • Member-led trips all year
  • A part in keeping Ozark streams wild
Come to a meeting