Question for the Little Rock folks

[Henry Gresham]

I'm a fairly new member of the ACC, but have paddled Arkansas for many years. Way back in the "olden days", like the early to mid 1970s, I lived in Little Rock. A bunch of us used to run the spillway just below the Lake Maumelle dam. The lake had to be brim full, and then heavy rain on top. Then the lake would top over the dam, and water would run down what seemed to be a manmade runout of about 1/2 to 1 mile. I hate to assign it a "class", but when I was there, I never saw the "easy side" run successfully in a tandem open canoe, and only just barely in a solo open canoe. I did see some kayaks run it. The "difficult side" was attempted several times by kayak, and every attempt I witnessed ended in a wet exit. I still have photos of the attempts. The standing waves and flow rate were awesome.

I'm just wondering if that little gem of wild water is still available. I wouldn't be surprised if the authorities closed it off, as it was the most dangerous water I ever saw in Arkansas. Just curious, and wondering if someone from that area might know the status.

[sig]

While you wait for someone else to answer your question, here's a "recent" post about that spillway...

http://forums.arkansascanoeclub.com/vie ... =1&t=23482

[Henry Gresham]

Thanks for the reply. I watched the vids. If I master it on this site, I'll try to post some of my pics (no video). When I took the photos, the water was way higher than in the vids. There was no exposed rock. There were willow hazards, big water, and very few places to put in or take out, until the torrent subsided down steam.

[Henry Gresham]

I put 9 photographs in my Photobucket album. Hope this works.

http://s496.photobucket.com/user/Hankin ... slideshow/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Twindad]

You had a good water level that day LONG AGO. As as your pix show, the "river" right side was deeper and less willowy. It certainly would be cool to see all that water concentrated in a single channel. Since it's already an artificial cut through rock, nothing would be ruined by making a whitewater run out of it. But I suspect the owner(s) of the stream bed (Central Arkansas Water?) wouldn't just give it to State Parks or whoever to manage. And there would be the relative infrequency of sufficient flow to run it.