Felsenthal National Wildlife Refuge Fall Festival!! 9/18

[Karla]

Thanks for posting the map Cowper. I do maps well, don't need the gps.

Karla

[Cowper]

Thanks for posting the map Cowper. I do maps well, don't need the gps.

Karla

Don't need no stinkin' GPS? Our flooded timber winter swamp trips are about to get a LOT more interesting, WOO-HOO - I'm looking forward to it!
(bring snacks)

[Karla]

Cowper!!!

[Minna Ulmer]

Yes,I will be at Fels. on Sat.I have loaded my approach and Heathers wenonah argosy on my car. Got my mamba 7.5 in the car. Should I be there at 9:00? Dinner in El Do sounds great,we have some good places. I cant paddle Sun due to work. See yall soon!

[Karla]

We plan to leave at 8 am or earlier. Probably be 10 am before we get there.

Karla

[Cowper]

DeBo and I are looking forward to supper tomorrow night - we may be in Felthensal a couple of hours after the Festival to do some exploring, but we'll try to work out the times tomorrow.

As to arrival times on Sat, we'll be there most of the day so folks should just show up at whatever time works best for them. Maybe others can do some "scouting" while we watch the Headquarters doings.

[carlscott]

Hey guys, A friend and I are planning to come down for the trip Sunday and will be there by 10:00. Have the snakes and gators warmed up for us by then!

[DeBo]

OK Carl. We will be looking for you.

Today was a great day at the refuge. They had around 400 people come through the event; a really great turnout. The boats were very popular. A lot of kids and their parents got out and paddled on the little pond. The refuge staff were incredibly friendly and very appreciative. The refuge is beautiful and a great place to paddle. We are really looking forward to the trip tomorrow.

Thanks to everyone who came out to help. I'm afraid to try and list everybody tonight. I know I would leave someone out but I can give special thanks to Don of OOO who brought out some great boats for us to use.

And Carl, the snakes are already pretty warm. We caught a baby Western Ribbon Snake that chewed on my hand for a while!

[John Britt]

Debo showed such cool when the snake latched on, she offered to let the kids pet it while it had her finger.

[Karla]

I had a great time helping the kids and adults try out kayaks. The paddle on Sunday was a hot one but I still enjoyed the company and the scenery/ birds we saw. Dinner in El Dorado was great. Glad to meet some new folks and spent some time with ones I knew. What a great weekend.

Karla

[Richard]

I would have liked to have been there but after suffering two heat exhaustion episodes in a row in August, I am cooling it till there is a change in the weather.

[msullivan57]

Well, I missed the festival on Saturday, but the float on Sunday revealed Felsenthal to be a very large bayou with lots of nice scenery. I especially want to thank whoever laid the white lilies down the canal leading out into the bayou. Very nice touch. Must have been the festival people. Definitely would like to explore other areas of Felsenthal sometime in the future. Worth the long drive down. 5 of us paddled 5.5 miles through the swamp. 1 of us, Cowper, went over 8 miles. Where he was we do not know. Personally, I was afraid bigfoot might be having his way with poor Cowper. But he made it back unscathed. So here are some pictures. No bigfoot, no snakes, no alligators. Come on south Arkansas, where is all the lore.
http://picasaweb.google.com/ifloat4fun/ ... directlink

[Cowper]

5 of us paddled 5.5 miles through the swamp. 1 of us, Cowper, went over 8 miles. Where he was we do not know. Personally, I was afraid bigfoot might be having his way with poor Cowper. But he made it back unscathed. [/url]

What, no concern for Ms. Bigfoot? My feelings are hurt…

For those who don’t have the time to follow links, here are the two tracks:

The group:


My “walkabout” (note, map scale has changed some):


Let me take this opportunity to thank the group for their indulgence of my ADD urge to stray. I really hope to paddle with some of you guys in the future!

[msullivan57]

Cowper, didn't know where you had been until I saw the map. We were trying to get to the river channel. When I got home and got a better look at the map and our track it looked like the only way we were going to get to it was that small channel just north of where we were. Of course had to traverse that very shallow water. And it was going to make our trip way longer. That's exactly where you went. You made some major league time over that course to get back to the ramp as fast as you did. No time to play with Mr or Mrs Bigfoot. Hope those walkie talkie thingies weren't on when we were making plans if you didn't make it back soon.

[Cowper]

I did push because I knew it wasn't fair to expect everyone (or even the paper-rock-scissors loser) to wait on me until sunset. Studying the Google photos later I might have been able to find an even better route if I had travelled about 0.5 miles further south before my last cut over to the East; I did get lucky on being able to find a route through some of those areas.

I think the real lessons-learned here is that I had such a good time, folks joining any fall tours really will need to bring those flashlights.

On another note, with some assistance from Cole M and his truck, I took my truck into the shop for a major upgrade. The "big rope" starting system has now been replaced by a DC motor that can be controlled by a switch on the steering column and used to start the motor without the assistance of a second person in a second large truck.
Another miracle of modern automotive engineering, everybody should have one! oh wait, everybody else already does...