Dry Weather Paddling

[Douglas Patton]

Excellent dry weather paddling picture below.

[paddledog]

OK, so there was the big drought of '94................

Steve n Tom Dessert.jpg (103.06 KiB) Viewed 1446 times

[RomanLA]

This is depressing...my long weekend is coming up and the Cadron hasn't even come up yet.

[KAYAKN]

You could go boof Kisatchie Falls

[RomanLA]

You could go boof Kisatchie Falls

lol you're funny

[Cowper]

Most extreme low water / desperation experience?

Well, this one stands out in my mind. For some time I had been searching for something that would "extend" the number of days paddling after any big rain event. You know how it goes - if you can get off mid week, you get a day or two on Richland or the Cossatot. Then maybe several more days on the Piney (or insert other favorite stream name here). And then nothing until it rains again.

I thought I might have found it in, of all places, the Point Remove watershed. There was a series of small creeks that had dams built for the express purpose of catching major run off, and then letting it "trickle" out over a longer period of time. Based on the size of the tubes, I was hoping the "trickle" would still be a boatable level for the few short miles before the creek enters more of a delta-flatlands enviroment. Maybe several more days of Class II play, close to home and close enough to the freeway to run in the afternoon if you just left work a couple of hours early???

The day finally came - we rounded up a few friends and headed towards Brock Creek. I called Staggs, because he was interested and had previously agreed to help with brush clearing some time if needed.

We meet along the road. Staggs has brought camoflage and brush lopers; everyone else brought boats. Staggs assumed this was the previously planned brush clearing expedition; I assumed that somewhere in that conversation I must have mentioned a word like "boat" or "float" at least once. Seems we were both wrong. Another adventure in the making!

Anyway, we had a "spare" boat to loan Staggs and brother David, but not enough paddles to go around. Note the improvised "paddle" in the first photo. (If you've got some lopers, a paddle like that doesn't take long to make.)



Now, some of you may want to criticize us because we also didn't have enough lifejackets to go around, either. On many trips, that could be a show stopper. But before you hammer us too hard - you weren't there; we assessed the danger; it was a risk we were willing to take. I offer this second photo as my evidence that we really weren't sticking our necks out at all.



We'll, I'm not going to lie to you and say was a really exciting run, but it was some good friends having a good time on a warm sunny day. And gentleman Chester did his best to increase the excitement level for some of the other boaters. (You do what you can, for friends:)




Due to the relatively low pucker factor, we did our best to turn up the adventure level. Half of the group got out at a low water crossing to walk out to the main road, while a couple of us continued downstream towards our shuttle vehicles. I mean, if splitting the group can't $@&$ things up, what else is there to try? Maybe a game of mumbly peg, so you can add a puncture wound to the day's list of adventures? And then there's snake-tossing, only we couldn't find any that day... It only worked marginally well; everyone re-united before sunset.

Actually, it was a very pretty little creek. I might even go back some day...

[Richard]

And then there's snake-tossing,

:shock: Coooooooooooooowper ! ! ! !