Back in the Day...

[RandyJ]

Was looking for an old photo and ran across some notes I made from December 1982, my first year of boating. Back then, there were no cell phones, no internet. You had to watch the TV news at 6 or 10pm to get a radar picture. You could OCCASIONALLY get a first-hand visual from somebody about stream levels by phone. But the MAIN way to get levels was to call the Corps of Engineers 800 # in Little Rock for their recording, which was updated each morning.

On Friday, December 3, 1982, I wrote down these levels from the recording:

Buffalo at Steel Creek: "flood stage" (approach to Boxley bridge was washed away)
Buffalo at Pruitt: 29-foot crest; 18 feet at 7AM
Buffalo at Highway 65 (old bridge): 50 feet and rising. (Water went OVER the highway there - all the more amazing if you've paddled under this bridge.)
Buffalo Point: 47 feet and rising
Mulberry: 22.2 feet (over Highway 23)
Big Piney: "Not available" (later estimated at 100,000 cfs)
Frog Bayou at Rudy: 12.1 (yawn ;-) )
Illinois Bayou: "Not available" (over Highway 7 @ Dover)
Cossatot: "Extremely high"
Lee Creek: "Not available"

I also wrote down 220,000 cfs for the Spring River, but this may have been when it flooded just before Christmas later that same month. Drove through Hardy a day or two later. Devastation was incredible. I also wrote down 375,000 cfs for the Arkansas. Am guessing this reading was at Little Rock, but must have been after all the water "came down from the hills."

Paddled the Hailstone the following day (12/4/82), and made my first run on Richland the day after. Had to take the north route to the campground/take-out since Falling Water Road was washed out big time where it's close to the creek.

1982 was my first year of boating (open boater back then), and that flood and the Hailstone/Richland double-header sure was a memorable way to end the year. I have quite a few photos from back then, too. Will try to get the scanner hooked up and post a few that might be of general interest.

Anybody else with "back in the day" stories?

[paddledog]

Old School time lapse radar.
I remember setting the VCR to Long Play (6hrs) and leaving it on 40/29 KHOG overnight.
Every hour the radar would show for a few min.
By fast forwarding in the morning you had an idea of what hit where.

[A Savage spanke]

You hit the hailstone and richland your first year off paddling when both were in flood stage? Props.

[Fish]

Randy is a certified bad-a**. I remember him tearing it up at the T-Wave in a Crossfire back in the day like nobody could. Props to you indeed, Randy J.

- Fish

[RandyJ]

Thanks guys, but there's always "the rest of the story." First trip down Hailstone was in the spring of that first year with 67-year-old R. B. Hayes of KC, MO. I had no business up there - made that run and didn't know how to do an eddy turn. Worse still, didn't know what one was or what it was good for. Broached and pinned at Deliverance, pulled the boat off and tried to run it again. Broached/pinned again - worse - and would have had to walk out until Daryl Thrasher's crew paddled up to lend more hands - my Deliverance that day. R. B. explained an eddy turn to me the next day on the Boxley run, and things haven't been the same since.

And that Richland run was clean until Maytag, when I folded my red canoe like a taco. Was able to replace the gunwales and get back on the water again by the spring, though.

Experience: what you get when you get what you don't want. ;-) Thankfully, none of this experience left permanent damage (that I know of).

I gotta say, though, that after all these years, I still love this sport and boating in the Ozarks and elsewhere as much or more than ever. What an awesome sport!