ARG Hailstone trip report

[davidbob]

First of all, and I cannot stress this enough, I’m never, ever, under any circumstances, going to paddle with Cap’n Downstream again. Sure sure. I know, I know. We’ve been friends for going on 38 years. We’re co-founding members of ARG (Arkansas Raft Guides). We were roommates in college. We both like beer. He’s an RBF wannabe. We’re experts on women. I got him Final Four tickets in 1994. We've got trips to the Selway and Grand Canyon scheduled later this year. When I lived in Ft Smith my relationship with his family's spare bedroom was kind of like Otis’ relationship with that Mayberry jail cell.

We’ve been talking about going over to the Glover River in Southeast Oklahoma for years. YEARS. We finally decided that May 2 (Saturday) was the day. ARG loaded 2 rafts and 1 open boat the day before, and the Cap’n, Ranger Rick and I were set to meet at 6:30 a.m. to drive to Broken Bow, locate our shuttle driver, and head to the Jones Ranch bridge to rig up and launch (maybe someone said something about all bets are off if it rains up North, but my memory is hazy about that). We WERE going to the Glover.

Ranger Rick and I were so pumped about finally doing the Glover that we took Dr. Cindybob and the TroutBitch to dinner at Brave New that night. I went to bed with visions of sugar britches and Meat Hollow Falls dancing in my head.

I knew something was up when I got to Ranger Rick’s Saturday morning and the open boat was gone from the Suburban and a raft frame had taken it’s place. I protested about heading “North” instead of West to the Glover, but the Hailstone at 6+ and Richland at 4 won the day. We voted, and the Cap’n won, 1 votes to 2 (damn engineers). Off to the Ozarks.

We stopped to see Rick’s friend Melissa at the McDonalds in the BP at Atkins (she was cooking hash browns), and decided to head for the Hailstone. We called everybody we knew (woke up a few of them (and/or their wives)). Dr. Dale was “late getting around.” JimBob was nowhere to be found. Marcel, Walter, Buttload, Tim Man(?), etc. were waiting at Turner Bend for the high water to wash out canoe school. We thought Tin Man was chasing water but we didn't know where. In the end we could only talk Rodney K and Dale R into joining us (although we did sweet talk Huberto F into running a shuttle for us). The last time we checked the gauge with Rick’s Iphone the level had barely slipped under 6’. Perfect level for rafts.

It rained on us the whole time as we rigged out 3 Super Pumas at Dixon Ford. The Cap’n and Ranger Rick rowed. Rodney, Dale and I R3ed. We put on at 10:30. Some ice damage was visible, but not much. However, the further we went the more wood we saw in the river. A chunk sitting on a rock here; a chunk across a chute there; mostly minor stuff. Then below the first set of Class IIIs we came to a pool with no clear line through the willows. Ranger Rick started through an opening on far river right with an immediate 90 degree turn to the left. We heard him yell something that sounded like “No!” as he disappeared behind the willows. Turns out there was a tree down with room to get under, but his oar hung in the willows and the raft pinned on a stob sticking down and nearly flipped. He freed himself but we hadn't seen any of this from upstream because of the willow jungle. Uncertain of what was around the corner we beached the paddle raft, I scouted, and then the other 2 rafts found a little better line on the left under the tree.

The next noteworthy carnage was my swim for the day. There’s a rapid just above the Doom Room that is a right side run (the rapid has a name I think but I can't find my copy of Tom Kennon's book). You squeeze between a large rock (that is blocking most of line) and the bank at the top of the rapid, then cut back hard left above another, larger rock that the most of the current pushes into. I think the river had started to rise and we didn’t realize it, because a pretty good reflection wave off the right bank that I didn't remember surfed the R3 right onto the first rock. I was on the low side and I tried to scramble up to the higher tube but kept sliding down. Dale wanted to help me but that's hard when you have a death grip with both arms on the high tube. I knew I didn’t want to go under the raft so I kind of half way ejected myself backwards toward the bank and started my swim. It wasn’t all that bad –I saw Rick’s raft and grabbed at the rope through the D Rings. He really wanted to be helpful. “Uh, why don’t you swim over to Stewart’s raft?” was his helpful comment. I looked at the Cap’n and he didn’t seem to want to make eye contact. I finally washed up onto a shallow spot where I could try to stand up. Just as I did Rodney tried to run over me by ramming the paddle raft (which unpinned itself after my heroic sacrifice) into the back of my legs. I was not exactly feeling the love at this point. As I scrambled back into the raft I made a mental note to take revenge if the 4 of them didn’t kill me first.

A couple of 100 yards later we could see a big root ball on the bank on river left and the rest of a tree sticking out across the river. As we rounded the little bend we could see it crossed the whole river – right at the top of the multiple drops into the Doom Room. (Paging Chainsaw Chester and his Fanatic Friend Chainsaw Chadbourne). Long story short – we portaged all 3 rafts all the way around the whole rapid because there just wasn’t another way. And it’s one of, if not the, longest and best rapids on the run - an ARG favorite. Tant pis.

When we got back underway you could really tell the river was changing. The water was pushier and the beaches were disappearing. Since it was pretty apparent that reasonable safety considerations dictated that we get downstream and off the water as soon as possible, we decided to stop and have lunch. The river seemed to rise about a foot while we were sitting there. When we pushed off again the Hailstone was bank to bank, ugly, and snarling. The eddies had disappeared too and had been replaced by lots of haystacks and brown, curly, corkscrewy waves. Fresh, leafy tree branches, big logs (or small trees) and all sorts of flotsam and jetsam had joined the party. One piece attacked Ranger Rick's raft but he bravely fought it off with the assistance of Cap'n No Eye Contact.

We tried to stay spaced out but with no eddies to catch that was difficult. We kept getting closer to Ranger Rick in one stretch but couldn’t find a way to back off. We flopped over a drop and swapped a little paint with him, so we decided to engage in a little furious and unproductive backpaddling while we were skirting the left bank down a pretty interesting looking group of rocks, waves, holes, and patches of hippo water. One boil of hippo water pushed us straight left into the willows along the bank. Rodney grabbed a tree trunk to slow us down. It stopped him cold but the raft kept going. The ploy did, however, straighten us out and the R3 (minus 1) popped out of the trees into a moving pool. Not realizing Rodney had taken to tree hugging, I yelled “Good job!” and was telling him what I thought we should do next. When he didn’t respond I looked back and saw him wrapped around the tree. He looked like Smokey the Bear in one of those old "Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires" posters. He turned loose and shot through the rest of willows. Dale and I managed to grab his paddle then maneuver the raft over to a shallow spot along the bank where he could stand up, get to the raft and get in.

The rest of the run was carnage-free. I didn’t recognize Keyhole or Deliverance Falls. The drops were filled and the rocks were covered up. The last mile or so of willow jungle was a pain as always, only with less margin for error as the river was really ropin’ through the trees.

We took out a little before 3, just as the Boxley gauge crested at 8’ and 4100 cfs. The whole run took less than 4 ½ hours, and that included a major portage, a near pin, a scout, 2 swims and lunch. Huberto and M.V. met us at Boxley bridge with hot chocolate, bourbon, and Chivas. Another ARG near disaster turned into a successful trip report. And I’m never, never going on any whitewater trip ever again with Cap’n Downstream (at least until the next one).

[Rotifer Thalweg]

What? Nothing about cold beer at the take out or somebody’s 3rd husband’s ex-wife’s cousin’s dog’s brother’s kid’s sister’s nephew’s step-father once removed?

[davidbob]

Everyone's a critic. Actually, I'm trying to win the CCO writing award and I didn't want to sound too derivative of Faulkner.