I sooo hope this is wrong

[Clif]

SEE THIS

5 ft spike and still going? We left people on the river. They were river smart, but still. And those people in the creek at Hersey. Hope they got up and out. LOTS of tourists on the river.

Glad we did not stay.

[Cowper]

Radar says the hard rain fell on them, not just somewhere upstream, so they at least had a clue to watch the river levels. Sunrise was at 5:54 AM; since the spike hit the gage (and points downstream) after 6 AM, at least folks will have some light to scramble for the high ground, and nobody would have been on the river yet, all still in camp.

Should be some good war stories and "lessons learned" posts in a couple of days; my two for anything other than blue skys and clear forecast:

1) Camp where there is an upward-sloping escape route to higher ground (not on gravel bars that will become islands) and

2) pull your boat up higher than the ground where you lay your sleeping bag.

[Shark Attack]

That is not good. They were camping on a shallow gravel bar, not 2-3 feet above water level. Lots of gear. At some level around 10' the parking area at Mt. Hersey starts getting wet does'nt it?

[Ryan Center]

Man, sounds like my kind of trip.

[Cowper]

OK Buffy Floaters - it is time for a tale of carnage and daring rescues!

(yes, self rescues count)

SPILL THE BEANS!

[prophet]

seems hard to believe the river spiked up 5 feet with no other creeks coming up

[Scoupe]

seems hard to believe the river spiked up 5 feet with no other creeks coming up

I was told that all the big rocks on the downstream end of the Carver gravel bar were under water when they went to pick up the vehicle there early this afternoon. Only one of the rocks was 99% submerged when we left Saturday noon-ish. That's got to be close to a 4 foot rise there.

[GutIt]

Just found this one!

While I certainly appreciate the total lack of confidence here, it is not the first rodeo!

I had enough stinking floatation left over in the cookie containers from all of the Float & Bloaters who horked the cookies down for me that my partner & I could have paddled that out!

Do have a lesson learned, thank god, that I will be happy to impart on the other threads!

Don't bring crappy cookies or your floatation will suffer accordingly!

Thanks for lightening our load, guys!

[Clif]

what ever! You were the one goin around.... take my cookies........................please!

I gave you credit for river smarts. See my first post again. In the unlikely scenario sumthin happened, who would bring cookies next time... and would they be anywhere near as good? Nabisco? I think not!

Sorry, dude. In our nature to be concerned. Just like you said in your story..uh I mean, trip report. Had you passed some folks in a situation you woulda had to help if you could. Or at least be looking to notify someone. I am just glad now we can smile one day.."remember the time you had to float out on your cookie box while fighting the monkey and the elk..........."

[Gordon Kumpuris]

Mike Mills of BOC posted a photo of himself on Facebook gathering a bunch of boats that had decided to run off from their campsite during the flash flood. He did not mention any major carnage.

[painterbob]

the water all came from below kyles landing with cove creek being the major factor! the river at priutt came up 6 vertical feet in 2 1/2 hour . we lost 2 canoe, but the rangers told me that a grouping of 30 from one outfitter, 26 from an other, and 16 private boats had floated away during the night.....coolers could be found in just about every eddie!!! and that made for a GREAT PICNICKING! FOR THE RIVER RECOVERY CREW!!....

[Cowper]

Just found this one!

While I certainly appreciate the total lack of confidence here, it is not the first rodeo!

Aw, don't take it that way. Now that we know everyone's OK, I can say it straight up: We're just jealous!

[GutIt]

Yeah, I apologize if that last one seemed a little rough! I was just piping off on that one! I really meant it in the same way it was offered. Its hard to convey sometimes on a Board! Now that I look at it again, I should have done something else!

I really do appreciate the concern. Its nice to know that if we really did run into some serious problem, people on here would have been informed and lots of people knew where we were.

The whole thing could have easily escalated into something kind of nasty. For one thing, if the timing had been different, we could have ended up doing all of that at 1 or 2 in the morning. Probably would have had to tie to a tree or something to sit and wait for daylight and do what Wes originally suggested! Just sleep in your boat! We were kind of lucky that the storm woke us up. It gave us some good warning to be ready and waiting on go if we needed to be. The bar we were on was pretty low, but we did have some higher ground behind us that we could have retreated to if we really needed to, but I still don’t think that it was completely out of the flood plain. Plus my truck would have been taken out. Our gravel bar had to have been under water by the time we got off, and at Mt. Hershey, once the water got up it would have been everywhere in there!

We camped just below a left hand bend, which I also thought was a good thing. The bar on the upper end of that bend went under while we watched it. I think that being below that bend helped us.

My lovely and charming made those cookies exclusively for me to bring to you guys. She has heard me rail on about how much I think of all of you and since she couldn’t come, she wanted to be with us in Spirit and in cookies! And she was! You guys have no idea how happy you made her by horking down her cookies!

As far as river smarts, while its true that it isn’t my first rodeo, it is always better to be lucky than good, and we had some of that on our side. Sometimes smarts alone may not keep you out of trouble! And I apologize for sounding flip. That was NOT my intention, believe me.

For everyone. The Buffalo is a wonderous place. But it can also let you know who is Boss. Be careful in the rainy season and take nothing for granted. When a river, any river, is in flood you can have a hard time getting off of it. The gravel bars are gone and the current will start ripping through the trees close to the bank, creating a serious hazard. If you come out of your boat you could be in for a protracted swim. And it could be hard and very dangerous to get out. And you could very easily lose your boat, all the cookies, the elk AND the monkey!

Again, thank you everyone for your concern. That’s a warm fuzzy that is really cool to have.

[mohawklady]

Along the same thought of being caught unawares on the river, the Ozark Society float was last week and Wednesday we werecamped at Spring creek gravel bar on the down river side. We knew it was going to storm, and took all the precautions, camped where we could go to hgiher ground, pulled boats up on the beach out of the water and tipped them up side down, and 'battened down the hatches". What we did not count on was strait line winds. We had just gotten into out tents and the rain started, then we heard this plastic tumbling noise which sounded like a tupperware container breaking loose, only it was a lightweight solo boat getting tossed about 100 yards down the beach. Several boats took flight. Mine weighs close to 95 lbs. and it was even moved some. Tents collasped, four of our ladies spent the night in one tent which we deemed the "battered women's shelter''. All in all, we lost only one life jacket, and a blue plastic wash tub. We was very fortunate nobody got hurt by the flying canoes. We had storms every night but one, bueatiful days, and good water levels.