Need Buffalo Trip report from Sat 6/13 Overnight Campers!

[Cowper]

Folks are worrying about you because of the river rise; if someone was out overnight, go to this thread and give us a trip report! (pretty please...)

http://www.arkansascanoeclub.com/mb/vie ... =1&t=13051" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Scoupe]

I talked to Stephanie about 2:30 this afternoon. They're fine. Got rained on pretty hard and had to move higher up on the gravel bar. River came up quick, but did not inundate the bar. I am told they had an uneventful, although fast, trip on down to the take-out. this morning.

Doug(KC)

[Cowper]

Well, I'm glad they're safe, but if that is all that happened then they need to make up some good river lies to entertain us with!

[Shark Attack]

I figure they were awakened by a bull elk swimming by their tents & the monkey that was riding it stealing a beer out of Terri's ice chest.

[Paddlegal]

That sounds like a dream fueled by too much beer or too many cookies.

[Scoupe]

Oh yes, there's more, but I know the parties involved will tell it much better than I. If they don't fess up pretty quick though, I'd be happy to add embelishments - true or not!

[Clif]

gee, Sharky! You oughta write children's books!

[GutIt]

I would first like to thank everybody who went on this Buffalo Run and especially Clif and his son for setting it up for everyone.

It never ceases to amaze me, these Runs. I didn’t previously know anyone on this run, and no one knew me. Yet I was treated like we had all been friends forever. Plus it never hurts to grease the skids a little bit with some awesome River Cookies! I would also like to thank you for your concern about us.

Two of us opted for a ‘nighter instead of running on down in a day. And we had a pretty good one, but it wasn’t that way for everyone who got caught out there.

Friday they had already gotten quite a bit of rain in the area and 80-90 mph winds that some of the outfitters I talked to said was blowing their trailers off the hitches and into the roads. I guess there was quite a bit of that in Jasper from what I heard. Also talked to a couple of people who got caught on the river in it.

But Saturday night I awoke to rain on the sound of my tent about 0300. No big deal in itself. I had placed a trusty gauge stick in a strategic place before I went to bed where I could see it from my tent. So knowing it had probably rained upstream from us I took a couple of peeks out the tent with every intention of sleeping light and keeping one eye out. The river had actually receded a little at this time.

Until about 0400, when we were treated to what sounded like a bomb going off. It was on! A huge stormed open up on us. Constant lightning, and thunder blasters that lasted for 15-20 seconds at a time. And the frog choking rain that came with it. Now I’m kind of getting concerned because I figured, and rightly so, that if we were getting hammered where we were, it had probably hammered its way to us from upstream. Dug out the rain jacket and decided to get up and fumble around a bit and make sure we had a “plan”. We already had our boats mostly packed and we were fairly ready for a fast egress if needed. So I’m stumbling around on this gravel bar in what seemed like broad daylight due to all the lightning thinking to my self I am either about to drown or I am going to get lit up by a lightning strike. Maybe I would be lucky enough that either the rain or the river would put me out when it happened! I opted not to disturb my partner since I knew no one could sleep through that anyway, and just keep an eye on things until we were either forced to make a move or everything eased off.

I watched things happening for maybe an hour or so and decided that I could maybe squeeze in another hour of so of ZZZ’s. It occurred to me that I might need it later. This is now about 0530. The river had not swelled where we were yet. I got back up shortly before 0700 and looked out the tent in what was a combination of horror and amusement! The stick was under water and the water was about 3-4 feet from my boat, which was pretty far up on the bank. It was coming up so fast you could actually see it rising. I found that Steph had been up for a short time and was coming back from the very upper end of the gravel bar which was now starting to disappear pretty quickly. Rat’s! No coffee for now, but at least it had stopped hammering us!

So we packed up the overnight gear we had on the bank and decided that after we did we would spark off a stove and at least swill a couple of quick cups of java, have the cookie crumbs that the previous days boaters accidently left for us, and see what was going to happen! We were ready to put this party on the water at a moments notice. I didn’t think we were in too much of a jam yet and it would be nice to have a cup and lie and brag about how cool we thought we were (or anything else we could come up with to lie and brag about!). Steph had to move her tent up a ways to get it packed and by the time she did her tent spot was about an inch or so under water. I had set another watch point on the water to see how the river was behaving, and while we were having coffee, the river actually receded a bit.

By the time we decided to shove off, the river was back on the rise again, and this one was the real deal. We later found out that this was the “second surge” that ended up putting the river in “official” flood.

We rode a sweet rise and had a great final leg. The sun came out some, and all we had to do was steer. The entire river had some nice current. We saw some buzzards sitting in a dead tree at full wingspan drying their wings (very cool sight!). The gravel bars were starting to disappear and we saw some that we were really glad we didn’t camp on, and we saw several spots where green trees were sticking out of the water; meaning that there was land covered beneath them.

We were on the water for only 50 minutes and got to our take out. What we found there was a family that had had to egress camp early AM and a pretty good back up of the trib there. Everyone was okay. We loaded up and were ready to shuttle.

While there a couple of Rangers blew in and we talked to them for a bit. They were wondering what our intentions were and were warning us that there was another storm about 30 minutes away. The river was not closed at this time and at Carver. Asked us if we had noticed anyone stranded or in distress. Which we hadn’t, or jeez, we would be out there either helping them or trying to find these Rangers! They also said that there were two surges and as it turned out the second one coincided with our morning departure from our gravel bar. All from Pruitt. While we were there we saw a cooler come bombing down the middle of the river and I brought that to the rangers attention in case there was someone behind us who might now be stranded and/or in trouble.

In the 30-45 minutes that it took us to load, the river had to have come up another two feet. The little incline where you take out at Mt. Hershey was no longer there and when we started unloading we had at least a 5’ incline to climb to get to level ground. Probably another hour or so and my beloved shuttle vehicle could have been in mortal danger!

We got back to the put-in (Carver) to find the river all the way up to where the road meets the gravel bar the road. The river now officially in flood and closed. We talked to some guys who were camped in the section above Carver and found that they had lost two out of seven boats that got flushed off their gravel bar. That meant they had 4 extra guys and whatever gear remained to stuff into five boats to get on down. Fortunately, they recovered one of their flushed boats in the trees. The cooler we saw turned out to be theirs. Remember, their take-out was our put-in and their was no one between us.

I talked to some other outfitters there who were taking a peek and they told me that at that very time, there was 20” of airspace at Ponca and the upper liveries were putting in. Amazing! Apparently, the majority hit around Pruitt and the Little Buffalo, which by all accounts was cranking and adding the CFS to the Buffalo, which is what caused the water on below.

Again, thank you all for your concern. And thanks to my new boating buddy who is a new and I hope welcome addition to this Board, and is certainly a new and welcome Friend. She is a good boater, has a great ‘tude, a good head, and will always be welcome with me.

Just wanted to give the factual account before the REAL entertainment begins!

[Clif]

yeah.. about those cookie crumbs. You holdin out man????

The storm woke me at home about 4 or a bit after. Quick look at radar and storm totals and I was worried. Figured with river smarts you guys were ok, but still concerned. For sure wondering about the family camped in the creek at Mt Hersey. Glad to hear from you.

[Richard]

I was very concerned

3:25 am


4:15 am

[Karla]

Glad you all are ok. That was quite a story. I didn't even know it had stormed or rained, I must have slept through it here in Benton. Gary and I enjoyed paddling with you all and hope to see you again and paddle again on the river. Oh, and those were the best chocolate chip cookies ever, would your wife give up the recipe?

Karla

[Cowper]

Well told! Thanks for the report!

[Eric Esche]

Glad to hear everyone was OK and that someone brought cookies. I'm sorry we didn't get to see or paddle with Y'all.

Our friends were rustier than they thought, so we did Hw 14 to Rush with them thinking there would be less crowds there. Don't know about that. Only seen more folks on the Ponca to Kyles section. River rise down there was slow, and while they did get storms there Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights with high winds and lightning, we were nestled in a super comfy cabin with high end decorating, great kitchen furnishing, and a Weber gas grill. I'm a charcoal fan, but I still managed not to burn the lambchops and steaks. Susan did mushrooms with soy sauce, worcheshire, and butter, with sides left over from the night before (fantastic potato salad and coleslaw from Whole Hog), and catalope and blueberries for desert with sugar cookies. Our friends were alseep on the couch by 8PM after having been paddled, fed, wined, and cookied. They left early Sunday after a full breakfast with Susan driving to get them to XNA for their afternoon flight back, while I stayed to "break camp", load up everything, and to write in the Cabin journal how much we liked the cabin. Tried to leave it in better shape than most of the motel rooms I used to clean up for a second summer job back in college days. Would recommend that Cabin for anyone. It was cheaper than we could have gotten motel rooms for anywhere, and posh at the same time. AC, two flat screen satilite TV's and DVD's, cedar panelling - NOT what you would expect from a historic cabin's rennovation available for renting. It's not right on the river, but the remoteness after the crowds on the river was just right. Elk and beef cows and calves waited until 7AM to waken us with their competing calls. We had heard them the night before at dinner time, but Gene and Nannette had never heard or seen Elk before, so it was a thrill for them. They were our only neighbors for about 2 miles, along with a babbling creek across the road.

We did up hold the traditions of a Saturday crack of noon put on, the friendship presentation, and we passed out cookies at the put in, on river, on land, and at the take out. Ranger at the put in was surprised to be offered cookies, but he bit in to the first one, and said wow and I had him take a handful. He later helped me lift a trailer around to make one more parking spot for Susan's Honda when we came back from runnning shuttle. He was both a very nice and helpful ranger as the parking lot was a zoo with it's being filled to maximum capacity and again poor and inconsiderate parking by many. We literally got about the last parking spot at Rush as well, by taking off the racks and driving into the brairs. Must have been 6 wasted parking spots there by folks parking not quite 5 foot apart.

We shared the sugar cookies with several canoeists and kayakers and I still came home with some for a change, although I had started with 12 dozen. When we came back up to HW 14 bridge to get Susan's car on the way back to the cabin, we saw the Ranger that was with our group on the North Maumee to HW 14 Buffalo River Clean up last fall. He waved back to us with a thumb's up recognizing the Endurall and the Suburban and started telling his enforcement partner about how we got all those tires and his swimming down to bring up and then replace the mine cart wheel after looking at it, as it was a historical artifact. We really have some nice rangers on the Buffalo.

Confession time. I fell out of the Howler on flat water. Go ahead and laugh. I did. First time to fall out of a canoe in probably 30 years. It was my first time in the Howler, I was solo from the rear saddle with a cooler up front (not nearly enough weight to have a proper CG with me in back, but I prefered to try it that way instead of me being in the middle located front saddle and bow heavy), and my legs still go numb when kneeling all day long, just like they used to in my C1 and C2 many years ago. Should probably have put cooler and more gear in back to rig the CG better, but we were already putting on at noon, and I thought "it's only the Buffalo". I really need to add a third saddle to solo it with when Mary is not aboard. I also had a little outside help in coming out of the Howler.

Our friends were in my Endurall. They did not listen to us and insisted on putting Gene up front with his 260? pounds and Nantette with her hundred pound lighter 5 foot self in back. Noticably bow heavy from the get go and then Gene lets Nanette do 95% of all the paddleing all day long. She did it and set the pace of our trip as she had to keep paddleing to keep it straight in the wind, and it wanting to spin being bow heavy. Effect of the canoe being so bow heavy was like an overloaded fork truck with rear wheel steering. You can start a turn and then have little control over it. I gave Nantette the 15 ounce Wenonah Carbon fiber stick as she needed the lighter swing weight. She loved it and says they will buy two for their canoe back in New Jersey. When Gene did paddle with the longer Perception paddle, it wasn't what was needed, and he tended to lean too much when he rubbernecked. Nanette did a great job compensating. Susan was paddleing my Skreem and she liked it after I moved the foot braces forward. We did the 8.9 miles in 3.5 hours, including a 45 minute lunch break, so we averaged 3.2 MPH on a river level of 4.5 to 4.75 at HW14- not bad for novice level retreads on vitamin I, all in new to them boats. About a hundred yards from the Rush takeout, Nanette lost control to Gene and the wind, and rammed me. That didn't cause any problems for me, except that Gene went to draw them away and leaned too far just as Nanette swung them away from the stern. I got out just a "NO - DON'T" when they went over, mostly both falling out rather than turning all the way over. Canoe only had a little water in it as i had grabbed the gunnel after they were out. I reached over across both canoes to try to get Gene in first (thinking it wouldn't do any good to get Nanette back in first if Gene turned them over again when he tried to get back in) and while I could hold him about part way up, he couldn't do anything to help himself get back in the canoe in 5 foot deep water. I had earlier pointed out to them how to get back in if they did turn over. I said let me reposition myself, and I went to move my totally numb legs by grabbing them one at a time, and releaseing my thigh straps, while hanging onto the two gunnels with the other hand. About the time I was moving my left leg, I hung on either the thigh strap or the pad, and then they swung the boats while swimming along the far side, breaking my grip on the gunnels. That momentum was all it took and over the side I went on the other side. There was no yard sale as everything was strapped in, so I grabbed my cowboy hat and we decided to just to swim the boats in the last little bit as the cool water felt great with it being about 90F outside . Yes, the Howler seems a bit touchy when the CG is off and you do have to kneel in it constantly. It's been 20+ years since I was in an ME and I'm that much older and worn out in spots, but it was still a fun paddle and a great weekend. Expect to see more carnage as I and tandem partners get used to the Howler. Entertainment can come in many forms.

I'll try to write up an article with some pictures on finding and renting a Buffalo River area cabin, but Susan is almost hesitant about everyone else finding out about this cabin as we want to go back and have it available. It's a jewel and we really lucked out finding it on short notice. We love camping on the river with friends, but this was really a very nice way to have a Buffalo river weekend with friends who are not really into camping, and not break the bank. It's an option that would work year round, with enough advance planning.

Eric

[AR-Nimrod]

I'll try to write up an article with some pictures on finding and renting a Buffalo River area cabin, but Susan is almost hesitant about everyone else finding out about this cabin as we want to go back and have it available. It's a jewel and we really lucked out finding it on short notice. We love camping on the river with friends, but this was really a very nice way to have a Buffalo river weekend with friends who are not really into camping, and not break the bank. It's an option that would work year round, with enough advance planning.
Eric

And I was just going to ask where the cabin was.....

[GutIt]

Yeah Clif!

I was holding out!

I put the few remaining cookie crumbs we didn't hose down in my pocket while no one was looking! I had hoped it wouldn't come up!

Once Steph & I separated them from the pocket lint, they went pretty good with that first cup of Joe!

Thanks for the correspondence today, Brother. It is indeed on and I'll be looking forward!