Arkansas Canoe Club Forums

Mulberry is looking good this morning.
Anybody got a J-Rig?

It probably wouldn't be an "over-rated stream" today It's nice to see blue again on the Ozark pages.

Frozen gauges do strange things! :) 6 degrees here this morning in NWA. Colder than New York and Toronto!

- Fish

So Fisho, are the gauges really stuck, or has it been drenching you guys...you know..enough for some future exploits ( sometime this week ) the way it appears it has been.

Joe

How much will a dry top and a wetsuit help in temps like this. Might be willing(dumb) enough to try it once.

No drenching that I can tell. Gauge freezes and then goes up to maximum. Happens every year somewhere. Or maybe Turner's Bend is actually floating right now... Could call them and ask. :)

- Fish

A wetsuit depends on heating the water film between the neoprene and skin. My opinion is taking a swim in close to freezing water and single digit air temps would most likely end in disaster for the swimmer depending on the length of the swim and how much help was there to get the swimmer out of the water, warmed up and in dry clothes. I know we had a boater dressed in that same outfit that took a swim one January day (not this cold tho) and he could not self rescue. We got him on a gravel bank and built a big time bon fire and he finally came around. He was not able to do much himself and if we had not had a good sized group along - he would have been in big time trouble.

Having taken a swim in conditions like we have today in a dry suit, I can tell you that a dry suit will keep the core body warm if you have proper fleece. But, the face, neck and hands are the critical points. Latex around your neck is not going to keep the cold water from causing muscle spasm's to cut off your air way. cold water on the face is gonna be a super critical ice cream headache or worse.

Bottom line, a good dry suit, extra thick divers neoprene helmet down over your neck area, good fleece, gore tex booties etc etc would be the way to go if you swim, but noting is guaranteed in these conditions.

Bottom Line two, is long as you do not swim, go have fun.

If you swim, could be risky or not - too many variables to give much of a guess at the outcome.

i'll meet anyone interested at the Little Mill takeout this afternoon..

Just so no one misses the point... the Mulberry is NOT at 23 feet today, Little Mill Cr. is not running. The fact that there has been almost no rain there and that the gauge probably froze is a good indicator that the reading is about 22 feet too high. If you go to that area, probably will need hiking boots to get down the creeks.

- Fish

I took off work today to go float it, and I must be quite a bit better since the last time I ran it because it didn't feel higher than a foot and a half to me!

And I was wanting to boof the river left rock at Sacroiliac.

Fish wrote:Just so no one misses the point... the Mulberry is NOT at 23 feet today, Little Mill Cr. is not running. The fact that there has been almost no rain there and that the gauge probably froze is a good indicator that the reading is about 22 feet too high. If you go to that area, probably will need hiking boots to get down the creeks.

- Fish

you'll never build up your Team membership like this

grant

Spanke jr. is trying hard to join though.