Arkansas Canoe Club Forums

I cant really find much info on this creek. One site said its a IV-V. Anyone ever floated this creek? Any input? What makes it so tough/ classed so high?

I think Fish and Dog ran Ben Doodle some years ago.

Hopefully one of them will see this and add some of the details.

dave

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I have ran it a couple of times. really small water shed. takes a lot of water to make it not a knuckle dragger. Had some pretty big slides on it. Has an unrunnable 20 foot waterfall towards the beginning that you need to look out for. Both times were scrapy runs as I remember. One less scrapey than the other. The put in is basically a ditch off the road but it gains momentum quickly. Last part before it runs into blackburn cr./leee creek is reall woody.

oops I meant 12 to 15 footer that is unrunnable. 20 sounds better though

The second time we ran it, it had much more water as I remember, and looking back at old pictures it appears that way. Not enough water and you end up scraping a bunch. At high water it's non stop and each rapid feeds right into the next one.

It's got some fun rapids, but you have to do a lot of hiking to scout ahead and to hike around some of the rapids that may be runnable but are so jumbled with rocks that there is a good chance you will get hurt.

It's something that I'm glad I ran, but I probably won't do it again unless it's the only steep creek up in the area and I have nothing else to do that day. If you do decide to run it, be sure to scout way ahead because once you get going there's not many places to stop. Wear good shoes and if you are allergic to poison ivy, wear some kind of pants because it's everywhere and you have to hike through it.

Also, I remember the second time we ran it we were real nervous about Midget Maker (unrunnable falls) because we forgot how far into the run it was. We started into some rapids that went around blind corners and into big horizon lines, but there was no way to stop. If one of those drops would have been Midget Maker we would be a lot shorter right now. After that we scouted way ahead.

thanks for the replys

Guess im going to stay away from it... :shock:

Hiked it recently...has a pretty good amount of wood in it, so you can take it off the list unless it gets cleaned out.

-Matt

I doesn't exist.

FarPastGone wrote:Hiked it recently...has a pretty good amount of wood in it, so you can take it off the list unless it gets cleaned out.

-Matt

I'm with Matt... Take it off the list. Matt aren't there a few barbed wire fences and a lot of private property issues surrounding Ben Doodle these days as well making it even less enticing?

There are a couple fences in the creek, the one in Fish's beta that seems like it came into play looks like it got washed out. Don't know how bad the property issues are, but Fish has always said avoid it. There is also a deer feeder in the middle of the creek hanging from a tree at one point. Probably not the best place to be messing around during hunting season either. The amount of trees isn't a completely ludicrous amount of trees to remove, it is just the fact that you have to do it on someones property.

Honestly without landowner permission, I wouldn't mess with this creek, and certainly not try to run it in the current state it is in. I am sure Fish or some of the guys that have run it in the past have more insight into the landowner issues.

-Matt

we never had any landowner issues the 2 times we were on it. we really did not see a sole while running it. now you might if you go in there to clean it out. of course it has been many years since we were up there. personaly It was really not worth the effort to run it again.