New to Arkansas and looking for some action

[gannon_w]

Hey everybody,

Just moved here from Colorado and am looking for something to get on. I live in LR and heard there is a whitewater playpark in hot springs? Is it or anything on...I see 1 million class 1-2 rivers but is there any 3-5 action around here? Play waves/holes? Anything near Little Rock? I live pretty close to Maumel.

[Dave Thomas]

You should make plans to attend ACC's Rendezvous Sept. 10-12. The venue for the event is Lake Catherine and Rockport (the playpark near Hot Springs). This will be a great opportunity for you to meet local and not so local paddlers. Check it out at: http://www.arkansascanoeclub.com/Defaul ... eId=490146" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

As for 3-5 action that is near you, I don't know of any this time of year. Don't underestimate Rockport though. There is much to learn there.

[waterhog]

theres a little good when it floods

[Tmuse]

What up! Glad to have ya here. Waterhog is right, there's some goods when it rains, got to wait for the rainy season and for leaves to be gone. Hope we have a good season! SYOTC!

[Dave Thomas]

Nice pics waterhog!
When and where were they taken?

[waterhog]

long devils and barberry

[SteveGabbard]

Here are river levels and descriptions http://www.ozarkpages.com/cgi-bin/stages.pl?ST=level" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The Cossatot and Richland Creek are the two most consistent class 3-4 rivers. Most others take a lot of rain to rise.


Rockport in Malvern is the park and play. It will run most afternoons from now through Labor Day. It would be a good place to meet people. ACC meetings would be a good place as well.

[gannon_w]

Thanks everybody. You mentioned the playpark will be on every evening...is it a dam release thats only on in the evening? Also I know nothing about the seasons here...Are the rivers that run during the rainy season easy to predict or do you just look outside and guess? Do people post here that such and such is running?

I am gonna be hitting rockport Saturday probably roud 11ish

Feel free to gimmie a call 970-817-1639

[anthony]

Some folks post trips and some don't.

Use the Ozark page for the levels.

Rockport is only running on the weekends right now from noon to 3.
It takes a few hours for the water to get to a good level at the ledges.

This board gets fired up when the rain starts. Just stay tuned and hope for rain this fall!!!

There are groups that head out east in the summer. Just post when you can go and I am sure you will get a response from the folks making the trips out there.

SYOTR!!!

[FarPastGone]

Are the rivers that run during the rainy season easy to predict or do you just look outside and guess? Do people post here that such and such is running?

Nothing is "easy" to predict in Arkansas, the Ozark page that most people have linked you to is your best bet for levels. However, a lot of the levels for steep creeks are based on gauge correlations. When you take into account the fact that most of the steep creeks are 3rd or 4th order tributaries to the rivers that the gauge may be on (the gauge for Stepp Creek is actually on the Buffalo River, so it flows into the East Fork of the Little Buffalo then the Little Buffalo and finally the Buffalo before reaching the gauge) than you may see the water on the internet by the time it is gone in the actual creek. While the gauges are good indicators that there is water in the area you are generally going to be to late if you wait for a correlation to show there is water in a creek.

Your best bet for steep creeking is to familiarize yourself with weather forecasting sites and either the WeatherUnderground or NWS precipitation radars. Somewhere on this message board (or maybe someone will be kind enough to post it for you) is a walk-through on how to set up Google Earth to overlay NWS radar precipitation data on top of watershed boundaries mapped out by Fish and a couple of other people. That being said, there are a ton of good boaters in Arkansas, and the whitewater (when you can catch) is pretty awesome. The steep creeks are awesome because unlike the crowded boating hot spots of the US, you generally won't run into another crew on the run (with exception of maybe Beech).

People do generally post when things are running, but you probably won't find a post saying Barberry, Sandy Springs Hollow, or any of the other steep creeks are running because everyone that would be out there is probably already on there way out there.

- Matt

Getting the "goods" in Arkansas takes a lot more extra effort than it does in Colorado or the dam release East Coast, but it is way more rewarding at the end of the day.

[anthony]

(or maybe someone will be kind enough to post it for you)

Google Streams Installation Instructions

1) Download and install Google Earth on your PC: http://earth.google.com/download-earth.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
2) Click on this link and select "Open With Google Earth" (or download it and then double click the file icon): http://www.ozarkpages.com/gstreams/gstreams.AR.02.kmz" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
3) It will open up Google Earth and put a folder named "GoogleStreams (BETA 0.2)" in your "Temporary Places" folder in Places (left menu). Drag this folder into "My Places" to make sure it stays with you when you start Google Earth next time.
4) Google Earth should zoom in to show you the streams in Arkansas (purple lines and names). (Pretty cool, huh?) You can pan and zoom and tilt to look at the creeks. Watershed outlines for some creeks are outlined in yellow. As you zoom in you get more detail, including access points and rapids (for some streams). Also, if you click on the purple stream names, some (but not all) will pull up a link that you can click to get information for that creek on the OWP.

That's it. Now to see what this puppy is really good for, you'll need to mashup the Nat. Weather Svc. radar data too. Here are some instructions for doing that:

1) Go to: http://www.srh.noaa.gov/ridge/kmzgenerator.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
2) Select what you want. For example, Single Radar for Tulsa,Oklahoma, Base Reflectivity or Storm Total Precip. Or down a the bottom, Animation Radar KMZ generation, pick Tulsa or Little Rock. Then press the Submit button to the right side of your selection.
3) When the download window comes up, choose to open the file using Google Earth (not save it to disk!) I've tried it in IE7 and Firefox. NOTE: you MUST have Google Earth installed before you do this!
4) Google Earth may put the new folder in your "Temporary Places" folder under "My Places" on the left side of the Google Earth screen. Move it out of there and into My Places to keep it around for next time you run Google Earth. I made a folder under My Places called "NWS Radars" and put all of the ones I downloaded into that folder to keep things organized. You can turn the different radars on and off by clicking the checkboxes on the folders and images. NOTE: they will only stay updated if you are connected to the Internet!
5) For the animations, a slider bar appears at the top of the Google Earth window. It has a "Play" button on the right. That's the way you play the animation - it won't start automatically. The images may take a while to load too.

OK, that should get everyone started with this. The accuracy of the storm total rainfall estimates has so far been amazing. I have about 10 times so far when predictions made using this tool matched very well what was actually observed in terms of creek levels in the field. I would recommend using both the Tulsa and Little Rock radar for areas in southeastern Newton Co. (i.e. Richland), the Ark. R. valley, and the Cossatot to make sure they are in agreement. Sometimes mountains and such can get in the way of the radar beam from one location or another.

Credit for the data entry (so far) for this project goes to these ACC members: Ryan Center, Kevin Fendley, Cathy Kossover, Scott Roach, and Don West
Technical assistance provided by: Fish

This data is copyright Arkansas Canoe Club and is free for use by any and all paddlers.

Get wet,
Fish






this is the goods for ARKy creeking

[Fish]

I'm sorry for your loss. Arkansas has some great whitewater, but it's mighty hard to catch. Many of us would like to move to CO...

On the other hand, you're a day drive from the Front Range and also a day drive from some fine runs in the Appalachians (Ocoee, Cheoah, Talulah, Gauley, etc., etc.). I find that several extended weekend trips a year help to ease the pain.

- Fish

[FarPastGone]

A couple other things I didn't get to relay earlier because I was in between classes;

There are a number of creeks in the Ozarks (primarily steep creeks) right now that are unrunnable because there are massive amounts of wood in them from the ice storm of 2009. Progress has been made on a few (a few fell below the ice line, so they didn't receive much damage), but we are talking huge undertakings (a group of 8 or more of us went into Osage Creek with several chainsaws and more than half the day, but we only put a small dent in a multi-weekend multi-person project). I guess the fortunate thing is they aren’t the most consistently running things in the state (relative to everything else).

Hitch-hiking is more unlikely than likely (which may be under stating it), shuttles can be time consuming and involve hiking in or out, expect a bit of a drive to almost any run, and from most places in the state there are only a couple of after work runs (Norrell for LR, Gall for Russellville, etc...). This isn’t necessarily revolutionary stuff for kayakers, but frequency and proximity are not definitions of Arkansas whitewater.

There is a certain degree of seasonality in Arkansas boating, but boating simply follows enough rain. Generally during the fall, winter, and early spring when the trees aren’t green and the soil is able to become more saturated (more runoff is able to occur).

The biggest factor in all of this in my opinion (there are far more seasoned vets than me so they may disagree) is time. First this becomes a double-edged sword because really early morning or morning rains are more conducive to paddling the steeps. Logistics kill a majority of creek attempts after 3 or so in the afternoon, unless you are in the area or live close enough to one of the few creeks that are short enough and easy enough to access, and rains to late in the day generally mean no water by the next morning. Unfortunately (this is the other edge of the sword) most thunderstorm production occurs later in the day, and even if you are lucky enough to have some frontal boundary associated systems pushing through at night or early morning it has probably lost some of its potential day time intensity. Plus you need time to go boat, a really flexible schedule to chase the rains basically. However, time doesn’t matter when we get a low-pressure system and the necessary components sitting over us just pounding down rain 24/7 for a few days.

Not to paint a bleak picture, Arkansas is lucky enough to have the Cossatot which has a much larger drainage basin than most Class III and up runs in the state, but you just sort of have to get used to lapses in your boating (which being from Colorado shouldn’t be to terrible). Supplement your life with weekend trips out of state (never when it is raining), and alcohol.

- Matt

[ARzach]

Supplement your life with weekend trips out of state (never when it is raining), and alcohol.

- Matt

...BUT if you find that every time you leave the state to go boating, it rains back here, PLEASE, for the greater good, make more frequent trips out of state (But leave your alcohol!).



--Zach

[justin.payne]

Supplement your life with weekend trips out of state (never when it is raining), and alcohol.

- Matt

...BUT if you find that every time you leave the state to go boating, it rains back here, PLEASE, for the greater good, make more frequent trips out of state (But leave your alcohol!).



--Zach

Now that is a warm welcoming. But, seriously.....