Osage Creek/Illinois River (Washngton Co.)

[Shep]

My wife and I paddled a section of stream that was completely new to me, and a fun little adventure today. We put in on Osage creek at the Logan Rd bridge upstream of the confluence with the Illinois River. We took out at the now-closed Chamber Springs Rd. Bridge just east of Siloam Springs. It was about a 2-2.5 hour float with some riffles, but nothing that would rate class I. The big adventure came from navigating the deadfall on Osage creek. We had to pull the boat out of the water to get it over logs 5 or 6 times total. The gauge (linked below) shows it was running under 100 cfs today. At higher levels, the logs could become serious strainers, but at this level, there was never enough current to trap a person, and only a few spots you could actually pin a canoe. A little bit of chainsaw work would open it up quite a bit, but might impact the stream biology.

http://waterdata.usgs.gov/ar/nwis/uv?site_no=07195000" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thanks,
Paul

[Regud]

I guess I forgot to mention all the log jams while I was driving. Glad you had a good trip.

[Shep]

We could see log jams from the old highway 68 bridge, so we knew what we were getting into. Thanks for the info! :)