Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Location: Wabash River – Covington, IN to Montezuma, IN
Distance: +/-31
Date: 10/13-10/14-07
Gauge: 4.9 (Covington)
Paddle Time: 14 hours
Weather: Variable

In reality this trip started on Friday night. We all met at my house and loaded up into James’ Explorer and my Suburban, with two boats on my trailer and the rest on James'. The plan was to drive to Cayuga & camp at my parents then shuttle the Suburban to Montezuma on Friday night. We ran a little late so by the time we reached Cayuga we barely had time to get the tents set up before dark. Fortunately my dad had started the fire for us, so we had some good coals to cook dinner with.

The beginning planning for this trip probably took place in 2006 when Miguel and I started talking about doing an overnight trip and camping on whatever sandbar was available. We didn’t get that trip in, but this summer Chris, John Haram and I started talking about a similar trip so I started planning a route. The original plan was to run the Big Vermilion River from Kickapoo State Park near Danville, IL to the S.R. 234 public access on the Wabash with an overnight stop at Forest Glen Preserve, a total of about 30 miles. However, after very little rain through the summer and most of September it became clear that we were going to be dragging the boats most of the way on the Big Vermilion, so we switched to the Wabash.

While it carries plenty of water, the Wabash does not move very fast, so the current was not much help. In some places, even though the wind was light, on Saturday you could stop paddling and still not move downstream.

Saturday we awoke to a chilly 38-degree morning. After drinking as much coffee as we could and standing around the fire for a while to try and warm up we put the last two boats and all the gear from my truck on the trailer and headed north. After we got to the ramp I couldn’t believe the amount of gear we had piled there along with the boats…I wasn’t sure it was all going to fit in the boats. But after a while it was all packed and strapped into the boats and we set off downstream.

It was still chilly and overcast, probably around 45 degrees, so everyone was fairly bundled up at the start. Until Friday night the forecast had been for partly sunny and 70 degrees with a 5 MPH wind from the north, then they changed it to showers throughout the day. The wind was from the south instead; fortunately it was very light.

Just below the put-in is a railroad bridge. Someone had painted THINK ABOUT JESUS on the side, but had gotten the J backward so it looked more like THINK ABOUT LESUS. Dad had said earlier in the week that the current in the river was 3 MPH, but it was more like 1.5 in most places. Unfortunately there isn’t a lot of scenery on the Wabash since most of it is through farming areas, but we did see a few interesting rocks north of Perrysville.

We made our first stop on an island just north of Perrysville. There were several tents set up, as well as a kitchen area complete with smoker, LP grill, Coleman lantern and a can crusher. There was also a chemical toilet facing out over the river, without any real screen around it. I guess that’s a nighttime activity, although you could sit & fish at the same time, I guess.

The next stop was a couple of hours later – at about 15 miles - at the confluence with Big Vermilion. I was hoping we could land on the sandbar on the Vermilion side and fish for a while but the current kept us to the other side. We did see an apparently abandoned boat just downstream. It looked like it was probably a decent small speedboat, but it was without a motor. Miguel had been struggling a bit with paddling because his shoulders were very sore. I told him we would need him to split wood when we arrived at the camping spot and he replied that he would rather throw himself in the fire than split wood.

The next item of note was the crossing under S.R. 32. A couple of guys were fishing on the bank at the public access, complete with a fire. They didn’t look all that friendly so we didn’t ask how the fishing was. One guy stood up as I wasn't looking but apparently had a bad case of plumbers pants going on, as I heard Tim say "Just say no to crack". We also started to hear the hum of the Cayuga power plant, even though it was still at least a mile away.

We started looking around more for the bald eagles that live in the area. A couple of times we saw what we thought was one, but it turned out to be a heron or something else when it got closer. Finally just before the power plant we saw one fly out from the trees on river left. I looked for a nest but didn’t see one in the trees.

The power plant was interesting to float by, if nothing else than for the scale…it’s a little hard to fathom how large it is.

Right after that is a large bend that would probably be an oxbow if it wasn’t for the power plant in the way. As I came out of the bend I noticed that Tucker had sort of put his head down and paddled about ½ mile ahead to the next bend. I also noticed that James was near the shore river right looking up. As I got closer I could tell that there was an adult eagle in the tree above him, just looking around. We were all able to get within about 30’ of it so we got a really good view. They are really amazing to see. Unfortunately Tucker missed it since he was on a speed run at the time.

After that it was a fairly straight run down to the stop for the night. We made a short stop on Manhattan Island but weren’t able to stay long because we had left Covington later than expected, and the overcast was limiting the daylight. We did see a couple of additional birds that we thought were juvenile bald eagles, but after talking to a friend who spends a lot of time on the river it sounds like they were probably golden eagles...pretty cool stuff. Seeing those birds was definitely a highlight of the trip.

We arrived at the campsite with enough light to unload the boats, get camp set up and start cooking. Everyone was pretty tired, but the campsite had a nice level spot under some trees and some more level area along the boat ramp road. There were four or five small weekend houses on the property, but aside from a couple of guys working on one that was still under construction it didn’t seem like anyone was there. I figured they would come over and at least ask if we had permission to be there, but they didn't so they evidently didn’t care.

We got the fire going to make some coals for cooking. Tim fired up his charcoal burner to get the coals ready for cooking cobbler. I had brought ingredients for stew and we added contributions of baked beans from Miguel and deer tenderloin from Chris. By the time everything was cooked it was getting pretty dark. Tim finished up his cobbler in the Dutch oven and shared it around. It was really good, with enough left over for breakfast.

After everyone had eaten we all sat around the campfire for a bit and took it easy. James had brought a book of short stories called A Fine and Pleasant Misery by Patrick McManus so several of us took turns reading aloud. The stories were about his growing up in Colorado and his adventures and misadventures. Some were so funny the people reading them had trouble continuing. James said he had gotten the book as a kid and hadn’t read it since. That was a lot of fun and added to the atmosphere of sitting around the fire.

Sunday morning the temperature was nicer. We got a fire going and heated some water for oatmeal, along with heating up the leftover cobbler; an excellent breakfast. Dad brought more coffee so I didn’t even break out the French press.
Tim and Joey loaded up and got on the river a few minutes before everyone else to try and get some fishing in, but didn’t any luck. Tim got snagged and had to paddle about 100 yards back upstream to get loose. The wind was a lot stronger out of the south, so we had to paddle most of the time to make headway.

Just north of the Sugar Creek confluence we started seeing some towers 50 yards or so behind the bank that we never could figure out what they were. One appeared to have been burned out, a couple of them looked abandoned, and one looked like it was still functional with a large roof vent and an A/C unit.

Sugar Creek was almost dry, just like everything else. James tried to paddle a short way upstream but could not get far.

Once again not much interesting scenery. We stopped on a sandbar a few miles from the end for a short break. The wind was getting really stiff at this point, probably at least 10 MPH, and we were headed right into it. After the stop we put Joey into the Breeze, Tucker into the tandem and I went in the canoe with Tim to give him a break.

The Montezuma boat ramp is a nice concrete one. The only downfall was the stench of raw sewage coming from just downstream and blowing up to us. I don’t know what the outfall was from, but it was nasty.

We managed to get all six boats on my trailer, a lot of the gear into the truck and the rest into the car-top carrier. I was really glad I had brought that, otherwise we would have had a lot of gear on our laps.

Overall this was a pretty good trip. It would have been nice if Saturday's paddle had been shorter so that we had more time for fishing, etc., something to keep in mind for the next trip.
More pics from the Wabash trip






Location: Fall Creek – 79th Street to 56th Street
Distance: +/-8.5
Date: 9-23-07
Gauge: 2.1 (Millersville)
Paddle Time: +/-4 hours
Weather: 90 degrees

This was our monthly trip for September. Part of this run was included in the Indianapolis Adventure Race earlier in the month and James thought it would be a good one for us to do since we had not yet run any sections of Fall Creek except for a short foray upstream from Geist about a year ago. This was a really nice paddle with a lot of shade, great for a hot day.

The water level was pretty low in a few places, but we only had to carry around two trees. One would have been interesting if the water had been about six inches higher because the tree was on river left, while there were a bunch of broken pieces of concrete in the middle of the stream that we walked on. If the water had been a bit higher to hide those we would have either dragged on them, or had to walk on them and they probably would have been slippery.

There were a few challenging places with trees down, but also several fun riffles on the way. A couple of places looked like kids may have been putting rocks across the stream. One interesting spot was an old weir or dam that we had to go around because the water level was too low to go through the notch in the middle. That might make for a challenging ride at a higher water level with having to either line up with the notch or go around the end with more water trying to push you into the wall.

We saw an owl, four deer and several herons, so there is the possibility of wildlife activity along the way.

The most fun was right at the 465 & Shadeland bridges, shown in the photo with Austin coming through on the SOT. There is a drop of about three feet that goes down through a rock chute about 15 or so feet long. This looks like it would be a lot of fun if the water were a foot or so higher, and it’s in a location where you could carry your boat back up and run it again.

Access at both ends is good, with room for several vehicles at 79th Street and basically unlimited parking at the downstream end.
Location: White River – upstream from “Lake Indy” boat ramp
Distance: +/-4.8
Date: 8-22-07
Paddle Time: +/-2 hours
Weather: 96 degrees, high humidity.

This trip marks one complete year of paddling at least once a month for me…pretty cool. Plus James and I are also two-thirds of the way through our goal of paddling monthly in 2007. October is already scheduled, so we just need to hang in for September, November and December.
We weren’t sure about the area since there are people at the park fishing and just generally hanging around, but the ramp is easy to get to and big. I didn’t realize I had been there until I recognized it from the 2005 Planet Adventure Sprint Race. During the race we left from the ramp and paddled upstream due to a dam relatively close downstream…hence the Lake Indy name. There is really no current to speak of. We chose this because the water is down so much everywhere else, even with the recent rains.
We got a nice view of the naval armory on the way up, as well as a couple of herons, a lot of ducks and a muskrat. It was pretty noisy from traffic until we got north of 38th Street, then it quieted down and was a really nice paddle, you’d never know you’re in the city. There were a couple of fishing boats around, but it’s fairly shallow between 30th Street and I-65, so no ski boats.
North of 38th we finally started to feel the current. We turned around and headed back as we started to have to fight the current. After checking Google Earth it looks like we were next to the International School.
All in all this was a really nice flat water paddle, definitely one to do again, especially when the water is so low other places.
Location: Eagle Creek – Lafayette Road
Distance: +/-1
Date: 7-25-07
Gauge: None
Paddle Time: +/-1 hours
Weather: Overcast & 80

Our July trip…due to low water level in the creek we decided to paddle around the reservoir. James had been denied entry into the northern end of the park a few weeks before because his boats were trailered so we decided to save the time & money of trying to get into the park & just put in at Lafayette Road.

The water was about 75 feet back from where we normally put in, and it wasn’t much better downstream. We paddled down almost to the north end of the rowing course and were hitting the bottom with our paddles much of the time. Due to the water level there were more herons than normal, and they were much further out than they would usually be, We decided to head back upstream and see if we could go north from the put-in but after a couple of hundred yards we were sitting on the bottom.

Not much of a trip, but I did get the opportunity to paddle the Breeze, which is very comfortable for me and much faster than the Zirconia. I wasn’t impressed with the seat back, which tends to come loose at the bottom, but that could probably be fixed by adding some hardware to make a pivot point instead of leaving it loose as it is OEM. It seemed to be very maneuverable and I’d like to try it again sometime when we’re on the creek & steering is important.

It's getting hard to find water...Eagle Creek and White River are both really low.
Location: White River – White River Canoe Company put in to Noblesville
Distance: +/-6
Date: 6-13-07
Paddle Time: +/- 2 hours
Weather: Sunny & 80

We counted this as aour monthly trip even though it was part of a company-sponsored event. Any excuse to paddle, you know?

Anyway it was a great day for paddling…nice weather, a breeze and decent water level. A bit low, but not where we had to walk. Took it really easy paddling down, so it was mostly a float.
The covered bridge about halfway down is a great place to stop on this trip.
Location: White River – Noblesville boat ramp to 116th Street
Distance: +/-9 miles
Date: 5-31-07
Paddle Time: +/- 3 hours
Weather: Sunny & 80

Once again squeaking in a monthly trip on the last day possible…This took a little longer than we expected due to a headwind…I put in & floated in the middle without going downstream. Not too much interesting on this run except for a motorcycle in the water just south of 146th Street. We took another look around for the “’Neath the Sycamore Tree” geocache just downstream from Conner Prairie but still didn’t find it.
Location: Eagle Creek – Turkey Foot Park to Lafayette Road
Distance +/-9 miles
Date: 4-27-07
Gauge: 2.3 (Zionsville)
Paddle Time: +/-3 hours
Weather: Overcast & 70

April Trip – wanting to get in an evening trip that finished up in the dark we packed our headlights and didn’t start until about 6:45 PM. The first two legs of the trip were uneventful since there was plenty of daylight and we had all run them several times before. Tucker dragged his boat through the strainer that tipped us last November but made it through the log/sandbar/strainer combo where he swam in March without any problems. He was pretty happy about that.
We all agreed that this water level was about as low as we would want to go. There were a lot of rocks visible that had not been on the last trip, or that were just underwater before.
Below the Ford Road bridge the creek doesn’t change much. On the map it’s about a 4-mile leg from there to the takeout. About halfway down we decided it was a good time to get the headlights out as it was starting to get dim. There weren’t a lot of drops or riffles to deal with, really similar to upstream.
Just before it got dark James took a swim when the current didn’t take him away from a tree as expected and he ran up on it. Fortunately his headlight was not lost and his GPS is waterproof.
After it got full dark we ran a couple of riffles without hitting anything major, then came upon a large tree blocking the way. Fortunately there was a sandbar river left to use to portage around, but just below that the current made a hard break to river left upstream of another tree, and that it would be difficult to avoid a strainer just downstream of that. We scouted for a way around, but there was no way back onto the creek for further downstream than we wanted to portage.
After deciding we could launch from the downstream end of the sandbar and paddle hard right to fight the current James took off as the guinea pig. Just after passing the end of the tree he was grabbed by an eddy and swung to the right away from the sweeper…piece of cake. Tucker and I went through after that with the same results and we continued on downstream.
The stream below that is basically flat water as it is coming into the reservoir. There were no additional obstacles and we reached the takeout at river right about 9:45. It is an easy drag over an embankment and about 100 yards through grass to the parking area along Lafayette Road just north of the bridge, much easier than trying to negotiate the steep banks right at the bridge.
Location: Eagle Creek – Turkey Foot Park to 96th Street & Ford Road
Distance: +/-5.5
Date: 3-31-07
Gauge: 2.5 (Zionsville)
Paddle Time: 1 hour
Weather: Cloudy & 65, intermittent rain & thunderstorms

We posted an earlier trip report for the second half of this trip, from Lions Park to 96th Street, so this won’t add much detail to that portion, but just describes the section from the future Turkey Foot Park to Lions Park.

This trip was a replacement for a planned overnight on Lake Monroe that was canceled due to thunderstorms in the forecast. On the way to meet the rest of our party we had a little rain, and while we were waiting for the others to arrive we everything from light rain to downpours with thunder. Since the rain was supposed to be intermittent throughout the day we decided to go ahead with the trip.

Turkey Foot Park is an undeveloped park at the northern end of Turkey Foot Road north of the Zionsville Golf Course (coordinates 39°58'21.48"N 86°16'5.87"W). The road continues northwest into a development, but dead ends alongside the park if you go straight ahead. This is an old drive that leads to someone’s house so we avoid blocking it, but we have gotten permission from the parks department to put in there. At the northern end of the park is an easy walk to the water and a sand/gravel bar that makes a great put-in.

About a half mile into the trip is a sandbar/strainer combination that put two of us in the water last November. It was more manageable this trip with the water level around a foot lower, and everyone got through with no problems. This obstacle requires a pretty quick left turn upstream of a strainer and across the downstream end of a sandbar while the water is trying to carry you directly through the strainer so it can be a challenge. There is also an eddy upstream of the strainer alongside the sandbar which can force the front end of your boat toward the bar and spin you. It is definitely a place to go single-file and make sure the person ahead of you is completely through even at lower levels.

There are several small drops and riffles in this section that can be entertaining. One is just after the creek turns east on the north side of the golf course, then south along the road. There are several large rocks there to look out for.

About a quarter mile after you pass under the bridge for County Road 1100 is the confluence with Little Eagle Creek. This creates a sandbar and a shallow spot that may require a short portage. Approximately another tenth of a mile downstream there is a small drop with rocks all the way across…you’re going to scrape bottom here if the water level is below 3. Last time we ran it at 3.7 we went right over, this time we all tried different lines and scraped. It’s a fun spot, though as the picture shows. The rest of the way to Lion’s Park is pretty straightforward.

You can see the earlier trip report for the remainder of the trip to 96th Street below, but there have been a couple of changes worth noting since that report; one was a logjam just past the railroad bridge that we portaged around (there is a trail river right) and another tricky sandbar/strainer combination just a couple of hundred yards before the takeout. This one involves the creek being forced to river left at the upstream end of the bar into a fairly narrow channel next to an undercut bank. The bank has some bushes growing over it that you can get caught in. If you get into the bushes but can keep your boat headed straight downstream you should be OK, if you get caught and turned sideways there is enough velocity through there that the creek can easily flip you. We had one swimmer here, fortunately both the water and air temperatures were fairly warm and we were close to the end.

The last couple of trips we have used the bank before the bridge to take out, the pulled the boats under the bridge and up to the parking area. While a longer drag/carry this helps you avoid the steeper bank on the downstream side of the bridge.

Keep in mind when portaging that Eagle Creek in Boone County is not designated a navigable waterway, so please tread lightly and obey any no trespassing signs you may see.